Clown Motel: 3 Ways to Hell (Joseph Kelly) 2026 Review

Joseph Kelly's Clown Motel: 3 Ways to Hell is an indie horror sequel that bursts with ambition but ultimately suffocates under the weight of its own technical execution. While the film packs in a large, enthusiastic cast and delivers some genuinely fun, colorful clown wardrobe, the final product feels less like a finished feature film and more like a rough assembly cut.

You can tell this guy can’t wait to get to work.

The movie’s strongest asset is its production design and choice of setting. Utilizing Nevada's famous, real-life Clown Motel gives the narrative an immediate, naturally eerie atmosphere. The filmmakers clearly have a deep love for the genre, which shines through in the creative costuming and the sheer scale of what they attempted to build.

At the center of this world is a secret clown society that must gather five live victims for a dark sacrifice ritual. This setup should provide plenty of tension, especially since these bumbling clowns struggle immensely to bring their targets back alive. Instead, this premise merely serves as a loose excuse to string together random, repetitive kill scenes. The practical gore effects during these sequences are completely hit-or-miss. While some of the blood and guts look great, others fail to convince. One glaring moment where a clown pulls out a man's tongue is so poorly executed that the prop is clearly just a piece of candy taffy.

The leader of the clowns is ready to get this sacrifices business over with already.

Any sense of a coherent narrative storyline completely vanishes as the movie progresses. You will not form any connection to the victims or the villains, as every character is written with the depth of a piece of cardboard. The single saving grace in the cast is the leader of the clowns. She acts as the lone standout, bringing a magnetic, commanding screen presence that elevates every scene she is in.

Unfortunately, any goodwill generated by the locations and the lead villain is quickly drained by severe technical shortcomings. The editing is incredibly jarring, featuring a total lack of transitions between scenes that leaves the viewer disoriented. This structural whiplash is compounded by odd bits of bad dialogue, rough Automated Dialogue Replacement (ADR), poor sound design, and a reliance on generic stock music. Instead of creeping out the audience, these audio issues and technical hiccups constantly yank you out of the experience, dragging down the film's pacing and flattening what should have been tense, fun, and terrifying sequences. It is an admirable, passionate effort, but it desperately needed another pass in the editing room.

Fans of "so bad it's good" cinema and ironic movie nights may find some laughs and moments of enjoyment from the bizarre creative choices on display here. However, horror purists looking for a genuinely serious, atmospheric night of scares should look elsewhere to find a circus with more chills.