|
 ho
knew you could squeeze so much out of so little?
Take the Stephen King short story "The
Mangler", about a possessed laundry presser
with a taste for human blood. As with most of
King's short stories, "The Mangler" was
made into a big-budget feature length film in 1995
with genre vet Tobe Hooper directing. Although a
critical failure, the film proved profitable (one
supposes) enough to warrant a direct-to-video
sequel in 2001. Unfortunately "The Mangler
2", about a computer virus gone amok, had
nothing to do with the original, and was thusly
derided by those who saw it. 2005 brings us
"The Mangler Reborn", a noticeably
low-budget (it practically screams, "We have
no money!" from frame one) attempt to
jumpstart the flailing franchise for reasons only
the filmmakers could possibly fathom.
"The Mangler
Reborn" follows the "Highlander"
rule by tossing out the first sequel and
continuing on as if it's the first sequel to the
1995 original. After its infamous killing spree,
the killer laundry machine is purchased at auction
by repairman Hadley (Weston Blakesley), who
quickly becomes possessed and kills his wife. Some
time later, Hadley is now abducting young women
for the Mangler to chew on. One such victim is
Jaime (Aimee Brooks), who is taken back to
Hadley's house, where the Mangler
"lives". But while Hadley was away,
father and son thieves Rick (Reggie Bannister) and
Mike (Scott Spieser) are doing some breaking and
entering, and it just so happens that their latest
target is Hadley's house of horrors. Shoulda stuck
with killer orbs in the "Phantasm"
movies, Reggie!
"The Mangler
Reborn" is, simply put, quite bad. Until its
final 20 minutes, when co-writers/directors Matt
Cunningham and Erik Gardner cranks out the gore
and buckets of blood, the film is a terrible chore
to sit through. The pacing is tedious, the acting
amateurish, and the location simply stunning in
its dank awfulness. The film is essentially set in
one location (with minor ventures beyond), a
two-story house that gives movie set designing a
bad name. Made for a ridiculously low budget,
especially considering the film's predecessors,
one wonders how much the franchise name was sold
for in the first place. Could it have been more
than a buck and change?
As with most low-budget
films, "Mangler Reborn" suffers horribly
from poor pacing, where scenes are allowed to sit
and wallow without noticeable progression.
Hadley's attack on Jaime at her house takes
forever, including a suspense-free sequence where
Jaime hides under the bed because apparently
opening the bedroom window and jumping out while
Hadley is still in the kitchen, and would take
about 1 minute to walk to the bedroom and kick it
in, was too much trouble for her. Later, Rick
spends 5 minutes sitting in his car chatting it up
with his unshaven son before walking around the
outside of Hadley's house, then finally going in,
only to walk around for another 5 minutes doing
nothing. It's sequences like these that makes
"The Mangler Reborn's" 80 minutes seem
like an eternity inside
the Mangler.
Without putting too fine a
point on it, the script borders on incompetence,
especially in the early goings. I wouldn't be
surprised to learn that Cunningham and Gardner
filmed a treatment and not a full script. Hadley's
method of kidnapping women for the Mangler is
laughable -- he essentially sneaks up on them,
beats them over the head with a mallet, wraps
their bleeding bodies in a white sheet, then
carries the blood-stained sheets from his van (parked
in the driveway of his house!) into his house
of horrors, where he locks them up in rooms until
he's ready to let the Mangler eat them. And of
course Rick's situation isn't helped by the fact
that he's easily the world's worst thief, and
(literally) can't pick a lock to save his life.
The original was a fine
example of why Stephen King short stories
shouldn't be made into movies by anyone whose name
isn't Frank Darabont. "The Mangler
Reborn" is a terrible sequel with a few
redeeming values, one of which is the bloody Third
Act, where Cunningham and Gardner seem to show
some actual talent. The Mangler's "feeding
times" are shot with obvious enthusiasm, and
the machine's killing instruments are surprisingly
fearsome. Unfortunately, getting to that final 20
minutes where the film earns its bones will be a
major battle for most viewers. Simply put, this is
a 20-minute movie (the final 20 minutes) stretched
out into 80 minutes.
For fine entertainment, I
recommend visiting "The Mangler
Reborn's" IMDB.com listing (here),
where a number of visitors offer up some belly
laughs as they dissect what makes "The
Mangler Reborn" rubbish. It really is the
voice of the masses; and in this case, it's also a
million miles more entertaining than what Matt
Cunningham and Erik Gardner have wrought upon the
horror scene.
|
