
The Running Man
1987
Quinn and her father have just moved to the quiet town of Kettle Springs hoping for a fresh start. Instead, she discovers a fractured community that has fallen on hard times after the treasured Baypen Corn Syrup Factory burned down. As the locals bicker amongst themselves and tensions boil over, a sinister, grinning figure emerges from the cornfields to cleanse the town of its burdens, one bloody victim at a time.
Eli Craig
Mayor Arthur Hill
Sheriff Dunne
Quinn Maybrook
Cole Hill
Dr. Glenn Maybrook
Rust Vance
6/11/2025
7/10
Ok, so there’s not much original about this cornfield chopper, but I think that’s the point. It sets itself up right from the start as more of a parody of so many other films of the genre, and I really quite enjoyed it. Of course we have to start with the daughter/father relationship that’s reeling from a tragedy, then they move to an old rickety house that really does need it’s chimney seeing to before she sets of to school dressed for a “Rocky Horror” party. “Quinn” (Katie Douglas) quickly falls in the with the town’s rowdy crowd, led by wealthy eye-candy “Cole” (Carson MacCormac) which just earns her the annoyance of her dad (Aaron Abrams) and just about all of the local bigwigs. This lot like to have a few drinks then make spoof horror films in which they get brutally slain by a clown from the cornfield then post them on the internet. It’s when once such frolic turns out to be just a bit more serious that things get altogether more menacing for our troop of teenagers. What now ensues, well you’ve seen it all before lots of times but this time it’s tongue is in it’s cheek, there’s a (pretty obvious) twist in the romantic tale and the whole enterprise is reminiscent of “Scooby Do” does the “Klu Klux Clown”. There’s plenty of screaming histrionics, chainsaws, crawling through sewers and you could bathe like Cleopatra in the amount of ketchup, or corn syrup, that’s splashed about as it races along. If you’re looking for BAFTA acting skills, then perhaps not, but if you can watch this in the context that it is an entertaining satire of those gone before it, then I think it’s quite good fun and who knows, there might even be a sequel.
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