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The Mangler


The Mangler... What can I say about The Mangler? It tells the story about these factory workers, who under very hard conditions work with folding laundry. One day someone gets hurt by one of them. The overhead Bill Gartley gives it no attention and passes it off as just another working accident. The next day things get really grim, when poor Mrs. Frawley gets stuck in the machine... AND CRUSHED BY IT! It's very gory and hard to watch, but at the same time I couldn't stop laughing at Gartley's outrageously over-the-top behavior. That scene sets the tone for the rest of the movie. Tobe Hooper really does a great job presenting this thing as a real menace, silly as the idea of a murderous laundry-folding machine may be.

At first it looks like it's going to be about Sherry (as well as Lin Sue), but that turns out not to be the case. We get to a scene with two people driving a truck with a fridge from the factory inside. A policeman gets really mad and stops them. They always drop it on him while carrying it. A cause of evil or just regular tomfoolery? Who knows. After this point the story switches to the perspective of police officer John Hunton, as well as his dearest (but also annoying) best friend Mark Jackson. The Stephen King trademark is vividly present here, as he's known for creating very colorful and zany characters. Hunton's grumpiness compared with Jackson's overexaggerated friendliness and clumsy nature makes for a really entertaining duo. Mark made me laugh many times, and Daniel Matmor turns in a wonderfully hammy performance. Ted Levine is equally a blast to watch, as he continually switches from distressed and muttering to screaming really crazily whenever the moment calls for it. Vanessa Pike is very believable as the frail and traumatized Sherry, but if there's anyone who loves being in this movie most of all, it's Robert Englund. His portrayal of this heinously evil and demented (and also hilarious) boss of this mangler factory is such a joy to watch that even if all the supernatural elements got too much for me, I couldn't bring myself to give this movie a low rating.

As the movie goes on one revelation after another gets more and more ridiculous, which only heightens the enjoyment. Because of the strong directing by Hooper it manages to stay suspenseful even in the bizzarrest moments. And trust me, by the end, it gets really bonkers. If you love that sort of stuff however, it will give any fan of the inanimate horror genre a reason to smile throughout.

WARNING: spoilers below
I really have to give the ending praise as well. After all the horrible ordeal Sherry has gone through with that godawful machine, she not only goes back to work almost instantly, but gets highly rated by the company and gets to yell at the workers themselves. Not to mention that damn machine is back again. It's slightly darkly comedic, but mostly very sad. It's a striking last scene, and Hunton's decision to throw the roses in the garbage when he first wanted to give them to her sticks out as symbolic for his wilting hope over working conditions and just life in general to be fairer.


Someone might call me crazy for giving this movie so many positives, but Hooper knows what he was doing. He made something with the right mix of the serious and the campy, all the while also managing to throw in a pretty deep subtext about industrial capitalism. Yes, people, even a picture about a laundry-folding machine can have meaning if there's a clever mind behind it.