With the latest iteration of
Pet Sematary in theatres, I decided to watch an old
Stephen King ditty I'd been
meaning to revisit,
Tobe Hooper's
The Mangler from 1995.
After several fatalities involving an
old laundry pressing machine, grizzled cop Hunton (Ted Levine) begins
to suspect it may be possessed by evil.
I watched this when it came out in
theatres and remembered liking it, but oh my did this not hold up as
well as I thought it might. First off, just from the title graphic alone,
The Mangler had direct-to-video written all over it. It's amazing
some of the horror movies that got a wide release back in the
nineties, but, to be fair, the trio of King, Hooper & Robert Englund does
carry a large amount of cache. And considering it was largely shot in
South Africa, I can't imagine it cost a lot to make either. But I digress.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the most
striking thing about this movie was The Mangler itself. Apparently
designed by Hooper's own son, William, it's a truly menacing piece of
machinery, right down to the sound design. It's also fortunate that the movie at least delivered on its promise of crushing and folding more than a few people like so much laundry. I was little sad that the icebox scene was not nearly
as outrageous as I remembered it. Dang recall!
Everything aside from the machine
eating people was kind of a mess... Okay, a different kind of mess. I
remembered Englund's performance as the machine's owner being a tad
cartoonish, but holy mothballs! I feel like Englund asked Hooper on day
one, “so how far do you want me to take this?” and he was like,
“take Lefty & Chop Top from Texas 2 and crank it to
eleven”.
To be honest though, apart from the
occasional off-kilter camera angle, I felt there was a lack of
direction from Hooper, most apparent during the meandering exchanges
between Hunton and his worldly brother-in-law Mark (Daniel Matmor). It was
like they were improving half of their scenes together with only an
end point to guide them. It's bitter sweet because it made for some
amusing moments (in a wow-what-is-going-on kind of way), but it's not
the most concise way to make a movie.
I had clearly blanked out the climax
because I did not recall that it unfortunately goes the route of
almost every King adaptation of the nineties, falling back on
instantly regrettable visual effects. Mercifully, they were kept to a minimum
with the use of shadow and quick cuts though. The Mangler came at the tail
end of an era that saw King properties appear at an almost monthly
pace and though it's by no means the worst, it was far from its
well-oiled namesake.
