AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Skyler Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Jerrie It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

gavin6942 A laundry folding machine is possessed by a demon from Hell.The reviews for "The Mangler" are predominantly bad. Richard Harrington wrote, "The Mangler is ludicrous from start to finish: its plot lines dangle, its effects fail to dazzle and the acting and directing are uniformly bad... even the least demanding of genre fans will be hard-pressed to tremble in its presence." This is partially true. The plot is not as strong as it could be, but it does have a few nice touches, most notably the gore.Mike Long rated it 0.5/5 stars and wrote, "There have been many bad, throw-away projects based on material from Stephen King, but The Mangler has to be one of the worst. The movie's laughable premise is only brought down by the inept filmmaking on display here." Yep. The acting is pretty bad (especially the way lines are delivered), and there is just no getting around the fact this is a story about a possessed laundry machine... it might be good as a short story (I don't know), but to make it believable on screen? And I think they made at least one if not two sequels...

Max Kämmerer How do you make a horror movie about an industrial laundry machine? Well, they kinda did it alright. Now this movie is not a masterpiece by any means, but it's watchable, even entertaining. The effects are good, except maybe the CGI for the Mangler at the end. The acting is solid at times, but admittedly sub-par at others. I enjoyed the surreal ending with the Mangler (but not the one were it's revealed what happens after the horror in the town stops).The worst part of the movie is Hunton's friend the occultist, especially when he keeps talking about "virgin's blood". Robert Englund is also not appealing as Gartley, aka pirate Mr Burns, but that's mostly because the character he has to work with is ludicrous. I also had a hard time keeping Sherry and Sue apart with their curly hair. The machine itself, the Mangler, is pretty horrifying looking with all its gears and steam. The exorcism at the end is weird - them hysterically throwing sacred objects and Bible verses at the machine. And one last thing: are the police in this movie wearing old Nazi uniforms?

Michael_Elliott Mangler, The (1995) * 1/2 (out of 4) Officer John Hunton (Ted Levine) is called to the Blue Ribbon laundry factory after an elderly woman accidentally fell into the press and was killed. When Hunton arrives on the scene he's in shock at the amount of blood on the floor but he falls sick after seeing what the machine did to this woman's body. In the following days Hunton checks back with some safety officials trying to find out why the safety switch didn't go off but the safety control comes back as working so it's a mystery why this accident happened.However, soon more accidents start happening and the factories elderly owner (Robert England) seems to be keeping his mouth shut on a few things. Confused and not knowing what to do next, Hunton starts talking to his brother in law who studies occult activities and he seems to believe that this machine, known as a Manger, is alive and wanting the blood of virgin women. As more and more accidents start happening Hunton realizes that they are dealing with something alive and that the secret is with the machine's owner.Tobe Hooper is probably the most criticized horror director of the past thirty years. Outside his debut film, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre he really hasn't delivered anything worthwhile and The Mangler might very well be his worst film and that's saying a lot considering some of the films he's made. The film is based on a short story by Stephen King, which could have led to an interesting film but Hooper doesn't know how to tell a story and that really hurts things especially a film running nearly two hours, which is about one hour too long.Suspension of disbelief is the most important aspect when it comes to being a horror fan but if Hooper thinks we can hold that for two hours about a possessed laundry machine then he's got another thing coming. While watching this film I couldn't help but wonder what Hooper was thinking. The actual mystery to the laundry machine is so incredibly boring and silly that the viewer could care less how everything turns out and could care less if the machine likes virgins or not. In fact, things probably would have been better had it liked pizza that way the machine could have ordered pizza and attacked the deliver boys.The direction is all over the map because it's never quite clear what Hooper is trying to do with the film. The running time keeps it from being a clever slasher film and the low body count doesn't help matters either. Even the death scenes, which you'd expect to be over the top, are all rather bland and it takes way too long between each of them. Just when you thought thinks couldn't get any worse we get one of the dumbest and lamest endings in horror film history. The laundry machine grows CGI legs and arms and goes on the attack while our heroes try to perform an exorcism on it.There are a few saving graces in the film however and one is the opening sequence, which Hooper directs very well. Hooper does a wonderful job building up the suspense of the first attack because it's not too pleasant to see someone smashed and crewed to death by a press. The way Hooper builds this up makes one think he has returned to form but then again it all falls apart when he tries to tell the actual story. The art direction is another very big plus as is the rather awkward performance by Ted Levine from The Silence of the Lambs. I've always enjoyed him as a character actor and he makes the film a lot more interesting to watch, although I'm still not sure what's up with his accent, which is constantly changing throughout the film. Horror legend Robert England is also on hand playing a crippled, old man but he's quite awful. Certain people like Vincent Price can go over the top and still be watchable but when England goes over the top the effects are quite horrid.The Mangler was meant to be Tobe Hooper's return to form but outside that opening scene he has delivered a very bad film that doesn't have anything going for it. Perhaps if Hooper had cut the film down to eighty-minutes then something could have happened a bit better. Watching people being chewed by a press could have been interesting but we got a stupid detective story that added nothing and leaves us with a very bad horror film that should have never been made. I keep hoping Hooper will make a comeback but it hasn't happened yet in the nine years since this was released. Somehow, this film got a direct-to-video sequel in 2001

Stanley Strangelove The Blue Ribbon Laundry has a gigantic machine that presses and folds sheets. The machine has large rollers to press the laundry and generates lots of steam. It's nicknamed The Mangler. The owner of the laundry is William 'Bill' Gartley (Robert Englund) who is an S.O.B. He has a glass eye and steel legs.His 15 year old niece cuts her hand and some of her blood drops into the Mangler. It seems to like the blood. Old Mrs. Frawley is the first to go. She gets sucked into the Mangler and comes out not looking too good albeit quite a bit thinner.Officer John (Ted Levine) is dispatched to investigate.There are more accidents and more deaths and Officer John comes to the conclusion that the Mangler is possessed by a demon. Spoilers *****The rich people in the town have given a human sacrifice to the Mangler in order to stay in power. The sacrifice has to be a 16 year old and it just so happens that Sherry is turning 16. What a coincidence. Gartley knocks Sherry unconscious and takes her to the laundry to be sacrificed.The Mangler is adapted from an early Stephen King short story that appeared in the men's magazine Cavalier. The movie is yet another failure to adapt King's work to the screen. The story, while silly, is a heck of a lot better than this film. Director Tobe Hooper, who has always been incompetent, sinks to even lower depths of incompetence on this one. The Mangler is a totally worthless movie.My rating: Total Dud