Philly YA Horror Author Adam Cesare on Turning Clown in a Cornfield Into a Slasher Hit

Adam Cesare moved to Philadelphia for love, and found success with his Clown in a Cornfield series of YA novels. / Photograph by Todd Williamson

Despite that over-the-top, double-down title, Clown in a Cornfield is not a bombastic Stephen King-style epic. Adam Cesare’s best-selling YA horror novel — and the big-time movie adaptation coming to theaters May 9th — are decidedly leaner and meaner. Fun. But grounded and suspenseful. It’s got its twists, but Clown in a Cornfield is at its heart a slasher story in which a Philly kid moves to a small town in Missouri just in time to join her classmates in running for their lives.

Avoid all spoilers for this one, but suffice it to say the titular clown, the town’s mascot from Frendo, is at the center of the chaos. Cesare, born in Long Island but a Philly resident for more than a decade, was a teacher before his novelist career took off. He has more than a dozen scary books to his credit, but he really struck gold with Frendo and co.; three Cornfield books are on the shelves with a fourth in the works.

And this movie adaption is taking things to the next level. Cesare has been on a whirlwind tour promoting the movie, often joining the cast and director Eli Craig (who made the pitch-perfect horror-comedy Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil) for interviews at festivals and red carpets. We caught up by phone on Monday, one day before a big preview screening at the Film Society, and four days before Clown in a Cornfield (the movie) opens nationwide.

Let’s talk about that title.
It sounds like a joke. It sounds like a parody, or a portmanteau of two Stephen King ideas, Pennywise meets the Children of the Corn. A lot of people that won’t get any further than that. I take it as a kind of challenge. I like messing with people’s expectations. On the book cover, they used the ’80s Stephen King font. I like all of that because within the first 15 pages, you get to flip over your first card and go “actually it’s not that.” And then you keep flipping over cards …. It’s such a fun experiment.

So far, the experiment is a success.
I’ve been very blessed in that the first book did well, I’ve been able to write sequels. And to me, that’s almost part and parcel of why you would do a slasher, is the idea of franchising a slasher. Slasher films are so interesting because when they become franchise pictures, they’re almost never the same directors. They’re almost never the same writers. They’re studio- and producer-led franchises. And what I find interesting in books —it’s a collaborative process with editors and things like that — but my name goes on the cover. So I kind of have this little slasher franchise and I get to make it my weird — not to be too poetic about it — my life’s work, you know? To just keep doing it.

I assume you read horror growing up.
I had a dad who, he’s not a horror movie guy, but he had a massive Stephen King collection, so I grew up looking at those books. And then in the early ’90s, there was this boom of, if not horror comics, then horror-adjacent comic stuff, like Spawn. And he would literally read me the balloons, while I would look at the panels. I’ve always gravitated towards the darker stuff.

What were you reading back then?
Indie comics, Dark Horse Presents, I loved all that. As far as prose, I was the perfect age for the Goosebumps boom. I was just a little bit ahead of it, which is great, because I was a precocious reader. Then I went right into King, [Clive] Barker and [Anne] Rice. There wasn’t that gateway, later-teen stuff. You had to read adult stuff. Maybe Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark was a bumper between.

The Clown in a Cornfield novel isn’t just dark, it’s got some serious blood and violence. Is this what YA horror is like?
YA horror is very diverse in basically every metric. There’s a real spectrum in terms of intensity, and I think I’m sitting at one end. There’s a certain kind of horror fan that will tell me “that’s not a YA book” and they mean it in a complimentary way, but I don’t 100 percent take it in a complimentary way. My audience is teens. Just because it has more adult subject matter and violence and stuff doesn’t preclude it being for teenagers. As we were just talking about, look at the stuff I was reading back then. [laughs] It has to be about teen characters, and it has to be talking to teen concerns.

I guess 10 years as a teacher will put you into that mindset.
I miss the kids, and I miss teaching. I don’t miss anything else about it. I don’t miss any administrative stuff. I don’t miss witnessing the gears of administrative problems, churning all the time, and making it harder for well-intentioned educators to do their job. I write about less scary stuff.

What brought you to Philadelphia?
I got married. We met in college in Boston, and I think when you when you fall in love with a Philly girl …

You end up in Philly.
I think your readers will understand that. That’s probably how a good third of them got here. [laughs] She brought me down here. I love it here. I’ve been in Philly for over 10 years now. It’s just like my favorite city. And I just love the film scene here.

Like PhilaMOCA?
Yes, and all the events that Exhumed Films does and — just a wealth of theaters playing everything from multiplex stuff to art house stuff, all within walking distance, which is great. All these special events. And then you extend the net out to Phoenixville, the Colonial and Blobfest and all that stuff. It’s catnip for someone like me.

Was there a deal to turn this into a movie before it was published?
Yeah, but how many movies get announced and then just never get made? I wasn’t holding my breath. It wasn’t till I got off a plane and went to set that I was like, “Oh, there’s hundreds of people here. There’s movie cameras. They’re probably gonna put this movie out.”

Have you met or interacted with Stephen King?
I have not. I think I would react like the Beatles playing the U.S. for the first time — just screaming and passing out. But also don’t want him walking through a bookstore and seeing that we used the font and thinking “this fucking kid,” because I love him so much.

You do have a Clive Barker blurb on the cover of Clown in a Cornfield.
That’s one of the best things that ever happened to me. Probably the best thing ever happened to me, outside of, you know, wife, kids, and the things you’re supposed to say at that point. He didn’t have to do that, but he kind of saved the book. The book came out in 2020 when bookstores weren’t open. To be able to put that blurb on the cover was a lifesaver and a book saver and a career saver.

One thing I enjoyed about Clown in a Cornfield is that it didn’t get too meta or retro, a breath of fresh air in slashers these days.
What I like doing in my books is starting with stock characters then trying to fill them out in a way that makes them incredibly dimensional, so people really like them to the point where you subvert a lot of expectations for these set character types. I don’t find the opposite interesting. “Here’s a bunch of meat puppets, let’s slam them into knives.” I don’t find that interesting. I love the slamming them into knives part. It’s my favorite part. But I gotta be wined and dined a little before I get there, you know?