IMDb > The Mangler Reborn (2005) (V) > IMDb user reviews

IMDb user comments for
The Mangler Reborn (2005) (V) More at IMDbPro »

Filter: Hide Spoilers:
Page 1 of 4:[1] [2] [3] [4] [Next]
Index 31 reviews in total 

9 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
A cyclic exercise in monotony, 16 August 2006
Author: jaywriterXIII from USA

Imagine reading a book where Chapter One features a character named Rick trying to perform a task. Let's say he's trying to fix a computer. And in chapter one, Rick ultimately fails to get the job done. Now, imagine in Chapter Two a character named Mike tries to fix that exact same computer. Mike, too, fails. Then in Chapter Three the author introduces us to Jaimie who tackles the project, trying to correct what Mike screwed up, and solve the original problem ...

Now I ask, dear reader, what's the point? Ultimately, Mangler Reborn tells the story of three (technically four) characters one by one trying and failing to accomplish the exact same thing – escape from the house. This is a movie about futility, failure, and monotonous repetition. It spends most of its running time showing Rick trying and failing to pick practically every lock he comes across, exploring the seemingly abandoned house, hiding from the killer, trying to escape, and then dying. Then the film moves on to Mike who repeats the cycle, then the film continues on to Jaimie and her fellow prisoner.

Oh yeah, the ending of the film implies that the cycle continues indefinitely.

Mangler Reborn is a reality TV show for a possessed psychopath. The victims are not people, but rather chores for Hadley Watson to clean up. Loose screws that inconvenience him and wander around his domain for 15-30 minutes at a time before he finally breaks out the screw driver (or more literally: rubber mallet) and fixes the problem.

Over the last century of horror films, we've watched the villains go from tortured miserable yet strangely sympathetic souls to faceless killing machines who refuse to die. And then you reach the sad and depressing realization that not even the victims in this horror film, people destined to die terrible and bloody deaths, receive any sympathetic touches from the filmmakers.

I rooted for Rick purely for actor Reggie Bannister and his role in the Phantasm series. Mike? I didn't really care about him, especially after wasting my time trying and failing at the same things Rick failed at. Jamie? I hoped Jamie would survive solely because I was tired of watching failure after failure after failure to escape. I wanted Jamie to succeed just to break the monotony of the preceding 60 minutes. Nowhere did I root for a character because I liked the character or felt the character was competent, and nowhere did I get the sensation that any of these guys had enough screen time and development to carry the label "main character." Just fodder.

Thus, Mangler Reborn is a cold, mechanical, formulated, and emotionless journey. Perhaps that's satisfactory for the titular character, a cold, mechanical, emotionless machine; however, the horror genre is rooted in (dare I say "dependant upon") human emotional reaction and psychological manipulation. This film, unfortunately, treats its characters, its victims, like line items on the killer's grocery list and nothing more.

Then again, it's just as well. Even if Reborn did manage to muster the emotional investment to truly invoke horror, without a main character it lacks a focal point to channel it through.

As much as I want to be forgiving for the film's technical merits, because some of my favorite horror films were small independent and very limited productions, because I hate big-production studio PG13-ized remakes as much as the next horror fan and want to see the little guys succeed (Lord knows we need another John Carpenter) … I can't forgive Mangler Reborn. Like its (many) characters, the film tries but ultimately fails.

Was the above comment useful to you?

20 out of 31 people found the following review useful:
this movie sucks, 5 December 2005
1/10
Author: (digital_up)

There was absolutely nothing else to rent at the video store so we ended up renting this movie thinking it would be alright. Boy, were we wrong! It was a total waste of time and money. The acting was amateur and the plot had no twists and was not thought out. The "machine" was pathetic. The whole movie basically took place in that house and there could not have been more then 10 people in the cast. It seems like a low budget movie and the special effects were terrible. Most of the movie did not have any music, but when there was, the music was annoying rather then adding suspense.

I would not recommend this movie to anyone.

Was the above comment useful to you?

6 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
Really low budgeted, but decent in it's own way., 14 January 2006
Author: Prolox from Canada

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

A repairman buys pieces taken from the possessed laundry machine that liked to chew people up & spit them out into a bloody pulp in the original MANGLER, only to find that the evil spirit has never left the machines pieces & soon forces him to build it a mechanical body, then the thing takes complete possession of him as well, forcing him to abduct & then kill his customers & feed them to it, soon a young girl is abducted in her home & her only chance for survival lies in the hands of two criminals who have the misfortune of picking out his house to rob, when trying to escape, they find out that only he can unlock the doors & the windows have been all bricked up, so there is no chance for an escape. THE MANGLER REBORN is a sequel to the first film only, ignoring the second film (Which had nothing to do with Part 1) MANGLER REBORN has a few weird & creepy moments running through it that should please horror fans, despite the fact that it's extremely low budgeted ($85,000) & lacks the snazzy look the first two had. The directing was fairly well done & the actors were fun to watch including AIMIEE BROOKS (CRITTERS 3) & REGGIE BANNISTER (PHANTASM 1-4) who is an absolute hoot to watch as the chain smoking & bad nerved robber. And I loved the new Mangler machine! Still the films low budget shows at times (Pretty much all of the film is set in a small house) & the last 5 minutes of the film falls flat on it's face. The ending also ends leaving us a set up for a Mangler 4. Not as good as the first & probably would have been a bit better as a stand alone, but if you liked the first two MANGLER movies...

*** stars

Was the above comment useful to you?

4 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Maytag Repair Man, 6 May 2007
2/10
Author: spider63 from United States

Did you ever wonder what the Maytag Repair Man was doing with all his spare time? Well, if you watch The Mangler Reborn, you will get a good idea of what happens when a repair man has too much time on his hands. In this case, Hadley gets the Mangler Pressing Machine and starts to put it together. I saw the original Mangler at the theater, and it was a very large commercial laundry press. So when Hadley (in this movie) claims he is building it in a spare room, I figured the movie would really suck, and it did.

Needless to say, Hadley did not rebuild The Mangler. Instead, he went to Home Depot and bought some clearance bits of metal and attached a Ginsu knife set to the contraption. You never actually see The Mangler, just the cheap looking arms with the cleavers attached to the ends. Hadley now goes out on his repair calls so he can kidnap his customers and feed them to The Mangler. You can bet he is not getting much repeat business.

Reggie Bannister eventually breaks into the home where The Mangler is located, and in spite of the fact that Hadley keeps walking in through the open garage door, Reggie and the other victims cannot find the garage, much less the open door. What would be the point of spending more time describing this movie? It is really silly, and the victims literally help Hadley put them into The Mangler.

The guy who plays Hadley has a good face for a horror movie. The bugged-out eyes help him look menacing, but the fact is that Hadley is about sixty years old and he has a big belly which means that all his victims have to run away VERY SLOWLY and also trip a few times so that Hadley can catch up to them. The funniest part of this movie is that Hadley knocks out all his victims with a rubber mallet. Just hearing the sound effects when he is bonking people on the head is worth a few laughs.

Was the above comment useful to you?

2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
"Mangler" Sequel Genuinely Works Some of the Time, 24 May 2007
6/10
Author: splatterpunk_213 from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

This movie unsettled and creeped me out a little, in spite of its problems.

I find it more challenging to appreciate a movie than to make fun of it. I save that for special occasions, like the "Omen" remake. So, briefly, here are the problems I had with the film: Some of the dialogue, makeup effects and sound effects in this film are hokey. But apart from that and I found no other major problems with the film, and I think it did its job.

Here was what I liked about "The Mangler Reborn": It has a genuinely claustrophobic setting, a creepy soundtrack, and a nasty attitude. Also of note, a majority of its blood, gore and dialogue is effective. The acting is even pretty good for a direct to video feature. Plus, Reggie Bannister's in it, and damn it, I like him.

6 stars out of 10. You might like it.

Was the above comment useful to you?

3 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
We Like Aimee Brooks, 26 March 2006
5/10
Author: aimless-46 from Kentucky

While "The Mangler Reborn" is certainly not a masterpiece, it is better than what is reflected in most comments about the film. It is a rare example of a low budget horror film that is played totally straight, no humor and very little self-parody.

With a budget of just $85,000 they had to be very inventive so don't expect elaborate production design or special effects. The title character looks like a cafeteria dishwasher being operated by "Edward Scissorhands". They try to pass the thing off as sinister by always showing it in shadows. When a victim is fed to the thing they change to very tight shots of knives and clippers, trying to make it seem like they are part of the machine rather than being held by crew members off-camera. Obviously the film would benefit from a more elaborate and diabolical device, or at least one with some credibility.

But the Stephen King inspired premise is a good one and the first two thirds of the film set it all up very nicely. It is almost captivating for a while but finally runs out of gas and plods through the final 30 minutes.

An appliance repairman (Weston Blakesley) has acquired the cursed parts from the original "Mangler" (named for the old-style washing machine with external rollers to squeeze the water out of clothes) and is obsessively working to reinvent the lethal thing. Eventually he becomes possessed by the machine and more zombie than human. He must feed it humans because he needs to drink their "squeezins" to keep his zombie body from decaying.

Blakesley is quite credible as the slack jawed zombie who takes a rubber mallet on his repair calls and acquires his victims from among his customers. His life is complicated when a father and son burglar team (Reggie Bannister and Scott Speiser) attempt to rob his house and when his daughter comes for a visit.

Aimee Brooks gets a whole bunch of standard scream queen moments and is extremely attractive.

The main problem is that not enough happens to sustain an eighty-minute feature. Had a parallel story periodically cut in and built up a bit of suspense, "The Mangler Reborn" could have been a engaging little film.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

Was the above comment useful to you?

3 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
The Mangler Re-Bored, 31 January 2006
2/10
Author: ghoulieguru from The Movie Crypt

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Reggie Bannister from the Phantasm movies makes his move away from Don Coscarelli in this pitiful would-be sequel to the Mangler. The original, which was based partially on a Stephen King short story, was about a laundry machine that ate people. Robert Englund played the psychotic owner of the laundry who fed people to the machine. It was basically Little Shop of Horrors with a laundry machine instead of a plant.

This one jettisoned the supernatural laundry machine and went for a more straightforward serial killer tale. The story is about a repairman who buys the old Mangler on eBay and starts restoring it in his basement. Once the machine nears completion, it possesses him and turns him into its minion. The rest of the movie is about this repairman going around and getting meat for his machine. There's a lot of screaming done by women as he hits them repeatedly with a hammer. I have to wonder about the two guys that wrote and directed this movie, and where this misogynistic streak is coming from.

It seems like the writers/directors were going for that unrelenting Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Haute Tension, Saw, Hostel kind of vibe that seems to be all the rage these days. But the Mangler Reborn wound up being unrelenting only in its capacity to bore me.

Was the above comment useful to you?

1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Did I just watch that?, 8 April 2007
1/10
Author: wolfbeast from Netherlands

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I honestly can't believe that this bears the same title as the first Mangler movie. It has very little to do with the original story and is more a tale of someone going obsessive and totally losing it than it has anything to do with possession. The contraption he builds based on an apparently antique machine is a strange gathering of knives and cleavers attached to rickety arms, that looks more like a kid's attempt at building a "machine" than anything else. Kudos for the main "possessed" guy's acting though, he is totally devoid of emotion, but otherwise, the acting is horrible, the plot (what plot?) is horrible, full of holes like for instance some big burly guy not being able to find his way out of a large wooden house... Come on! It's by far the worst execution of a gore horror movie I have ever seen put to video.

Avoid this one folks, you'll want the 1.5 hours of your life back after having watched it.

Was the above comment useful to you?

2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
This movie can be summed up in one word.., 15 January 2006
2/10
Author: flawfan1 from Louisville

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

HORRIBLE! OK, I usually don't take the time to write movie reviews on these sites but this movie was so bad that I actually felt like I wasted 2 hours of my life on it.. and if I can just convince one other person NOT to watch it then I will feel a little better.

Let me just start with the positive. A hot chick got naked. And that's it. The story was horrible. The acting was horrible. The plot was horrible. The "machine" was horrible. The dialog was horrible. Me and my girlfriend both actually busted out laughing several times at how stupid the characters were... and she couldn't sleep after watching "Army of Darkness" (a comedy horror) so that should tell you something.

Now, on to the movie. If anyone has ever been frustrated by a movie where a girl is getting chased by a killer and trips and falls and takes ten minutes to get up then don't even put this movie in your DVD players because that's how the entire movie felt for me. Just when you thought something stupid and unrealistic happens.. something even more stupid and unrealistic happens 10 seconds later. FOR INSTANCE... the "burglars" pick the killer's deadbolt on his back door in like 2 seconds but when it shuts behind them they are like "OH MY GOD, WE ARE LOCKED IN!" What, does picking a lock only work from the outside? Or how about that when they are outside of the house they can see in the windows and he actually goes and looks into one of the windows before he breaks in but when they are getting chased all of the sudden the windows are all bricked up. Or when the guy looks up at the ceiling and sees a n access to the attic then the next shot he is in it... how the hell someone gets into the attic from 10 feet below in 2 seconds without a ladder or chair baffles me. Or when he is in the attic looking at the killer putting a wallet into a drawer he whispers "he's going to bed"... how in the hell you can tell someone is going to bed just by putting something in a drawer makes no sense to me. Or maybe it's that the killers uses a stupid rubber mallet the whole movie and not a single victim in the movie ever thinks, "Hey, he's just an old, fat man with a rubber mallet... I think we can take him." Or when the killer falls asleep in a chair (isn't it convenient that he falls asleep in the middle of the day even tho he knows people are running around his house?) And while he is asleep the younger robber sneaks up and takes his keys... why didn't he just bash him over the head with that wonderfully effective rubber mallet? I could go on and on but I think I've wasted enough of my time already.

DON'T WATCH THIS MOVIE!

Was the above comment useful to you?

Badder could not be worse than that, 24 December 2008
3/10
Author: Dr Jacques COULARDEAU from Olliergues, France

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

How strange Stephen King sells his name and reputation for those Z series films that obviously only aim at making money, and even not too much, but with a small budget to start with it is not so bad after all. That Mangler should never have been reborn. The original was at least the morbid fantasizing of what Stephen King suffered in the summer when he was a high school teacher: he worked in a laundry factory and he worked with such pressing machines that could turn criminal, with no security and the bosses who did not want to spend one cent on security, as if blue collar workers were supposed to be kept secure. After all, accidents were the privilege of all these salary-hungry people. But in this film we are left with a Joe the plumber turned vampire and the Mangler is his revived invention, machine or whatever that provides him with his pint of blood everyday. It is not even entertaining. Too gross to be, too disgusting to even be horrible or terrible, certainly not even terrific, though after a little while you may have some sudden desire to vomit. Have some good blood cocktail on the house.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

Was the above comment useful to you?
Page 1 of 4:[1] [2] [3] [4] [Next]

Add another review

Related Links

Ratings External reviews Plot keywords
Main details Your user reviews Your vote history