‘Clown in a Cornfield’ filmmaker tells how to write a movie that will get made
May 8, 2025
There’s nothing like a filmmaker who refuses to fit neatly into Hollywood’s boxes.
Writer/director Eli Craig has made a career of blending horror and humor in ways that studios often struggle to categorize, creating memorable films that dance between bloody scares and surprising comedy.
Known for his breakout cult hit Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, Craig told us he approaches each project with clear thematic guardrails while leaving room for spontaneity. His latest, Clown in a Cornfield, adapts Adam Cesare’s novel with Craig’s unique sensibility, keeping the horror deadly serious while finding humor in the characters. The film was a hit at SXSW this year and is set to terrify audiences with its new clown slasher, Friendo.
During our conversation ahead of the film’s wide release, Craig shared insights into his creative approach, from establishing clear themes to handling studio notes, and offered advice for aspiring filmmakers trying to break through.
Editor’s note: The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Final Draft: In your director statement for the film, you mentioned needing a clear theme, a backbone to hang the writing on. So I’m interested in how that manifests in your approach.
Eli Craig: Well, ultimately, in writing this one, I didn’t start with a blank page, but when you’re starting with “fade in,” for me, I’m looking for guardrails. What’s going to focus the story? Where are the limitations and what are the rules for this story? Because sometimes it can feel overwhelming.
I’m very spontaneous and kind of capricious and creative, so I’ll always be throwing stuff out and trying something else. But if there’s no clear guideline or rule or guardrail for me, I can go off the rails. So my process is like, what is the skeleton? What are the character arcs and what is the theme? And once I really have honed in on what the theme is, and probably definitely where’s this character going and where are they going to end up? Then I could start honing it in.
Over time there’s maybe a joke that’s like, okay, this is kind of funny, but it doesn’t relate to the theme. How can I bring this funny moment back and make it more a part of the theme and a part of the story? And so it’s a constant revision of just trying to clarify what I’m trying to say.
Final Draft: I imagine that’s a challenge for a lot of writers who are aware of that fact, but don’t know how to do it without making it feel really ham-fisted.
Eli Craig: I think that it can be ham-fisted, and sometimes something lives on the page for too long and you know you have to get rid of it, especially as you’re shooting, and you’re like, “God, okay, I have to take some time and rework this scene.”
And there were days, because this was a rush—I didn’t know the film was going to get made. We got independent financing, and once it was time to go, we had to go because the corn was going to be gone. It was moving toward harvest season. So we had very little time. There were times I would wake up. We were often on a night shoot schedule. So I would wake up at 3:00 p.m. for two hours, rework the scene, and then send it to everybody on set, and then show up on set at 6:00 p.m. and start filming.
But yeah, you can leave something awkward in there, but just know you have to get back to it. Hopefully not the day of production. I wouldn’t advise that, but know you have to get back to it and rework it and be constantly reworking.
Final Draft: So was a lot of that on the day then, or were you reworking ahead of time with [co-writer] Carter Blanchard, or what did that process like?
Eli Craig: Carter and I wrote separately. So Carter, he did a first draft of the script based on Adam Cesare’s book, and there was a lot of really fun stuff in it. And I love Carter’s brevity as a writer, and he’s quite good at writing action, which is really fun for me to read, a script that just moves.
So I was reading the action and some of the horror beats all there, and I thought, “Well, the thing I could really bring to this is a tonal balance of humor, adding a little bit of absurd humor to this.” It’s called Clown in a Cornfield. I don’t think we’re writing Citizen Kane here. We’re trying to do something fun and a little bit cheeky, but I thought I wanted to clarify the theme, bring a little more humor and bring really kind of cinematic, fun kills because that I learned from Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. Let’s make the kills part of the real fun of the movie.
Yeah, I would say that as far as rewriting on the day, that’s sort of a last chance thing, but that’s more in director mode where you’re like, “How is the scene going to work? What’s the blocking?” And you’re changing it all the way through blocking the rehearsal into even shooting. “What if you say this line instead?”
That’s why I don’t even know how you direct something without being a writer/director, because you have to own the material and hear it in your head and be revising it just all the time.
Final Draft: How do you find that balance in tone between humor and horror?
Eli Craig: Well, some of that is just innate. People often say, “How do you find that balance?” But it’s like, how do you find out who you are? I mean, some of it is just me being a joker, a clown, and figuring out what makes me laugh. I like to laugh in my movies.
I’ve always found it to be a little bit of a struggle with the studio system and with Hollywood, because a lot of times they want films that tonally fit within one box. I’ve struggled with the studio system throughout my career. I’ve never made a true studio film. I think by and large, they want the tone in a movie to be one thing. And I find movies more fun that are a bunch of things.
So the balance just comes from … it depends on the film. With Tucker and Dale, it was like, let’s make the kills the funniest part of the movie. So the glorious moments are the part where people are dying of laughter. And for this film it was like, let’s make the kills really serious, and the reaction to it absurdly funny at times, but really distinguishing between horror.
In this case, I’m going to go hard with horror and have moments of reprieve through comedy. And it’s just trying to figure out what is the structure of this film and what deserves the focus.
Final Draft: It’s interesting to me that you bring up it is such a struggle, because so many writers do want to write horror/comedy. Do you have any advice for those people?
Eli Craig: I think the campier it is, the harder it is to get made. Tucker and Dale, we could not find financing for. Everybody passed. Literally everybody. First we just tried to spec out the script and sell it. We wanted to make some money, a couple dimes to rub together. Nobody wanted it, but I think people read the script and they thought it was really campy and silly and they didn’t see the heart of it.
I’m always trying to create authenticity and real characters within an absurd world. And it’s very hard to convince a reader that this is not campy. This is actually people that are responding to an absurd moment in the world in a funny way.
I would just focus on the reality and try to make the comedy authentic. And not just funny lines. I don’t feel like I’m ever going for jokes. They’re just there naturally.
Final Draft: Are there parts of a script that you tend to struggle with?
Eli Craig: Writing is such a struggle. And for anybody listening to this that thinks it comes easy for anybody—I mean, I look at other writers and I’m like, “Oh, it comes easy for that guy.” And then I always hear an interview where he is like, “No, it doesn’t.”
And for me it does not come easy, because early in the writing process, you just hate yourself, and you hate what you’re coming up with, and it’s not good enough, and it’s never good enough. So it’s kind of like you’re condemned to this purgatory of never meeting your own expectations.
But then once you accept that and you keep working on it, and eventually you make something that is good enough, and you’ve just got to keep moving forward with “good enough for now,” and it incrementally can get better.
Sometimes it incrementally gets worse, and you’ve got to know when to go back to things too. Especially when you’re in development with executives, they really hate to go back to things. I find working with other writers, [they] are way more malleable. “Well, that other thing worked better, let’s just go back to that thing.” But then when you’re given a note from the studio, it feels like their whole world is like, if they gave you a note, and the note’s not working, a lot of studio executives feel like they’re not worth anything, so they have to double down on a note. And that’s where a lot of scripts fall apart in development.
Final Draft: Do you have any advice for taking notes?
Eli Craig: I think you’re really looking for the spirit of the note. A lot of times their notes come in very specific, “Can we change it to this?” And if it doesn’t ring true to you, why are they saying that? What are they feeling about the script?
A lot of times you can get to some reasoning that they didn’t even get to themselves, but you can be like, “Oh, it’s not that. It’s like the setup for that that’s not working.” And if you come back with a change that’s like, “Well, I didn’t change this for you, but I thought what you were getting at is this, and I changed that for you.” They could be quite receptive.
But you are playing with a lot of egos in development, and a lot of people that want to be more important in the process than sometimes they are. And sometimes they’re hugely important. So it’s always different.
You need a degree in psychology, which I have, by the way. I studied psychology initially, so I have a degree in psychology to just handle all the battling personalities and ego to make a movie.
Final Draft: Do you have any advice for someone who might be trying to write their first horror feature?
Eli Craig: I think for somebody trying to break in with a first feature, you really do want to find that idea that is unique, but not too unique.
Sadly, I’ve read probably too many reviews of my work, and I’ve definitely read reviews that are like, “He’s not creative,” or, “He’s just playing with the same old tropes, and he does new things with the tropes.” Basically, “He’s just rehashing what we’ve already seen.”
And I really think that that’s part of filmmaking, is taking what came before doing it again and making people feel like they have an expectation and a comfort with what you’re doing. And then adding some new elements.
Not trying to reinvent the wheel, but I am trying to reinvent the car that the wheel’s riding on, and just some new elements that just change it up enough to make it feel exciting and different.
Final Draft: I think that’s great advice.
Eli Craig: I think if you’re a writer, the hardest part about writing is feeling like you’re worthy, and you have to design your life around it. I think that’s the hardest part, especially when you’re not making money doing it. It feels absurd. It feels as absurd as clown in a cornfield, and it feels selfish, and you have to give yourself the space to be a fuck up, to be the guy that’s nobody and is just alone in a room having a dream, writing a script.
And when your parents or your friends say, “Well, nothing’s really working out for this guy,” you’ve got to be able to put that aside and say, “So what? I’m doing it because I love to do it. I think I have something to say.” And let it power you.
I am sitting in my own office. You’ve got to have space. You’ve got to create space from your family. And even when you’re not making money, value what you’re doing enough to just keep doing it.
Clown in a Cornfield is in theaters nationwide May 9.
