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Stars: Robert Englund, Ted Levine,
Daniel Matmor, and Jeremy Crutch
Writers: Tobe Hooper, Stephen
Brooks, and Peter Welbeck
Based On The Short Story By:
Stephen King
Director: Tobe Hooper
Feature length: 106 minutes
Extras: Alternate Edit Comparison
and Theatrical Trailer
Languages: English DTS Digital 5.1
Theatrical Surround Sound, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound, and Dolby Surround
Sound
Subtitles: English Captions and
Closed Captions and Spanish Language Subtitles
Packaging: Keep Case
Chapter Stops: 21
Sound: DTS Digital 5.1 Theatrical
Surround Sound, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound, and Dolby Surround Sound
Year of Theatrical Release: 1994/DVD
Release: 2004
Theatrical Distributor: New Line
Cinema
Home Video Distributor: New Line
Home Entertainment
MPAA Rating: R
Reviewer: Mark A. Rivera
I got to hand it to Stephen King
because not only is he great and highly successful writer, but I think if Mr.
King scrawled a paragraph on toilet paper in a gas station bathroom, sooner or
later someone will option the movie rights and try and produce a film based on
it. Make no mistake “The Mangler” is a turkey of a film, but if anything has
garnered my increased respect for horror films since I began reviewing films
back in 1998, it is that horror as a genre can have just as much of a comment on
modern times as the sci-fi genre and perhaps can even present a more subversive
edge than many other forms of literature and media in general. If you forgive
the silliness of the premise and just buy into my madness for the next paragraph
or so hopefully you will give this film another chance. The town of Rikers
Valley, which prides itself as “The Industrial Heart Of Maine” with a
curious graveyard right behind the welcoming sign has enjoyed an abnormal amount
of ideal prosperity for the wealthy and powerful while the poor either slave
away at a factory or serve in civil service type positions like Law Enforcement.
Curiously everyone seems to have stomach problems and take some over the counter
medication with belladonna as one of the active ingredients.
The biggest cause of crime has been the curious disappearance of
sixteen-year-old girls over the years and a rash of maiming accidents that have
caused key figures in the town to lose an appendage or limb. After a woman is
diced in a folding machine nicknamed “The Mangler,” a Police Detective (Ted
Levine) investigates the possibility that the accident might have been foul
play. Yet at nearly every turn his superiors who appear to be on the payroll of
the town’s elite citizens block him from carrying out a concise investigation.
As he continues his investigations he discovers some frightening ties between
the influential citizens of Rikers Valley and the occult.
Let me lay it all flat now, the
town is like a purgatory for those who have sold their souls to secure their
wealth and status and a jail for the poor who slave away in an inferno of a
factory or are employed to ensure that no one does anything to upset the balance
of the prison that the town of Rikers Valley really is. Regardless of what you
believe in or not, ritualistic murder has been connected to the disappearance of
children all over the country for decades. Just look on an Internet search
engine and run the gambit between mainstream and alternative media and you will
see that there has at least been some kernel of truth to this. The idea of
greedy people selling their souls and sacrificing their children or even a part
of themselves and subsequently harboring of part of the demon with them is also
not exactly unheard of either in folklore. So in a sense what is going on in
“The Mangler” is that everyone is caught in a Satanic “Matrix” because
they’ve “sold their soul to the company store” or have been enslaved
without even any knowledge of how it all happened and why and of course some
don’t even know it. Take out all of the occult stuff and “The Mangler” can
be an allegory for the plight of the working class in an America where their
jobs are more likely to be outsourced and thus it is a symbolic walking death
because it appears that many corporations with their payoffs to politicians
worship the almighty dollar exclusively while their employees are fodder for
“The Mangler” system that exploits the resources and spits out anything it
doesn’t need regardless.
Now you can say I’ve stretched
it, but I’m not saying “The Mangler” is a great piece of American cinema.
All I’m saying is that even hidden a film that is totally misconceived, there
can be something interesting hidden beneath all the storytelling conventions.
Director Tobe Hooper directed the original miniseries adaptation of Stephen
King’s “Salem’s Lot” and he cast Actor Robert Englund in his follow-up
to “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” entitled “Eaten Alive” too. Englund
camps up his role in this feature and at times looks like he is trying to
channel “Popeye” into his performance, but everyone in the film is trying
there best to treat the material given with as much dignity as possible, but I
guess camping it up was one of a few ways to get through the film in one piece
(no pun intended). Actor Jeremy Crutch pulled double duty as a quirky mortician
and a creepy photographer and while the old age makeup is not exactly
convincing, he is still unrecognizable enough to play the two roles in the film.
I credit New Line Home
Entertainment with this standard DVD release because even with a film that is
not on the “A List” of their catalogue, they still strive to deliver a good
transfer and more soundtrack options that other studios provide for many of
their DVD releases. For the first time ever, “The Mangler” is presented in
an anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) aspect ratio and while there is a bit of video
noise in some scenes, overall I think the transfer is quite good with some
beautiful glossy scenes where the colors really just burst out to create a sense
of mood in the film. A well-rounded English DTS Digital 5.1 Theatrical Surround
Soundtrack as well as an English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Soundtrack is
provided along with an English Dolby Surround Soundtrack and English Captions
and Closed Captions for the hearing and Spanish Language Subtitles encoded as
options onto the dual layered DVD.
While only the R-rated version of
“The Mangler” is presented on DVD, there is a comparison with the theatrical
version on top and the unrated version on the bottom of the screen is presented
for three key scenes of characters getting mangled (5:33). The theatrical
trailer (1:23) is presented with full 5.1 Surround Soundtrack as are a reel of
bonus trailers for other films available on DVD now from New Line Home
Entertainment that includes “The Hidden” and “Critters” (4:07). The
interactive menus feature animated transitions and full motion scene selection
screens and all are easy to navigate.
See it for yourself when “The
Mangler” debuts on DVD-Video at retailers on and offline on Tuesday, August
17, 2004 from New Line Home Entertainment.
© Copyright 2004 By Mark A.
Rivera
All Rights Reserved.
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