The Curse of the Clown Motel

Right, well stumbling upon this 2023 movie here in 2024, by random chance, and seeing that the movie had Tobin Bell on the front cover, of course I opted to sit down and watch it. Sure, I had never even heard about the movie prior to watching it, so I wasn't sure what I was in for. And I have to admit that the movie's title struck me as being very ridiculous.

Yet, I still opted to check out what writers Christopher Malone, Alexander Nistratov and James Tamburino had to offer. And it proved to be a rather bland and somewhat dull script and storyline. There just wasn't really a whole lot of anything interesting going on throughout the course of the 84 minutes that the movie ran for. The pacing of the narrative was slow and monotonous.

And not even Tobin Bell himself could do much to salvage the train wreck that is "Clown Motel".

Aside from Tobin Bell, the movie has a couple of familiar faces with the likes of Richard Grieco and Randy Couture, neither of which I can claim that I am much of a fan of, so I wasn't particularly thrilled to see them on the screen.

"Clown Motel" is a dull horror experience, and it is definitely not a movie that I would recommend you waste your time, money or effort on. Some of us suffered through the ordeal, so you don't have to; you're welcome.

My rating of directors Asif Akbar and Lance Kawas's 2023 movie "Clown Motel" lands on a three out of ten stars. It was every bit as laughable as the title was.

The low budget horror film Clown Hotel is an entirely forgettable feature.

To the filmmakers credit...the production quality is competent enough.

However...the real horror lies in how bad the storyline actually is.

It revolves around a young Native American woman who has returned to her cultural homeland- only to find that the "world famous" Clown Motel stands on the burial ground of her people.

We, effectively, watch as she tries to unravel some sort of mystery that revolves around something in the basement of the motel.

Whose owner tries to keep said mystery locked away from prying eyes.

If only because uncovering it will unleash it's evil.

The young woman tries to elicit the help of her mother...but she is invested in a company that has sold out to a group of developers, who seek to build upon their land.

While simultaneously working with a church group who seek to bring forth an ancient spirit to stop them.

In hope they can recoup the cost of their investments, without having to sacrifice their land to the unscrupulous developers.

Thus, releasing an angry and vengeful shaman-like character...who starts to kill them off.

The monster is cool enough...but his presence is hampered by the inclusion of some incredibly out of place rainbow-sparkle CGI effects...which I, personally, found to be totally unnecessary.

Which kind of killed any vibe they had going for them.

And from here it's all down hill.

The whole thing is just poorly developed.

With too many forced angles.

That are introduced in a convoluted manner.

Contrary to what the title might lead you to believe.

It actually has nothing to do with clowns at all.

The clowns are, simply, the d-bags you meet along the way.

An entirely forgettable experience.

But it could have been worse.

2.5 out of 10.

The last Randy Couture movie I watched called the Bell Keeper wasnt good either, but it was probably better than this one. This one drags hard with a monotonous muddled plot about some kind of tribe land dispute. Honestly, so little happened in the first 40 minutes, i was struggling to keep my eyes open and pay attention. You would think with Tobin Bell in here there would be something exploitive or interesting, but it just doesnt really ever amount to much, even in the last 40 minutes. The clown hotel itself is kind of an odd prop in and of itself but the haunted clown decorations were quite pedestrian. Nothing to see here.

But not as in "check out the movie" ... rather checkout, before it starts. All kidding aside (and as always no pun intended), I have seen worse movies. And for me a 3 is not the worst rating a movie can get. But even though we have Tobin Bell here (who always elevates the movie he is in - but also reminds the viewers that he has been in way better productions - namely the Saw franchise - which is the most famous one to date) ... the movie never really takes off.

The beginning is kind of intriguing .. building a background story and making us wonder what is behind it all. But that curiosity will be gone quite fast. Replaced by our hoping something will happen that excites us. Action scenes are not too bad, but CGI is (money wise) not helping the cause of the movie either ... shame the poster did look way better than the movie turned out to be. Too much (or too little) clowning around ...