From Zombos Closet

May 2025

Clown in a Cornfield (2025)

/ Movies (Slasher) / Leave a Comment

Clown in a Cornfield trailer scene with two women in a cornfield running for their lives.

Zombos Says: A lot more fun and scary than being lost in a corn maze.

I can’t believe Art the Clown got his own popcorn bucket and Frendo didn’t. The selling potential for popcorn during this hayseed, retro-styled, filled with honey-glow lighting and humorous bon mots slasher, is enormous. Frendo is the clown mascot for the burned down Baypen factory that previously had been churning out corn syrup. The town of Kettle Springs (get it? kettle popcorn), in Missouri, has gone bust ever since the factory closed. Instead, a lot of blood has been churned out, flowing from the younger population in town, that looks for a brighter and less stick in the mud future that some of the older population is still mired in. So you not only have a slasher movie with solidly messy kills, you have a socially conscious movie that slashes back at those who can’t deal with needed change and just don’t want to. Both themes don’t trip each other up, which makes Frendo’s murderous clown antics even more fun to watch. Standard stuff we’ve seen before, but done with attention to craft, and the pacing to keep us and the victims running, is to die for. …

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In Mizzoura (1919) Pressbook

/ Pressbooks (Non-Horror) / Leave a Comment

The story of a “gentle-man” who was a cad, of an uncouth sheriff who was a “prince,” and of a girl who was taught by better adventure to know the truth (from the pressbook).

Based on the play of the same name, this “photoplay” was directed by Hugh Ford. Unfortunately, no prints of the film are known to exist. The movie’s pressbook, however, provides a lot of information and promotion. What’s really cool is the inclusion of the accessories ordering sheet and pricing sheet, which later pressbooks left out. Early movies were often based on stage plays and their pressbooks were often substantial (this one clocks in at twenty pages). One quickly gets the sense that, back then, given that the printed word was the media du jour, a lot of people read a lot. Unlike today, where we have a lot more multi-media to view, but less people actually reading. Another interesting tidbit is the mention of slides the theater can use for promotion. These magic lantern glass slides, 3.25 x 4 inches (cost .15 cents), would be shown before the main feature or in-between films, to provide a coming-attractions promotion. Today, of course, we have movie trailers, ad nauseum, to zing and pow us into ticket-buying submission.

In Mizzoura 1919 silent movie pressbook …

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