In the first few minutes of The Mangler Reborn, I was thinking, “Oh, no…” The acting was really bad, and the whole thing looked rather cheesy. But before I could complete that thought, things got a lot better. The creepy, cool score by Climax Golden Twins lured me in, and as the story unfolded (and spindled and mutilated…) I got pretty wrapped up in the whole thing.

The Mangler Reborn is a sequel to Tobe Hooper’s The Mangler (based on a Stephen King short story about a possessed industrial laundry machine, published in Night Shift), and while the setting is not as grand as the first movie, this follow up is wisely less ambitious. This time the machine is scaled-down, but no less bloodthirsty. Bits and pieces of The Mangler are in the possession of a stony-faced fix-it man (Weston Blakesley), who first feeds it his family, then a string of hapless victims including a father/son burglar team (Reggie Bannister and Scott Speiser) who die splendidly.

Directors Matt Cunningham and Erik Gardner do a nice job with the set-up and the gory “munching machine” sequences, but the story sags in the middle due to overly-long dialogue indulgences and needless exposition. Still, there’s just enough black humor, mallet bashing, and knife-stabs to keep the machine fed and happy.

Additional release material includes an extensive behind the scenes video which covers everything from the actors to the special effects to the stunts. Unless you’re a friend or family member of those involved, you probably won’t be able to stick with the whole documentary.

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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson