"The Mangler" | |
---|---|
Short story by Stephen King | |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Genre(s) | Horror, short story |
Publication | |
Published in | Night Shift , Stephen King Goes to the Movies |
Publisher | Doubleday |
Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
Publication date | 1978 |
"The Mangler" is a short story by Stephen King, first published in the December 1972 issue of Cavalier magazine, and later collected in King's 1978 collection Night Shift .
"The Mangler" is set in an American town, and the action largely takes place in an industrial laundry. Stephen King has stated that, among the many jobs he took to support his family before he became famous, he worked in an industrial laundry. [1]
Police detective John Hunton investigates a fatal accident at the Blue Ribbon Laundry in which worker Adelle Frawley was killed. Frawley was somehow pulled into the laundry's speed ironing and folding machine, which the workers colloquially refer to as "the mangler." Hunton is disturbed by the sight of Frawley's grisly remains and expects that the laundry's owners will be jailed for negligence in Frawley's death, but he is surprised when a formal inquest absolves the laundry of any wrongdoing. Roger Martin, an inspector involved with the inquest, informs Hunton that a thorough inspection of the mangler revealed no problems with it, and that the machine is equipped with safety measures designed specifically to prevent exactly what happened to Frawley; the accident that killed her should have been impossible.
Over the days that follow, more accidents occur at the Blue Ribbon. A steam line feeding the mangler ruptures, burning several laundry workers, and foreman George Stanner is later maimed when the machine nearly pulls him in just as it did Frawley, forcing a maintenance man to sever Stanner's arm with a fire axe in order to save his life. Witnesses report that the mangler could not be shut off, even after its fuses had been pulled, and that the strange incidents involving the speed ironer began about a week before Frawley's death, when young worker Sherry Ouelette accidentally cut her finger and spilled her blood on the machine. Hunton interviews Ouelette and learns that she is a virgin.
Hunton's friend Mark Jackson, an English professor with an interest in occult literature, hypothesizes that through a confluence of unrelated events, the mangler has incidentally consumed several ingredients (the blood of a virgin, from Ouelette; bat's blood, from a bat nesting in the decrepit laundry; and horse's hoof from a container of Jell-O in a bag lunch) that are commonly used in occult rituals, inadvertently summoning a demon that has now possessed the mangler. To remove it, Hunton and Jackson prepare to exorcise the machine. They are concerned that the ingredients used in the summoning might include belladonna (referred to in Jackson's archaic texts as "the hand of glory"), which would call a significantly stronger demon, but they discount this possibility as the plant is not indigenous to the area. The two men travel to the Blue Ribbon to conduct the exorcism.
Unbeknownst to Hunton and Jackson, the mangler has consumed belladonna, as it was an active ingredient in antacid tablets that Frawley accidentally dropped into the mangler shortly before her death. As a result, their attempt to exorcise the machine fails, and instead of weakening the demon, the botched ritual only serves to strengthen it. The mangler begins to rip itself loose from the concrete floor of the laundry, "like a dinosaur trying to escape a tar pit," and kills Jackson.
Hunton flees to the home of Roger Martin and implores him to destroy the mangler before collapsing in a faint. Martin picks up the telephone, but before he can call anyone, he realizes from the increasingly loud metallic sounds outside and the scent of blood in the air that the mangler has already broken free of its moorings and is now roaming the streets in search of prey.
This story was adapted for the screenplay of a 1995 film (directed by Tobe Hooper) of the same title, though the brevity of the source material required significant additions not present in the original tale. The film, starring Robert Englund (of Freddy Krueger fame), was followed by two sequels, The Mangler 2 and The Mangler Reborn . Both are alternating sequels to the first film.
A demon is a malevolent supernatural entity. Historically, belief in demons, or stories about demons, occurs in folklore, mythology, religion, and literature; these beliefs are reflected in media including comics, fiction, film, television, and video games. Belief in demons probably goes back to the Paleolithic age, stemming from humanity's fear of the unknown, the strange and the horrific. In ancient Near Eastern religions and in the Abrahamic religions, including early Judaism and ancient-medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered a harmful spiritual entity that may cause demonic possession, calling for an exorcism. Large portions of Jewish demonology, a key influence on Christianity and Islam, originated from a later form of Zoroastrianism, and was transferred to Judaism during the Persian era.
A grimoire is a textbook of magic, typically including instructions on how to create magical objects like talismans and amulets, how to perform magical spells, charms, and divination, and how to summon or invoke supernatural entities such as angels, spirits, deities, and demons. In many cases, the books themselves are believed to be imbued with magical powers. The only contents found in a grimoire would be information on spells, rituals, the preparation of magical tools, and lists of ingredients and their magical correspondences. In this manner, while all books on magic could be thought of as grimoires, not all magical books should be thought of as grimoires.
Necromancy is the practice of magic involving communication with the dead by summoning their spirits as apparitions or visions for the purpose of divination; imparting the means to foretell future events and discover hidden knowledge. Sometimes categorized under death magic, the term is occasionally also used in a more general sense to refer to black magic or witchcraft as a whole.
The Body is a novella by American writer Stephen King. The Body was published in King's 1982 collection Different Seasons and later adapted into the 1986 film Stand by Me.
Flying ointment is a hallucinogenic ointment said to have been used by witches in the practice of European witchcraft from at least as far back as the Early Modern period, when detailed recipes for such preparations were first recorded and when their usage spread to colonial North America.
The Gate is a 1987 supernatural horror film directed by Tibor Takács and starring Stephen Dorff in his film debut. The film follows two young boys who accidentally release a horde of demons from their backyard through a large hole in the ground.
Roadwork is a thriller novel by American writer Stephen King, published in 1981 under the pseudonym Richard Bachman as a paperback original. It was collected in 1985 in the hardcover omnibus The Bachman Books. The story takes place in an unnamed city of the Midwestern United States in 1972–1974. Grieving over the death of his son and the disintegration of his marriage, a man is driven to mental instability when he learns that both his home and his workplace will be demolished to make way for an extension to an interstate highway. A film adaptation of the novel was announced in August 2019, with Pablo Trapero as director and Andy Muschietti and Barbara Muschietti as producers.
Seven Seas Entertainment is an American publishing company located in Los Angeles, California. It was originally dedicated to the publication of original English-language manga, but now publishes licensed manga and light novels from Japan, as well as select webcomics. The company is headed by Jason DeAngelis, who coined the term "world manga" with the October 2004 launch of the company's website.
Books of Blood is a series of six horror fiction anthologies collecting original stories written by British author, playwright, and filmmaker Clive Barker in 1984 and 1985. Known primarily for writing stage plays beforehand, Barker gained a wider audience and fanbase through this anthology series, leading to a successful career as a novelist. Originally presented as six volumes, the anthologies were subsequently re-published in two omnibus editions containing three volumes each. Each volume contains four, five or six stories. The Volume 1–3 omnibus contained a foreword by Barker's fellow Liverpudlian horror writer Ramsey Campbell. Author Stephen King praised Books of Blood, leading to a quote from him appearing on the first US edition of the book: "I have seen the future of horror and his name is Clive Barker."
De Vermis Mysteriis, or Mysteries of the Worm, is a fictional grimoire created by Robert Bloch and incorporated by H. P. Lovecraft into the lore of the Cthulhu Mythos.
Occult detective fiction is a subgenre of detective fiction that combines the tropes of the main genre with those of supernatural, fantasy and/or horror fiction. Unlike the traditional detective who investigates murder and other common crimes, the occult detective is employed in cases involving ghosts, demons, curses, magic, vampires, undead, monsters and other supernatural elements. Some occult detectives are portrayed as being psychic or in possession of other paranormal or magical powers.
The Mangler is a 1995 horror film directed by Tobe Hooper and written by Hooper and Harry Alan Towers. The film is based upon the Stephen King 1972 short story of the same name, which appeared in his 1978 inaugural short story collection Night Shift. It stars Robert Englund and Ted Levine. It also spawned two direct-to-video sequels, The Mangler 2 and The Mangler Reborn.
Room 401 is a hidden camera/reality television series on MTV executive produced by Ashton Kutcher and Jason Goldberg. It is named after the room Harry Houdini died in at Detroit's Grace Hospital in 1926. The show also used some of his famous acts.
The Mangler Reborn is a 2005 American horror film and the third entry in the Mangler film series based on a 1972 short story by Stephen King. The film was released straight to DVD on November 29, 2005 by Lions Gate Entertainment and Baseline StudioSystems. Directors Gardner and Cunningham intended the film to be a "rebirth" of the film franchise, with the film not requiring viewers to have seen the prior two films. It is an alternate sequel to the first film instead of The Mangler 2.
Abaddon, a name given to an angel, a demon or a place of destruction, has appeared many times in works of literature, films, television and popular culture.
The Mangler 2 is a 2002 Canadian horror film and a direct-to-video sequel to the 1995 theatrical release The Mangler, which was based on a 1972 short story of the same name by Stephen King. It stars Lance Henriksen and Chelse Swain. While the original was about a demon-possessed industrial laundry-machine, this film places the demon in a private school's computer network, where it manifests as a destructive computer virus with some of the same abilities as a ouija board.
The Magical Treatise of Solomon, also known as the Hygromanteia or Solomonikê, is a collection of late Byzantine-era grimoires written in medieval Greek. A pseudepigraphon, the book purports to contain Solomon's instructions to his son Rehoboam on various magical techniques and tools to summon and control different spirits and their powers, astrological beliefs, select charms, different means of divination, and the magical uses of herbs. The Magical Treatise survives in fragments from a number of manuscripts dating from the 15th century CE. The book has been important for the history of European magic, serving as a link between the earlier Greek magical practices and the later grimoires of Western Europe. During the early modern period, the book begun to be translated in Latin, becoming the source for future European grimoires, most notably the Key of Solomon.
Faith is a survival horror video game developed by Airdorf Games for Windows. The game consists of three chapters; the first two were self-published by Airdorf Games in October 2017 and February 2019 respectively, while the third was published by New Blood Interactive in October 2022 as part of Faith: The Unholy Trinity, a compilation of all three chapters with additional features. The game uses retro graphics similar to the graphics of an Apple II or Atari 2600.