Director
Tobe Hooper
Cast
Ted Levine - John Hunton
Robert Englund - Bill Gartley
Vanessa Pike - Sherry Ouelette
Daniel Matmor - Mark Jackson
I know this movie about a possessed laundry press, housed inside the steamy, sweaty, Gartley's Blue Ribbon Laundry Service, was trying to be scary and suspenseful. But other than that, I really don't know what this movie was setting out to do.
A film about a demonic press is, without saying, over the top. It just wasn't the movie that the three horror icons who's names are attached to it (Director Tobe Hooper - Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Poltergeist - Robert Englund, Freddy Krueger himself, and of course Stephen King - everything Stephen King has ever written) should have done together. Oh, and it has Ted Levine from Silence of the Lambs.
I'm baffled a little that this would be the movie for these horror giants to come together on.
King's original story of the same name can be found in his collection of short stories called Night Shift. He wrote it from his experiences, and from I read somewhere, as a bit of a payback, working in a laundry facility. Maybe as a short story, it could be a fun read.
I'll add here that when it comes to creative writing, King himself said in a lecture that writers should write for themselves, and write for fun. Case and point - The Mangler.
Bill Gartley (Robert Englund) operates a laundry service. And we see how insanely uncaring and, ooooh, evil he is when his own niece, Sherry, severely cuts herself on the machine. She drips blood onto its tred as she tries to dodge an old refrigerator some movers are doing a poor job of carrying. Both her hand and the fridge touch the machine, giving the press both a demon and a taste for blood.
Later on, one of Gartley's employees, the elderly Mrs. Frawley, gets stuck onto the tred as she tries to open a container of antacids which spill onto the machine while it's on. Rather than letting them go, or asking to have the machine turned off, she struggles to pick them up.
She get's pulled in, and what comes out on the other end is a bloody, folded mess that was once Mrs. Frawley.
In comes Police Investigator John Hunton (Ted Levine) who, despite being the standard tough, no-nonsense cop, can't stomach the remains of Frawley.
To me, this is were the ridiculousness comes in. I understand that if such a horrific accident had taken place in real life, obviously police would be present to investigate the situation.
For all practical purposes, and as far as witnesses go, such a death would be considered accidental.
Hunton, however, really delves into an investigation, while his brother-in-law, Mark, (a demonologist) tries to convince him that something supernatural is at play. It really starts to become forced by this point.
It's hard to take Levine's character seriously. Just what his drive is into an investigation that looks completely accidental on the surface is unclear. He doesn't believe in demons and such. And no fowl play is involved. But Hunton is determined to dig something up.
During the investigation, Mark figures out that the icebox may be what was possessed by demons. And sure enough, it was. So, the demons are expelled from the ice box, but the work isn't finished.
They both learn that Gartley and other people in town have been sacrificing their virgin daughters to the press on their 16th birthdays for wealth and power. How this little tradition came to be isn't explained. Nothing is explained. Anyhow, Gartley had plans to do just that to Sherry.
Meanwhile, Mark discovers that the antacids that Frawley was taking (and Hunton is taking, too, because he stole them out of Frawley's purse during the investigation) contains deadly nightshade.
Nightshade, according to Mark's Book of the Occult, is just the ingredient to feed the demons and bring the machine to life. Hunton and Mark proceed with an exorcism which is as ridiculous as it is intense.
The machine then comes to life, and chases the pair around the facility. Unfortunately, the money must have run out by this point, because what's supposed to be the climax is more like the last few seconds of a deflating balloon. Just like the flatulating sound of a balloon sputtering through the air, the last act is enough to make anyone laugh. It's hilarious to watch grown men perform an exorcism over a machine, and then watch terrible depiction of a laundry press chase people around, breathing fire.
It doesn't seem like any of the actors are really enjoying their roles. Robert Englund does make a great villain. His character is the embodiment of the machine itself - uncaring, unsympathetic, and completely self-interested. Englund's acting makes the most sense. He's playing it in just the right amount of exaggeration - a caricature of exaggeration itself - that's suitable for a movie about a demonic laundry machine.
But nothing about the story or the climax impressed. It just went from silly to painful.
This movie was trying to be too many things at once. With Stephen King's name behind it, The Mangler tried to raise itself on the pedestal where other King movies have been placed, with its want of respect for being a story written by an author who's often taken as a serious writer. Meanwhile, it was trying to be an over-the-top film. In short, it was taking itself seriously while at certain points, it didn't want to be taken seriously. And the dialogue was all over the place.
None of the actors could work off each other. It was a mish-mash of styles with none of them very convincing, save for Englund who seemed to be the only one who understood just what kind of a movie this was. Three masters of the horror genre (and Ted Levine) had one chance to make a laundry machine scary, and what was left was a forgettable mess. Nothing dazzled. Nothing left its marked.
How this flick spawned two sequels is a testament to Hollywood clearly not understanding what audiences want...or don't want.
The Mangler mangled a perfectly good Friday night for me, leaving me with no real scares.
Ambiguous King
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