Mild mannered repairman, Hadley, has been acting odd. His wife complains that he has not been to work in a week and he seems to be devoting all his time to restoring an antique machine in their spare bedroom. Hadley, you see, is under the spell of the demonic “mangler” machine. We learn quickly that Hadley is not right when we witness him bludgeoning his wife to death. Apparently the machine requires human sacrifices to keep running.
The bizarre story follows three people that unwittingly become trapped in Hadley’s house of horrors and end up fighting for their lives. This trio includes Jamie, who simultaneously learns that she has been fired from her job and that her husband is leaving her; and Rick and his son Mike, two-bit thieves that make the mistake of attempting to rob Hadley’s home. Most of the film focuses on their attempts to flee the house before being fed to the Mangler.
I read King’s The Mangler decades ago and recall nothing about it except that it was an unremarkable short story among a book of much better short stories. Like King’s Children of the Corn, which was from the same collection, The Mangler has spawned a sub par film franchise. This direct-to-video cheapie looks how you would expect a direct-to-video film to look. The sets are stark and cheap looking and the acting is strictly b-level here. The most infuriating aspect of this film is that the characters have soooooooooooooo many opportunities to escape this small house. I was literally red-faced yelling at the TV as if the characters could hear my complaints regarding their stupidity. Okay I admit that one scene managed to elicit that “Oh good Lord, no!” response from me. In an effort to get away from Hadley, Jamie dives into the laundry-like chute where the Mangler deposits all the human entrails it consumes. Not only does she slide down this grotesque slide from hell, she climbs back up it when Hadley meets her in the basement. Gross.
8 comments:
I remember the short story as being pretty good, but really not anything you'd want to base a movie on, let alone a franchise. You're plumbing depths I would leave unexplored. Kudos!
What the hell is the Mangler supposed to be? Is it for laundry? Look at the picture of that ridiculous thing.
it's a laundry folding machine, or something laundry related. its original setting was in a big laundry processing factory.
the story as a whole was a pretty silly one, but the machine escapes and one of the characters can hear it lumbering off in the distance, which must have sounded like the world's biggest car pileup. it is, in essence, a robot-gone-berserk story.
saaaay, isn't there someone here who has a thing for wild, wild robot action?
"saaaay, isn't there someone here who has a thing for wild, wild robot action?"
I believe you mean "wild puppet action"
Don't try to hang this on me, Transforma-ho.
You're right though, that thing looks ridiculous. All those cheap-looking levers with knives and cleavers on them? That's some silly shit. It looks like the Tick's steel box.
Ha, that's funny! It also looks so freakin' flimsy, doesn't it? It would be like being tortured by a spork.
I barely remember the first Mangler movie with Robert Englund. Pretty worthless as I recall.
I worked in a dry cleaning/laundry factory one bleak summer in college, never saw the mangler eat anybody though...not that I wouldn't have tossed a few annoying people in if I'd had the opportunity.
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