Lousy Lottery #7 - The Mangler
Welcome, friends, to the Lousy Lottery! Here’s how it works. First, I post four movies to a poll on Twitter. Fans vote to pick which movie to make me watch that week. I watch it, review it and spread the word about an amazingly awful, terribly terrific b-horror flick.
This is week seven! Your pick sends me to the 90’s for the first time and this week I watched The Mangler!
For the uninitiated, 1995’s The Mangler was written by horror demigod Tobe Hooper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Poltergeist) and schlock master Harry Alan Towers (Count Dracula, Bang! Bang! You’re Dead) and directed by Hooper. It also stars another icon of the genre, none other than Freddy himself, Mr. Robert Englund. With that knockout cast and crew, you’d think this would be a certified classic. Instead, The Mangler exists largely as a forgotten memory. All three of the greats I just mentioned were in a slump at the time and audiences headed over to Tommy Boy and Braveheart and skipped this hidden gem. Well, let’s give it the attention it deserves, shall we? First, here are the basics of the story.
Bill Gartley runs Gartley’s Blue Ribbon Laundry Service. In it, he has a laundry press that seems to have a life of its own. The press has largely been odd but harmless. It has, that is, until it got a taste of human blood when Bill’s niece accidentally cuts herself near it and some blood drops in. Before we move on, it’s worth noting a couple of things here. First, The Mangler is a Stephen King story adapted to the screen. Secondly, this has significance if you know Stephen King lore as well as you should. Why? Well, because when Mr. King was an unpublished, hard drinking, coke snorting newcomer, he worked in an industrial laundromat. You should read his non-fiction and, if you do, you will see that he felt that place was the living embodiment of all the forces keeping him from realizing his full potential. It was hot, it was dark, it was dangerous and it was sucking the life out of him. When he learned his novel, Carrie, had been sold, the first thing he did was run to work and gleefully quit.
So, it makes total sense that he would pen a story of gore, entrapment and darkness set in, well, an industrial laundromat. For King, he had survived his time with an evil industrial laundry, but will his fictional characters? Not many. Soon after the niece awoke some evil inside the press it claims it’s first victim. Hapless elderly worker, Mrs. Frawley, drops some pills on the conveyor belt. When she reaches for them, part of the machine traps her hand down. Before she knows it, she’s pressed and folded like freshly cleaned linens. Smoosh!
Officer Hunton, played by the incomparable Ted Levine (Silence of the Lambs), thinks something otherworldly may be at play. So, he brings in his demonologist brother-in-law to check things out. As he looks into it, he reports back that he believes the laundry press may be possessed by some powerful, dark spirit. He believes the only way to stop the killings is to perform an exorcism. Wow, that’s quite a leap from work place accident to demon machines. How did he get to that conclusion?! Well, learning ol’ Bill Gartley is a member of a group of ‘elders’ who sacrifice virgins to the machine on their sixteenth birthdays was definitely the first clue.
Well, that’s enough to convince Officer Hunton, so the exorcism is a go. They are met with great resistance from Gartley and gang, but do pull it off. Their troubles don’t end there, though, and that’s all thanks to old Mrs. Frawley. See, those antacids she dropped on the conveyor belt had nightshade in them, which just so happens to be an ingredient that apparently strengthens demons. Who knew? Not only was the exorcism not enough, but now the demonic press is pissed and out for blood. It comes loose from the wall and starts killing bastards left and right. Now what are they going to do?! I guess you’re going to have to watch and find out.
The Mangler provides the movie watcher with a prime example of two artists that are filled to the brim with talent, yet can’t seem to move past a certain spot in their respective careers. By this point in said careers, this was starkly so. It’s almost like having a video game where one reaches a specific level only to never be able to get past it. I played Golden Eye, for example, endlessly until I got to this one dude on this one bridge and to this day, years later, I’ve never gotten past that dude on that bridge. Know what I mean? In the context of The Mangler, I am speaking, of course, of Tobe Hooper and Robert Englund.
Everyone who knew Hooper would tell you he was one of the most talented filmmakers to walk the earth. His talents were scooped up by huge studios and fantastic filmmakers like Stephen Spielberg. Yet, outside of his one grand success, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, he just never could move on to anything else that gained traction with audiences or critics. Yes, I know he also did the very successful Poltergeist, but a quick trip down a google rabbit hole will show you why I don’t consider that too much of a second time in the spotlight for Tobe. Do we talk about Hooper like we talk about Scorsese? For that matter, do we talk about him like we talk about horror directors with long, successful careers like Carpenter or Scott? Nope. He’s beloved within the genre, but not really discussed outside of it.
Then we have Robert Englund. He was classically trained. He worked at the Royal Academy, performing Shakespeare and Shaw. Yet, do we talk about Englund like we talk about Day-Lewis or Streep? Is he a fixture on talk shows and award shows? No, he isn’t. Again, he’s beloved within the genre and has seen a single monumental success in Freddy Kreuger, but has never been able to move further. Here, with The Mangler, we see a sort of embodiment of this fact of Hooper and Englund. Mangler didn’t catch hold with audiences despite it being made with a keen eye and a learned hand. It made less than $2 million worldwide and critics blasted it. Even now, it holds only a 27% on Rotten Tomatoes. Despite it being a genuinely good movie and having Stephen King source material and despite it being a pairing of two horror icons in Hooper and Englund, it just didn’t stick and people didn’t dig it at all.
It’s baffling and maddening, but it’s also true. For example, did many of you even know this movie was written and directed by Hooper? Did many of you even know Robert Englund made an adaptation of a Stephen King story with the director of Texas Chainsaw Massacre? I’m guessing many of you didn’t and that’s exactly my point. It’s strange, but true. I would love to envision an alternate reality in which Englund is a regular in Tarantino’s casts. I’d love to have a film history that is full of Best Picture nominated Hooper films. Unfortunately, that is not the case. I really wish I could tell you why, but I can’t.
The Mangler is far from perfect, but it deserves a ton more attention and respect than it gets. Put another way, it deserves attention and respect, while it currently gets neither. It takes itself a bit too seriously and some of the makeup effects probably looked better in the days before high definition. Still, it’s very well done and most definitely worth a watch. It has this Gothic sort of feel paired with heavy, very ‘90s industrial production design. That combination gives a vibe and look to the movie that makes you feel like you’re going to get grease on your fingers and soot in your lungs. The gore effects are fantastic too and they don’t miss out on the opportunity provided by a killer ironing machine.
One of these days, the world will wake up and love Hooper and Englund as much we do. Until then, let’s all remember the gift The Mangler gave us all, the gift of collaboration between two legends of the genre. It’s streaming on Vudu. Check it out; you’re not going to want to miss this one.
Don’t forget to see what’s coming next in the Lousy Lottery. Make sure you tune into Twitter later today and vote for Lousy Lottery 6! My handle is @MrJosh79, look for it and don’t forget to vote!
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