FuzzyTagz
If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.
Adeel Hail
Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.
Jonah Abbott
There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.
aries01
I watched this film a few years back, while I was very bored; I was told it was very bad (I had the tape wedged under my TV up to that point, now its in the tape collection!). This film is about a demon/devilish laundry machine which was found in pieces at a junk shop and reconstructed by a repair man, as his new home washing/ironing machine (possibly because he needed a cheap one and wanted a nostalgic appliance). Little did he know it was possessed (or the parts where; they where from the original machine in the mangler 1995). As he builds they machine it comes to life and the repair man is forced to fuse with it and is made to do its bidding. He now has to find victims, mainly customers to feed to the machine, so he can drink the by-products; this makes him live as the fusing had turned him into a zombie and he would now decay without feeding on it. The music really went with the film and made the atmosphere feel like the machine was going to jump out at any given moment (but it does not, as it hides in the shadows all the time). It was a fairly low budget film and I believe it went straight to tape, its about as scary as an over rated hair drier
Paul Andrews
The Mangler Reborn starts as Jamie Blake (Aimee Brooks) arrives home after she gets the sack from her job only to find out that her husband is leaving her, can her day get any worse? Sure it can, a water pipe could break & she could call repair man Hadley Watson (Weston Blakesley) who in fact might turn out to be possessed by an evil laundry mangler & kidnaps female victims to shove in the mangler & get, well, mangled. Of course the odds of that happening are slim but it still happens anyway. Back at Watson's house where the evil laundry mangler resides he throw's Jamie into a room & locks the door, however unbeknown to either Jamie or Watson father & son burglary team Rick (Reggie Bannister) & Mike (Scott Speiser) are also trapped inside the house after the decided to rob it. Can the terrified survivors escape from the house & avoid becoming mangled in the mangler?Written & directed by Erik Gardner & Matt Cunningham this sequel to Tobe Hooper's horror flick The Mangler (1995) turned out a whole lot better than I had expected, I mean I hoped for the best but feared the worst & I have to say I even quite liked certain parts of this. At this point I should also add that it has no connection to The Mangler 2 (2001) which doesn't feature any possessed laundry machines & is one of the worst films of all time. Clocking in at just under the 80 minute mark at least the film is short & to the point, although the story is undeniably silly as it revolves around a possessed laundry press but the script takes itself extremely seriously & tries to generate a fair amount of intensity which it is partially successful at. While watching The Mangler Reborn I couldn't help but be reminded of Wes Craven's excellent The People Under the Stairs (1991) with the plot about burglars breaking into a house, becoming trapped inside by the lunatic owners & facing all sorts of evil & danger. I thought the character's were better fleshed out & written than usual for a low budget horror, for instance when Mike discovers what is going on he actually tries to leave Jamie behind & save himself just like most people would in reality or at the end when Jamie escapes her room instead of just running she tries to lock the door trapping Watson inside & it just comes across like the character's are actually thinking & reacting like a proper person would. Well, that's what I thought anyway. The one big downer is that it gets fairly repetitive being set in the same house for the entirety of the film & the twist sequel driven ending isn't great after having the balls to kill everyone off including all the good guy's as well there's a ending which seems to contradict previous events in the film.Going straight-to-DVD I quite liked the simple way this was shot, there's no altering the speed of shot's, there's no colour bleaches or filters, there's no quick 'blink and you will miss it' editing & there's no shaky 'what's going on' hand-held camcorder photography. Basically you can see what's going on at all times & it's nice & clear which works for me. This is probably a bit gorier than the average straight-to-DVD low budget horror film & thankfully there's not a single horrible CGI computer effect in sight, a woman shoves her high heel shoe in someone's ear & there's a close-up as he pulls it out, there's a fair amount of blood splatter & some close-ups of people being put into the mangler & being stabbed & mangled. The mangler itself looks a bit silly as it has a conveyor belt lined with robotic style arms with knives attached.With a supposed budget of about $200,000 this is nothing more than competent & looks basic but at least you can see what's happening. Filmed in Los Angeles apparently. The acting is OK, a special mention goes to Aimee Brooks who is a very nice looking young lady if you know what I mean. Genre fans might recognise Reggie Bannister from the Phantasm series in which he plays Reggie.The Mangler Reborn turned out a whole lot better than I expected & with some fairly intense scenes, a very attractive leading lady & some decent gore I have to say this exceeded my expectations. It is certainly a lot better than The Mangler 2 & looks like Citizen Kane (1941) by comparison.
Michael O'Keefe
Hadley(Weston Blakesley) is an out of work repairman, upon finding parts from the original laundry folding machine dubbed 'The Mangler', he becomes so obsessed he spends his time reinventing the hellish machine. Hadley eventually becomes possessed by the new generation 'Mangler' and goes on a killing spree to keep the machine fed. Hadley actually is the living form of the machine and keeps women trapped in his house; and before decaying, he must survive by making use of the fresh victims.This movie is pretty dreadful. There is bloody violence and gore and out of curiosity is worth seeing at least once. Credited cast includes: Reggie Bannister, Aimee Brooks, Juliana Dever, Mike Dever and Renee Dorian.
jaywolfenstien
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.
