As ready-made horror titles go, "Clown in a Cornfield" says a lot with a little. There are of course no good places to run into a clown, but a cornfield would be high on the list of undesirable locations.

There are also limitations to that title — "Snakes on a Plane" ran into a similar issue — and after the whole clown in a cornfield conceit, director Eli Craig's comic slasher doesn't have anywhere to go but down.

But Craig, director of 2010's "Tucker & Dale vs. Evil," has fun for awhile with the mechanics of his horror tale, cleverly subverting expectations along the way.

A father (Aaron Abrams) and his daughter, Quinn (Katie Douglas) arrive in small town Kettle Springs, Missouri, after the death of Quinn's mother. The town is home to an abandoned corn syrup factory where the clown mascot, Frendo, has become the unofficial symbol of the city.

At school, the popular kids run a YouTube channel where they make horror movies with Frendo as the villain for their 55,000 subscribers. Quinn starts hanging out with the group, although their movies take a grisly turn when a real killer clown starts stalking the citizens of Kettle Springs.

Where "Clown in a Cornfield" backs itself into a corner is in making the identity of the clown (or clowns, as it were) a sticking point. That leads the movie down an unsatisfying path and makes the screenplay feel like it's lost in a corn maze.

But Craig, who co-wrote the script with Carter Blanchard (it's based on Adam Cesare's 2020 YA novel), gets to play around with horror tropes and character expectations while staging some exquisitely gruesome deaths. Those over-the-top kills are where the movie feels most at home. But like most clowns, it quickly wears out its welcome.

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'CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD'

Grade: C

MPA rating: R (for bloody horror violence, language throughout and teen drinking)

Running time: 1:36

How to watch: Now in theaters

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