2017 was a lot like 2016 where we lost some legendary people and the world of horror suffered another huge loss this year in legendary director Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre). So for today’s Eddie’s 31 Days Of Halloween film, I wanted to dive in to Tobe Hooper’s catalog and check out a film of his that I had not seen yet. In 1995 under contract with New Line Cinema, he would release the film The Mangler. In a small New England town, there lies a laundry factory that has a very big machine inside of that is known as the mangler because it mangles sheets. One day the machine becomes possessed and it starts claiming victims leaving troubled detective John Hutton (Silence Of The Lamb’s Ted Levine) confused over the whole matter because is the machine possessed and what does old man Bill Gartley (A Nightmare On Elm Street’s Robert Englund) have to do with it? The film also stars Daniel Matmor (King Of Sorrow) as Mark Jackson, Jeremy Crutchley (Lord Of War) as Pictureman, Vanessa Pike (Never Say Die) AS Sherry Ouelette, Demetre Phillips (976-Evil) as Stanner, Lisa Morris as Lin Sue, Vera Blacker (The Demon) as Mrs. Frawley, Ashley Hayden (Buried Alive) as Annette Gillian, and Danny Keogh (Starship Troopers 3: Marauders) as Herb Diment.
This was definitely an interesting movie to say the least, but the 90’s was an interesting time for horror anyways. Things started to get darker in tone with horror where creepy elements like the creepy old uncle started showing up in films or the structures of buildings are lot more Gothic like. One thing though that I thought about the film was great a film about a machine that is possessed. Let me remind you, that I did not know that the film was based off of a short story by Stephen King before viewing it. All the machine does is essentially swallow people that are idiotic enough to get too close to it, but then it becomes more than that towards the end of the film when the machine looks for revenge. It goes from being an inanimate object to a living thing and they have to after Englund’s creepy character gets his. I have to admit that Englund is the true highlight of the film with his creepiness. I will admit that I was expecting him to turn into Freddy Kreuger and that this was really Ted Levine’s character’s nightmare. I thought Ted Levine did a decent job in the film despite thinking that he overacted a little in the film. The overall story is pretty good, but it could have been executed a little better and I say that because of one minor thing. The idea of the ice box and the machine having a relationship of sorts or a correlation (they’re both possessed) was really super cheesy in my opinion. I could have done without that part in the film, but it was the 90’s after all. Check this film out for yourself, but one thing that I will say is that Hooper did his job. He created an industrial hell with the way the laundry shop looked and that is one important factor. Otherwise, I am giving the film an C+ for a final grade.
Moshpits And Movies 