My quick rating – 3.5/10. When you check into Clown Motel 2, make sure your expectations are packed light—and maybe also bring a pizza, a prayer, and a backup plan. Picking up six months after Clown Motel: Spirits Arise left off (because apparently someone demanded continuity), this nightmare of face paint, funhouse physics, and budget military cosplay marches onward with big shoes to fill, literally.
The plot? Oh yes, it technically has one. Brooke (Kelly Lynn Reiter) is still missing in the honk-honk heart of clown hell, and her determined fiancé, who may or may not have watched too many action movies on TNT, leads a ragtag team of camo-wearing misfits straight into the grease-painted abyss. Think Rescue Dawn, but with more rainbow wigs and less logic.
The clowns remain terrifying in that “dollar store Pennywise meets desert sunstroke” kind of way. And just to spice things up, they’re now joined by what looks like the off-brand remnants of Escape from New York.
Mindy Robinson shows up, perhaps after wandering off from another indie set, and horror royalty Ari Lehman (the first Jason Voorhees) and Tony Moran (OG unmasked Michael Myers) drop by to remind you that, yes, horror conventions are real, and yes, actors do need gas money. Ari plays a mysterious figure named Psycan, which sounds like a discontinued energy drink, and somehow makes just as much sense.
The production values fluctuate like a haunted stock market: some creative camera angles and clever reflections show surprising flair, while the CGI kill at the beginning might’ve been rendered on a microwave. But props where props are due—the practical effects, especially a delightfully gory throat slash, give it that retro charm. Also, someone on set clearly discovered the “reflections and smoke” filter and went ham with it.
Dialogue delivers some unexpected zingers, like the clowns were trained at the Catskills before turning to murder. And in a film this chaotic, any line that sticks is basically Shakespeare.
The final battle, set in what still very much looks like Nevada (shoutout to the budget-conscious location scouting), attempts to ramp up stakes but mostly sets the stage for the inevitable sequel: Clown Motel 3: 3 Ways to Hell—a title that sounds like a clown-themed choose-your-own-adventure nightmare.
At 93 minutes (give or take, depending on your screener or what universe you’re in), it overstays its welcome like a drunk uncle at a kids’ birthday party. Some scenes meander, others feel like the actors forgot the camera was still rolling, and there’s a particularly baffling bit with a “new queen” that plays like a clown-themed Renaissance Faire hallucination.
Still, and I can’t stress this enough, I had more fun than I probably should have. Like its predecessor, Clown Motel 2 knows it’s not winning awards. But it leans into the madness with an endearing, face-painted grin. It’s a low-budget mess, but it’s their low-budget mess. Thanks to Joseph Kelly, not only for creating this indie goofiness but also for sending over a screener to check out.
Prime Video seems to be the only place to check this one out.