Editorials
I Visited the Infamous Clown Motel and Lived to Tell the Tale
“While I cannot say that the Clown Motel is filled with murderous clowns, there was definitely something unnerving about it.”
This summer, I decided to embark on a road trip with a close friend from high school. We were going to stop at several locations along the way, but our main destination was also our most bizarre on the itinerary – the Clown Motel of Tonopah, Nevada.
I know what some of you might be thinking – why on earth would you ever want to stay at the Clown Motel? I frankly had not heard of the Clown Motel until a few years ago when I saw an internet meme featuring the infamous location. Now, I have always been fascinated with macabre aesthetics, but I have never really gotten the whole “terrified of clowns” bit. I mean, sure some clowns are freaky and unsettling, like Stephen King’s Pennywise. And those often work as intended. But being scared of the local birthday clown? Rodeo clowns? Homie D. Clown? Never got that and I still don’t.
Yet when I came across this meme, I remember people freaking out over it and I couldn’t help but to find it amusing. Was it really that big of a deal? Could it really be that creepy? If someone stayed there, could their loved ones hope to see them again? After reading up on the Clown Motel here and there over the years, and seeing a hilariously over-the-top episode of Ghost Adventures featuring it a few months ago, my friend and I decided to go see if it lived up to the hype.
The drive was nearly two thousand miles for us. We did and saw a good bit along the way, but I won’t bore you with those details. As we drove into Tonopah, it was what we expected – an old mining town that had remained busy throughout the decades. A small casino resort called the Tonopah Station greeted us as we drove in and it took only a few minutes to reach the other side of the town. As we made the drive through Tonopah, I became excited; in just a few minutes, I would see this Clown Motel that I had been telling family, friends, and colleagues about for months!
And as we reached the edge of town, there it was, in all its semi-dilapidated glory.
As we pulled into the parking lot, I immediately looked over the entire property. There was the motel, as it appeared in pictures, and next to it was the graveyard. Only a few cars were in the parking lot, none of which were near the office, which I suddenly noticed had a “CLOSED” sign on its front door. This immediately created a little anxiety within me – did the motel forget about us or had something occurred to the employee who should have been on shift? I approached the office to see a piece of loose-leaf paper folded and taped to the door with my name written in pencil. I took the piece of paper and opened it – the note explained that the office would reopen at 4:30pm (it was around 3pm when we arrived) and that my key and room number were underneath the mat right in front of me. I looked under the mat and found both key (a metal key at that – something I haven’t seen a motel use since the early 1990s) and room number.
With this discovery, we decided to look around the property a bit before heading to our room. To our right was the cemetery. My friend decided to walk through it, but I stayed back at a distance on the motel’s property. Clowns are one thing, but a cemetery that is supposedly haunted is another. I soon went back to our vehicle to look around a bit more when I finally saw my first sign of life at the motel: a man in his late forties to early fifties walking a large dog in front of the motel’s rooms. Not wanting to be rude, I waved and said hello. While I am sure he saw and heard me, he did not acknowledge me, and continued walking his dog before turning the corner and disappearing. I did not see him again and can only assume that he was staying at the motel.
My friend soon returned from the cemetery and we decided to finally go into our room. A painted clown on the door greeted us as I struggled to unlock the door. The lock finally popped open and we went in. There were two clown paintings hanging directly over our beds, but the best adjective to describe what we initially saw is ‘dated.’ Several appliances were in the room that had to be at least fifteen years old. The furniture was quite old and a musty smell lingered throughout. My friend immediately began searching the room, worried that a clown might pop out at some time (moments before, I had made a comment about the film Vacancy).
I began looking around a bit closer and noticed some things that bothered me. One was a lamp shade that was in tatters. Another were some noticeable dents along the walls. There were what appeared to be numerous scratches on some of the wood furniture. The logical side of my brain told me that this was simply because it was an old motel that probably did not have the funds to renovate.
The other side of my brain, however, started to go wild. Was there really something more to all of this?
After we had unloaded our vehicle, our next course of action was to wait for the office to reopen at 4:30pm. That was where all the clown dolls were kept and we had to see that. In the meantime, we waited in the room, planning our next move. Now, at this point in our trip, we had been away from home for a week. We were both getting homesick and not sure if we wanted to stay the night in the Clown Motel. If we were to leave after seeing the office, we could drive a few hours to another hotel near the Arizona border, giving us a four hour start on our drive back. We had made it to the Clown Motel, saw it with our own eyes, and taken plenty of pictures. The decision was then made not to stay the night, something I still have regrets about.
4:30pm arrived and we went to the Clown Motel’s office. The closed sign had been removed and we entered with no problems. We were immediately overwhelmed with what we saw – it was clearly a motel office but filled with hundreds of clown dolls, some small, some large, others smiling happily, and a few with sadistic grins on their faces. There was even a Ronald McDonald statue. Three men were also present – the youngest, maybe in his late twenties or early thirties, sat on a sofa and never said anything the entire time we were there. The other two were much older, with one man keeping quiet behind the register and the other approaching us with a kindly look on his face. This turned out to be the owner, Bob Perchetti, who I can only say positive things about as he was an absolute gentleman.
Mr. Perchetti immediately asked us if we were paranormal investigators, to which we replied in the negative (apparently, according to Mr. Perchetti, the Clown Motel gets numerous amateur and professional paranormal investigators year round). We talked for a bit about various topics and paid for our room before Perchetti finally showed off some of his wares – Clown Motel coffee mugs, red clown noses, t-shirts, etc. The office was also the gift store! Not wanting to leave some of this behind, I purchased a mug and a few noses to bring to friends back home. But what I really wanted was one of the dolls. I asked Perchetti if any of the clowns were for sale and he said no, but then almost immediately reminded himself that he did have some dolls we could buy. The selection was small, but I found one that I immediately liked – a circus clown dressed in blue with its head partially detached. Nicknaming him “Loppy Head,” I knew he had to come home with me and so I happily paid for him.
We said our goodbyes to Mr. Perchetti and the clowns, and left Tonopah soon after. While I cannot say that the Clown Motel is filled with murderous clowns, there was definitely something unnerving about it. I am glad I went and saw it in person, but have no desire to return there, even with the regret I still have for not staying the night. Maybe if I was in the area, but I can’t imagine myself in a situation like that.
Oh, and as for Loppy Head, he has adjusted to his new home fairly well. I have caught him up to mischief a few times, finding him in odd places that a doll shouldn’t be able to get into, or doing things that one wouldn’t expect for something of his size. Our dogs even bark angrily anytime they see him. Time will tell if it was a good idea or not to bring him back as a memento, but for now I am happy he is here.
Five decades ago, Stephen King published the story of a bullied girl with telekinetic powers and forever changed the world of horror.
Carrie follows a high school misfit who seeks revenge for a hideous prank by psychically destroying her senior prom. The name Carrie White has become synonymous with the concept of a formal dance thanks to a flawless adaptation from Brian De Palma. Now fifty years after the film’s release, Mike Flanagan is putting his own stamp on the troubling story.
Rather than a feature film, the writer/director will expand King’s relatively slim debut novel into an eight-episode miniseries for Amazon Prime set to premiere on October 7.
Flanagan is no stranger to the world of Stephen King. A long-time Constant Reader, he first made waves with his daring adaptation of Gerald’s Game (2017), a novel many fans considered un-filmable. His underrated Doctor Sleep merges the disparate plot of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining with King’s original source material, and his 2024 genre-bending tearjerker The Life of Chuck faithfully executes one of the author’s most metaphysical novellas.
He’s currently mired in pre-production for an expansive adaptation of The Dark Tower series, keystone to King’s connected universe, and Warner Bros. recently announced that Flanagan will helm a new version of The Mist, King’s 1980 novella which sees a small Maine town overrun by otherworldly monsters.
Considering the vast array of the author’s previously unadapted material, an obvious question arises. Why reimagine Carrie in 2026? Noting the timeless nature of the content, Flanagan expressed his desire to bring the story of a bullied girl into modern times, mirroring his approach to Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. He explained, “The only way to approach it was to build something new out of the ingredients of Carrie. Otherwise, there’s really no purpose in trying to retread ground that’s been so beautifully walked before.”
His miniseries will maintain the novel’s bloody bookends while delivering “big surprises” along the way.
A New Prom Night Nightmare
The roughly 60-second teaser introduces Summer H. Howell as Carrie White just before the moment of catastrophe. Standing in a prom dress, she smiles at her applauding classmates with an ominous crown perched upon her head. Moments later, Carrie unleashes a rage-filled scream into the night air while promgoers rush for the exit doors. But careful examination of this scene shows Carrie wearing a different, albeit dirty dress as she seems to telekinetically punish her peers.
In an exclusive first look with Entertainment Weekly, Flanagan explains that in his version of the story, “the events of that prom are going to be completely different.” An open trunk emitting a crimson glow does hint at the pig’s blood dumped on Carrie’s head, but it’s likely Flanagan’s formal dance will be a different kind of horror altogether. Despite these changes, the series may end with the widespread destruction outlined in the source material. Unlike any previous adaptations, King’s novel ends with the near-total destruction of Chamberlain, Maine. A flaming street in Flanagan’s trailer promises similar carnage no matter what prank sparks Carrie’s deadly revenge.
The Monstrous Addition of Social Media
On the opposite end of this fiery conclusion is an extreme act of bullying that brings together the story’s main cast. King’s novel begins as Carrie gets her first period while showering in the girls’ locker room. Completely unaware of the concept of menstruation, the sheltered girl thinks she’s bleeding to death. Her classmates respond with vitriolic rage. Led by ultra-mean girl Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton), they mock the terrified teen while pelting her with tampons. Glimpses of this disturbing event reveal that Flanagan has excised the scene’s nudity while adding a seismic update. As Carrie sobs in the shower stall, Chris and her friends film the breakdown with their phones.
Other scenes note the presence of social media, bringing King’s fifty-year-old story into the digital age.
Flanagan’s adaptation promises to explore the destructive power of social media, an often invisible entity with a potential for harm rivaling Carrie’s own powers. While King’s tormented heroine suffers in front of a small group of girls, Flanagan’s version of the incident will likely become a viral video, potentially circling the globe on social media. Similar to Katt Shea’s criminally underrated The Rage: Carrie 2, which includes elements of revenge porn exploitation, Flanagan’s modern retelling will distinguish itself by exploring the nebulous cruelty of online bullying, a force ten times more powerful than the irl pranks King first envisioned.
A Completely Reimagined White Family
In addition to modernizing these canon events, Flanagan hints at updates to Carrie’s oppressive upbringing at the hands of her mother, Margaret White (Samantha Sloyan). Dead before the novel begins, we never meet Carrie’s domineering father Ralph, known to carry a bible alongside his gun. Flanagan’s White household will be an altogether different beast. In his version of the story, Carrie and her mother have been hidden away in the unassuming home, forced out of hiding by Ralph’s unexpected death. Perhaps we will finally meet this elusive man whose shadow hangs over his wife and child. Considering the White family’s fundamentalist lifestyle, this reimagining hints at tradwife culture and a home ruled by staunch patriarchal control.
Whereas King’s Carrie has been tormented by her classmates since Kindergarten, Flanagan’s Carrie will be a wide-eyed newcomer to public school, eager to make friends and engage with her peers. We glimpse Carrie cozying up to Chris and the equally popular Sue Snell (Siena Agudong) as she navigates a new social scene. Of course, we know this kindness is part of an elaborate plot designed to lull Carrie into a false sense of camaraderie, setting up an atrocious act of public humiliation. These brief moments of feigned compassion put Sue’s own complicity into question. Will Flanagan’s version of the character find the courage to defend Carrie from vicious bullies or will she succumb to peer pressure and join in the mob mentality?
Perhaps the biggest deviation from King’s original text is the relationship between Carrie and her mother. King’s Margaret White is a horrifically abusive religious zealot whose worldview has been hardened by internalized misogyny. She shames Carrie for menstruating, locks her in a closet to “pray,” and regrets not killing her child in infancy. She’s also responsible for Carrie’s social ostracization. Known to berate her neighbors for their “sins,” Margaret forces her daughter to live by an extreme code of conduct and disallows any potential friends lest they corrupt the girl with their worldly ways.
Flanagan’s version of the character is perhaps just as much a victim as Carrie herself. Also trapped inside her home, his Margaret is overly vigilant, her own trauma manifesting as strict control. Describing a more sympathetic depiction of the iconic villain, Flanagan explains, “Our Margaret White is a woman who fiercely loves her daughter and wants to protect her from this world … [She] doesn’t know how to do that and thinks the way to protect her is to close her off; not punitively, but to create this private utopia.”
Despite this potential softening, Sloyan’s Margaret may still have a sharp edge. Though she has appeared in many Flanagan projects, from Hush (2016) to The Fall of the House of Usher (2023), she is best known for her role as the abhorrent Bev Keane in the poignant saga Midnight Mass (2021). Perhaps inspired by King’s Margaret White, Bev is pious and sadistic, willing to punish anyone who does not adhere to her warped approximation of Catholicism.
Flanagan specifically wrote Margaret with Sloyan in mind, likely remembering the actress’s eerie ability to create deceptive empathy and shift our allegiances on a dime.
Expanding Stephen King’s Telekinetic Universe
While most of King’s story deals with an unthinkable prom night in Chamberlain, Maine, large sections of the semi-epistolary novel see experts debating the nature of telekinesis. Do Carrie’s frightening abilities represent a new phase in human evolution or is the prom night carnage merely a fluke? King settles the debate with a shocking denouement in which a young mother recounts her infant daughter’s ability to dangle her crib toys in midair. We’re left to wonder if she will become another tormented girl who surprises the world with metaphysical strength.
Flanagan plans to build out this brief scene while amplifying themes of female empowerment. After introducing our main cast of characters, episode two will open with an unrelated story in which we meet another girl with the TK gene. Each subsequent chapter will expand this world, building out a roster of telekinetic young women. Considering King’s fondness for stories about powerful kids, often described as possessing “the shining,” Constant Readers will no doubt have their eyes peeled for various Easter Eggs nodding to the author’s vast catalogue.
Giving Carrie Her Own Voice
Perhaps the most striking distinction in Flanagan’s new trailer is the extent to which we hear Carrie’s voice. The sneak peek is fully narrated by the titular prom queen as she demands accountability. “I want to know why,” she explains while detailing Chris’ elaborate plan. Aside from the aforementioned coda, King’s book essentially ends with the aftermath of the prom night tragedy, leaving little time for Carrie to reflect. His shifting narrative does bring the reader into her fragile mind, though not before she’s been cowed by relentless cruelty. We watch Carrie sink into bloodthirsty revenge, but never hear a considered desire for justice or repair.
Flanagan’s original monologue allows Carrie to voice her pain and mourn the life she could have had. We’re also treated to a mug shot-style photo of Chris with a bruised and bandaged face, implying that the mean girl will have to answer for her senseless sadism.
Flanagan is known for filling his series adaptations with heartwrenching speeches that cut to the heart of his thematic intentions, and this teaser seems to follow suit. After years of fans, critics, and scholars analyzing Carrie’s pain, perhaps his modern retelling will offer the titular anti-hero a chance to finally speak for herself.
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