THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, March 9, 1995 TAG: 9503090041
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie Review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
``THE MANGLER'' gives new meaning to airing dirty laundry.
Fishing for a new franchise to warrant a group of cheapie sequels, the producers can only wish for the good old days, when Freddy's nails and ``Halloween'' mask turned a big profit for little investment.
``The Mangler'' is worse than most because it doesn't even deliver the suggested mayhem of its title. There's a lot of talk and some impressive sets, but the list of victims is not nearly as extensive as the fans apparently seek. (At the screening I attended, three of the seven in the audience walked out - not because they were repulsed by the violence but because there wasn't enough of it.)
The title character is a machine, a steam ironer and folder that gobbles up workers at Blue Ribbon Laundry in small-town Ryker's Valley, Maine.
The promoters have tried mightily to sell tickets by hawking the fact that this skimpy screenplay is based on a Stephen King short story. It is directed by Tobe Hooper, a director who took to a Texas chainsaw the way Romeo took to Juliet. The star is Robert Englund (from the ``Nightmare on Elm Street'' series), playing an industrial laundry owner who hobbles about on artificial legs and has a glass eye.
Add all this together and you have nothing.
The premise could have been quite funny, if only the writers had chosen to lighten up. This 5-ton machine could be a variation of the plant in ``The Little Shop of Horrors'' who hollered ``Feed me!'' That plant, though, could sing. This one just sits there. Occasionally, a screaming employee will be pressed and rolled to the tune of extended screaming. You'd think that workers might eventually get the idea that this isn't a safe working environment. Instead, they willingly put their hands, and other limbs, in the way of the machine-beast.
If this keeps up, cleanliness could be a real problem. With Alfred Hitchcock's ``Psycho'' making showers eternally suspect, now even the laundry isn't safe.
A local police officer, who looks more like a scroungy bum, eventually gets the idea that something is awry. He and a cohort decide that the machine is ``possessed'' and perform an exorcism. Armed with a small vial of holy water and some bad lines, this turns out to be the silliest scene in the movie.
There is one interesting factor in ``The Mangler.'' The sets designed by Tony Hooper (Tobe's son) are quite Gothic in look and intricate in detail. They even have ceilings. It's nice that Tobe got his son a job, but someone should have pointed out that the setting is modern, not Victorian England. The movie, in fact, might have worked if it had been set far in the past. With a little imagination, it might have been a statement on the Industrial Revolution. But that would have been another movie.
Oh well. You don't expect much if you buy a ticket to a movie called ``The Mangler.'' It's surprising, though, that you get this little. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
NEW LINE CINEMA
Robert Englund and his conspirator, Lisa Morris, make a sacrifice in
``The Mangler.''
Graphic
MOVIE REVIEW
``The Mangler''
Cast: Robert Englund, Ted Levine, Daniel Matmor
Director: Tobe Hooper
Screenplay: Tobe Hooper, Stephen Brooks, Peter Welbeck
Music: Barrington Pheloung
MPAA rating: R (bloody gore, lots of talk about sacrificing
virgins, the usual)
Mal's rating: 1/2 star
Locations: Chesapeake Square in Chesapeake; Circle 6 and Main
Gate in Norfolk; Kemps River and Lynnhaven Mall in Virginia Beach
by CNB