The Horror Returns - THR - Ep. #305: Is it Really THAT Bad? Part 5 - The Mangler (1995) & Thinner (1996)

Episode Date: March 28, 2022

This week we are joined by very special guest, Darien Brock from The Padded Room Podcast. We bring you a special Stephen King edition of It is Really THAT Bad?, with The Mangler and Thinner. Cool of the Week includes The Cursed, Titane, and Free Guy. Trailers are Wyrmwood Apocalypse and Men. We shine the Podcast Spotlight on The Wheel of Horror, and we get feedback from Steve Carleton, Destiny Soria, Carole Cuellar, and Charles Rosenay. Thanks for listening! The Horror Returns Website: https://thehorrorreturns.com THR Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thehorrorreturns THR Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thehorrorreturns/ Join THR Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1056143707851246 THR Twitter: https://twitter.com/horror_returns?s=21&t=XKcrrOBZ7mzjwJY0ZJWrGA THR Instagram: https://instagram.com/thehorrorreturns?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= SK8ER Nez Podcast Network https://www.podbean.com/pu/pbblog-p3n57-c4166 ESP Anchor Feed: https://anchor.fm/mac-nez E Society YouTube Channel https://youtube.com/channel/UCliC6x_a7p3kTV_0LC4S10A

victims for those of you who delight and dread who fantasize about fear, who glorify gore, welcome. You have found the place where the horror returns. Listeners beware. This podcast contains major plot spoilers. and the foulest of language. Join us in celebrating the old and the new, the best, and the worst in horror. Welcome back one and all to The Horror Returns.

I'm Lance, and with me as always are my co-host, Brian and Brian. That's all we need, man. Philip may jump in later. Nez did an ex-review with us earlier. Maybe he'll jump on. Didn't sound like it. He's got family shit. And it sounds like Philip does too.

But we do have an inmate from the padded room here, if I'm not mistaken. Brian, help me out here. Yeah, great show. Dary and Brock. How you doing? Here I am. Yeah, the one, the only, dude. And sometimes lately you have been one and only on the show.

It's true. With buddy and Monica, man. These motherfuckers are like half-assing it a lot these days. You know what? I don't pay them, so they show, they show, they don't, they don't. I'll get them liquored up while they're here, but other than that, that's the best I can offer, guys, is booze and maybe some potato chips. So, if they show up, that's great. If not, I'll do it by myself.

I don't care. Yeah, well, you guys are the only podcast I know about that does live shots of like fucking Habanero liqueur on the air. Yeah. Tell us about that, man. We've done the ghost reapers, or no, the ghost peppers and the reaper and all kinds of just disgusting food that Monica shows up with. And I don't know where she even gets this shit, but she forces it on me and buddy, and we have to eat it and film it. And she wonders why her stomach's so fucked up, right? Yeah, exactly.

All right, dude. Well, we definitely appreciate you joining this, man. Of course. It's an honor. What's up with you guys, man? What's the, what's, what are you doing this month? Because you normally do a theme every month, right? Yeah.

Uh, so this month was a Patreon pick. They want us to do food-based horror movies. Yeah. Okay. Speaking of which. All right. Gotcha. I've seen the list.

It includes the stuff. Uh, attack of the killer tomatoes. Ah, the champion! Don't, don't, don't even, don't even start with that, Lance. There was a couple of... I think there's a Night of the Living Donuts movie or something like that. Oh, God.

I think I've got that one. Ouch. Good times. Okay, well, food-related horror, man. It can go on and on. You've seen that movie, Fresh? I'm not. It's on my watch list, though.

I think you'll enjoy it, man. I was skeptical, right, Brian? Yeah, oh, you... I'm surprised you even watched after watching the trailer. Right? I loved it. I loved it. It's a good movie, man.

Yeah. Nice. Yep. So food-related stuff, dude. But you've got a lot of other shows over there, too, right? You've got other people on the network besides the flagship show, correct? We do. We have Tim and Luffy from Australia doing horror for dummies.

We had a bunch of other shows, but they've kind of whittled themselves out as time has gone on. So now it's just us and the Australians. All right. Well, nothing wrong with that, man. Two good guys. That's right. All right. Well, you know our format here, dude. We always start out with a little thing we like to call cool of the week. And you being our guest, obviously you've got the honors, man. What's the coolest thing you've watched, played, checked out, attended?

What's your cool of the week, man? So I don't know if I would call this the cool of the week. It was something new of the week. I checked out a movie on Tim and Luffy's recommendation called Titane or Titane. Have you guys heard of this? Oh, yeah. That's a fuckdown. That is something. Yeah.

Yes. It's a good. I don't know if I'd call it a good movie. It's a movie that I would recommend, but I'm never going to watch it again. Yeah. I'll probably pick it up on Blu-ray just to have on my shelf and, like, threaten my in-laws with when they come over. I'll put it on, motherfuckers.

Fuck around. I will put this movie on and you will watch it. Like it around. It's, well, I don't have to explain it to you guys. You've seen it, but it is definitely original. And I feel like the tagline should have just been, it's French. You're not supposed to get it. Fair enough. I'll leave it at that.

I didn't get it. It was a good show. Something. Yeah, so, but you, were you, uh, let me, let me ask you this, dude. Were you in the same boat I was? We're like the first 30 minutes or so, you were like, you were like, oh yeah, I like where this is going. This is sexy as hell. Yeah, totally.

Hot, hot chicks grinding on fucking American muscle cars. And then about 30, 40, 45 minutes in, you kind of started thinking, now wait a minute. Am I watching the same movie? Because I swear to God, this was a fucking white snake video 10 minutes ago. And now all of a sudden you got this chick that's, hey, I got to be careful what I say. I don't want to go politically incorrect here, you know? I mean, there's no, well, it's French, so you can say whatever you want. Yeah, man, because like, not to spoil it for anybody out there that hasn't seen it,

but it starts off as a solid horror movie with a female villain, which is awesome. We don't get a lot of that. Yes, yes, yes. A very sexy one at that. And then out of nowhere, we jump into this kind of pseudo-family drama. Right, right. What's up with that, man? Yeah, it's like somebody just pumped the brakes on the full movie.

It's like she was the sexiest son he never knew he wanted, right? Yeah. It has to break her nose every couple of days to make sure she doesn't look too bad. Jesus Christ. I don't know, man. I don't know. Like I said, I don't know that I would call it cool. but it is definitely original.

Yeah. Okay. All right. We'll take it. So that's the cool of the week then. That's my cool of the week. Brian, you wanted to go last because you got 12 different Amityville movies? I only got one Amityville movie.

You want the Amityville update? Please. Amityville Mount Misery Road has taken the spot for the worst Amityville movie I've seen so far. that's that's tough it's like a couple of bloggers that wanted to go into the woods looking for ghost decided that we'll take the footage we'll make a horror movie out of it and will slap

the name amity villain because apparently you can slap that on anything and that's what this movie was it was an hour of people talking about going to the woods then it was another 10, 15, 20 minutes, I don't know. The movie wasn't that long. Of them walking around the woods and then one person disappears and then the next person disappears. End of the movie. Ouch.

And then the female, the main female in this, she had a weird European slash valley girl accent going on, which made no sense. Which was very hard to listen to and to understand at the same time. But, yeah, it beat out. Originally, it was Amityville Island, was the worst one I've seen. This has taken, this took the crown. I checked out that we reviewed the trailer for Windfall, the kind of Hitchcockian Netflix movie with Jason Segal and Fat Damon, Jesse Clemens.

I don't recommend this. No. Yeah. Bill Collins' daughter is in this movie, man. She's usually pretty good. I don't. I liked what they were trying to do and everything about the movie kind of made me feel like they were going for a kind of Hitchcock type of thing, even with the way the credits

popped up and everything and the music. But it was boring throughout the entire movie. At times they were trying, I don't know if they were trying to this is supposed to be a comedy at the same time too. It wasn't funny. tongue-in-cheek or what? Yeah, like Jason Segal, like, he's breaking into his home because he knows Jesse Clemens is rich and has money somewhere. Okay.

And he's basically the worst at what he's trying to do. And I don't know if that was supposed to be comedic or what. It just completely fell flat for me. So I can't recommend that either. But I did. My cool of the week is I finally checked out free guy, Ryan Reynolds. Ah, fun movie. Fun movie.

Some of the cameos I wasn't expecting. Won't spoil the end, but I thought it was a super fun movie. I watched it with the family, and we all enjoyed it. Don't recommend the other two, but Free Guy, check out Free Guy. All right. Yeah, don't give up any of the cameos because there's some people to show up that I wasn't expecting. That was a fun movie, though. Yeah.

Yeah, my wife's seen it twice. One cameo, she didn't recognize him. until the second time watching. I was like, you didn't recognize him? Yeah, he's kind of like right there in your face. Uh-huh. But, yeah, good time, though. Okay, not the Kiwi, the Kiwi?

No. Okay, all right, yeah. The one guy that has... You can't not see him. He's very flamboyant in this. The one guy that has a lot of movies where he dances. Ryan Reynolds? No.

Okay. The movies are you watching. All right, man. I guess my cool of the week is going to be, because we've, as you know, Brian, my wife's convinced me to go back to the theater more since I am paying 20 bucks a month for the AMC pass. So checked out. A couple of movies that we've talked about.

One of them gets the cool of the week nod, and that's the cursed. Have you seen it, Darien? I have. I actually saw it when it first came out. and it was called 8 for Silver, I think, is the original title. That's a hell of a show right there, fellas. Yeah, yeah, great movie. Yeah.

Yeah, that's, now you talk about movies. Now, this is, I got a bone to pick. This is my least favorite year of Oscar movies in as long as I can remember. The one that's probably going to win at all that's got the most nominations is, it is, oh, my God, basically Benedict Cumberbatch, reprising his role as the Grandchild. but wearing chaps while he's doing it. The Power of the Dog. You guys seen it? I've probably seen it.

I think the only Oscar movie I've seen is Doom. That's it. That's the only one you need to see, dude. Coda is pretty good. The one on Apple TV Plus, it stands for children of deaf adults. And it's one of those tear jerker movies. It'll definitely hit you in the heart.

But nah, shitty, shitty, shit. a year for for Oscars but I see this is a movie that in my opinion you know probably should be considered because if if nothing else the cinematography oh yeah a lot of the acting was great you know obviously you know your your main dude that's showing up the but what you see his name is Boyd Holbrook or something like that Brian the the predator guy he's kind of I can take him or leave him but other than that I thought a lot of the a lot of the acting was top-notch but beautifully film movies. Sounds like you guys agree. Oh, yeah.

All right. So, all right. Well, that's cool of the week. Brian, we have any headlines. We got some headlines this week. I believe this was Phil's Cool of the week last week. Archive 81. Ah, okay.

Already canceled. Oh, yeah. Damn. Netflix gave it one season, gave it the axe. well that's Netflix for you man they cancel shit pretty quick yeah it seems like Netflix if you're not getting those

stranger things cover Kai numbers off like immediately you're you're done yeah not a lot of not a lot of patience over at Netflix isn't yeah let's see the next story here is another Netflix series that's about to come is Tim Burton's Adams family series

Wednesday. Christina Ricci is joining the cast as a series regular. She's not Wednesday because that's Jenna Ortega. But she is a series regular. I think that's pretty cool. They brought her back. Yeah. Nice. We got some movie ratings here.

Robert Eggers, the Northman, will be rated R for strong bloody violence and nudity. Not a shocker. That would have been really disappointed if it hadn't been. Evil Dead Rise is

officially rated R for strong bloody violence and gore. As it should be. You're right. I thought you had some news for us, dude. Not some obvious shit. Slow news. Don Coscarelli wants to make a phantasm video game.

I'm down with that. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we'll figure out what the movies are about in the video game. not likely my friends I am going to butcher his name Luca what is his name

Lance he did Susperia the remake oh god I can't help you man Bella Konova or Velas that guy he is directing a cannibal film titled Bones and all starring Timothy

Shala, Shalome. Shalemay. And this was already... He's going to squeeze it in between Dune movies, huh? Yeah, this is already picked up by MGM, which, of course, MGM is now owned by Amazon. Boy, all right. So it might be

an Amazon Prime offering, huh? Depends. I mean, Suspira was. Okay. The Godzilla versus Kong sequel begins filming in Australia later this year. I'm cool with that, as long as they don't bring back the Scarsguard guys. I couldn't buy him as a scientist.

Darien, what do you think about the Godzilla Kong shit, dude? It's fun. It's nothing to be taken too seriously. You know, it's two giant monsters fighting. Right. Who cares what the premise or the story is. It's two giant monsters fighting. That's your entire movie.

Fair enough. Yeah. Let's see. Lena Heady will make her directorial feature film debut with the psychological thriller Violet. So she's getting in the director's chair. All right. Panos Cosmodos, who directed Mandy.

His next film is going to be a sci-fi fantasy horror film for A-24 titled Necrocosm. Of course. And they will be handing out mushrooms and acid at the entrance, right? Actually, they should. You don't need it. You just watch the movie. It'll blast you right off.

And the final little bit of news here is Fede A.Varez, who's known for Don't Breathe, and the previous Evil Dead movie, the 2013 remake. He will write and direct the next alien film for Hulu. Oh, but Willie, really? How many alien movies, Daryon, have we heard about that haven't even happen, right? I think just as many alien movies as there have been crow movies that we've disappeared. Right. I think we had to trivia last week the director was tagged to do the new crow reboot, Brian, but it never got off the ground. Yeah, it was a corn hardy or I think it came up.

Yeah, it definitely came up in trivia. Yeah, they I think they missed their chance when Jason Momo wanted to do it. was attached at one point. Tom Hiddleston was attached. Really? Luke Evans. Yeah. Right.

It's not going to happen. Yeah. It would be cool if it does. I'll check it out. Yeah. Right. Maybe they'll do one with all of them, right? Like the crows.

I'd watch it. I'd watch it. Sure. Yeah. Fedé Alvarez, I really liked Evil did, the remake he did, and Doe Breathe was a good movie, not the second one, but he wasn't involved in really making the second one. So I'm hopeful for this, and it's coming to Hulu, so if it's bad, you know,

you didn't have to go to the theater. Right. True. Yeah. Or in my case, I didn't get to use my AMC pass, right? True. But Hulu's bringing us a lot, though. We're getting that, the new Predator movie, and Hellraiser.

Which of course means, guys, that six months from now, your Hulu price will be twice whatever you're paying right now. Oh, yeah. They're going to go the Netflix route, I'm sure. But what are you going to do? Yeah. The new normal. Yeah. Cut the cord to cable to get all your streaming sites.

And now it costs the same. Yeah. Probably paying more. Yeah, but I'm the fucking idiot sucker that pays full price for cable and buys all the streaming services. My bill each month's about $250 or something for fun. Wow. Yeah, it's ridiculous.

Insane. Yeah. All right. That's the news. All right. Well, you guys ready to take a little trip down to the trailer park? All right. Brian.

Let's bring us the big, the small, and sometimes the very, very weird. Is that the case this week? I would think so. Well, the first one we're going to talk about is near and dear to me and Lance, sequel to the original wormwood movie, Wormwood Apocalypse. Quick synopsis in a zombie-infested Australian wasteland, Soldier Rays, has dedicated his life to tracking and capturing survivors for the Surgeon General in hopes of finding a cure. This star is Chante Barnes-Cohen Nicholas Boucher

Bianca Brad Brady David Collins and this is written and directed by Kyah Rochey Turner and Tristan Roche Turner Guys I purposely did not watch this trailer because I kind of want to go into it with

not really knowing anything I did see a couple years ago they put out like a seven minute scene that was previously found and I checked that one out, but I did not watch this trailer. So, up to you guys, talk about it. It looks good. It looks like it's the same formula as the first movie, which is good as far as like a zombie apocalyptic comedy in certain aspects. Yeah, I mean, the only thing that I think they may have missed the mark on is waiting so long for this.

Yeah, what's up with that? I think it's been about 10 years since the first movie came out, right? It's been a minute. Way before we started this podcast, that's for sure. Yeah. So, like, when you do that, you run into certain obstacles. Like, all your actors and returning characters have aged 10 years. Sure.

You have to kind of find a way to make that make sense without, you know, sounding ridiculous. We're just hoping that nobody notices that they all have gray hair now and have put on the... Yeah. You know, but I'm confident that they can find a way around it. The first show was great. We've been hoping for a sequel to that one for quite a while now. So I hope they find a way to incorporate as much sporting goods as possible because that's what they did in the first movie.

And why would you not do that? That was like the high point of the movie is seeing the crazy guy with the catchers mask swinging, you know, numchucks at zombies. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? That's what I say. Yeah. Did you watch the Trinulet or no? The first one, sorry, sorry guys. Jump in. The first Wormwood movie was 2014. Oh, wow.

So, yeah, like eight years. We're going on 10 years for sure. I did watch the trailer and it's going to give me everything I would hope to get. We'll just leave it at that, Brian. You can safely watch it, dude. It's not going to be anything you don't expect. That I can tell you right now. All right.

Uh, we got an April 14th release dates, and I believe May 17th for the DVD and Blu-ray. Okay. Why waste time, right? Yeah. And the second and final trailer, we reviewed the teaser, I believe it was, uh, what about a month or so ago. Sounds about right. Yeah. Sounds about right.

Alex Garland's men. Um, I think I read the synopsis before. but I'll read it again. A young woman goes on a solo vacation to England, to an English countryside, following the death of her ex-husband. So, of course, stars Jesse Buckley, Roy Keneer,

who fucked a pig in Black Mirror. The very first episode of the first season. And, of course, this is written and directed by Alex Garland, who previously did Annihilation, Ex Machina. Is that how you pronounce it? Because I've heard it two different ways. Ex-Makana, I think.

Okay. Sure. We'll go with that. I am in because there are a lot of creepy elements to this, but I think me and Daryan were talking before we started recording

A-24 can be hit or miss. Hit or miss. Sure. But I think there's a lot of creepy elements in here, especially I don't know what the guy was that was running the little vacation spot she was and his whole thing about eating the apple and he was like you shouldn't have done that you know that's the forbidden fruit and then he was just I'm just joking I don't know dude that's it could go any number of different ways right and Roy Kaneer looks like he's some kind of priest or something he was seeing like he was a little handsy little touchy you know

So I don't know. He is a freeze, so, you know. I do like the effect. I do like the effect of her, you know, making that echo effect in the tunnel. And then they kind of incorporate that into the music. I was like when they do stuff like that. Right. I'm in.

I mean, we're going to do it for the show. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We're in. I mean, he hasn't let us down yet with any of his films. I mean, what do you think, Daryan? It looks very slow and psychological. which is fine.

Some of our favorite movies have been slow, psychological. It looks very dreadful and bleak. But I guess that's just England, right? I think I've never been to England, but every time I see it on TV, it looks depressing as shit. So I think it doesn't, I don't know. I got kind of like a haunted house vibe for a minute, but then I got like a weird, culty, small town vibe for a minute.

Yeah. There's a lot of... I like that. Yeah, there's a lot of different ways this could go. Hopefully he doesn't, you know, decide at the end she's crazy and she's just envisioning all this stuff or some other cop-out ending like that. Oh, yeah. Or she died at the beginning and this is your own personal hell or some shit.

Oh, no. Don't do that. That's what I'm saying, Lance. That would really suck, man. Yeah, I hate that shit. That basically tells me that. You couldn't come up with an ending to the movie, so you had to mail it in for us. Or she's been on mushrooms the whole time, right?

Exactly. Exactly right. So I'm psyched for it. I'll definitely check it out. I hope nobody spoils it for me, though, because that would piss me on. Yeah, I know. Going to have to see this one early, I think. Yeah.

Because it's really fucking hard to tell what's really going on here. Like, is there, like, supposed to be some toxic masculinity going on here, right? That's what it sounds like by the title. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, with the title and the way some of the man and the guy with a weird mask. Like was that a Maryland Monroe mask or? I mean, fuck, this could be go any number of ways. I hope it doesn't hit us over the head like Black Christmas.

That's for God. Yeah. Yeah, you miss Ness on here holding up his blue-ray copy. Yeah, right. Good for him. Yeah, good for him. All right, Alice Garland's men hits theaters May 20th. Okay.

That's it. But we'll be there, right? Guaranteed, no matter what, right? Yeah, I think I have a vacation gone wrong episode plan for that. Ah, okay. That could incorporate a lot of different movies. Okay. All right.

So we're going to jump into some listener feedback here this week. And we're not getting much, guys. So I'm going to, before we do anything else, I'm going to stand on a soapbox here a little bit. Now, God damn it, we don't have a, we don't have a fucking terror dome like some podcast do, you know. Get yourself a tarotome. You got a fucking vote every week and be heard. And, you know, we don't have a. Question of the week.

Like somebody's about their Australian podcast, dude. But for fuck sake, guys, write us for fuck. I mean, well, let us know you're there. God damn it, dude. We need some feedback, man. So I don't know, man. Maybe we need to start going back to some contest or, you know, at least, you know, what's usually good is when you have a good, get a question out there and you want people

to kind of vote on it. that that usually goes well so maybe we got to bring that back but we will shine our podcast spotlight as we do every week and this week it is on the Wheel of Horror podcast spin the wheel of horror

I feel like I should be it should be a game show host here spin the wheel of horror join your spooky and wild host Alec Lawless and Eric Mazurik we hope you enjoy your ride if you can make it. New episodes every Monday, 7.30 a.m. A.m.? Eastern Time. God damn, these guys are

drinking early, huh? Okay. So this week, the crew take a look at Jordan Peels Us, which is one of our favorite movies as a podcast. I think that would get a lot of high ratings. So, yeah, check out The Wheel of Horror, anywhere you find podcasts. Regarding the movie The Hallow, our friend Steve Carlton said, I actually kind of dug that one. And I think we all kind of like that one, right, Brian? Yeah, you were a little down on the story. Okay. Okay, what did you think, Aaron?

You've seen that one, right? The Irish for a movie? Yeah, I like the burning scythe move that he didn't begin. Yeah, that's pretty heavy metal right there. It's fine, you know. I mean, the formula is there. It's the same movie. We've seen this movie before, just with different factors and storylines.

Sure, sure. So it's a tried and true formula. It works in adding that kind of Celtic kind of woodsy, pagan vibe to it, I think, paid off well. All right. Nice. Yeah, I was more happy with it than not, I think, Brian, because I was big on this special effects. I liked a lot of the effects, especially the eye trauma stuff.

But I did think that the story was sort of a little predictable. Little predictable. We kind of knew it was going to happen. But regarding our posting of Christmas Slasher, what is Christmas Slashor? I think it's a new

Christmas horror movie coming up. And I would say, if I'm remembering, just looking at the poster, it's already beaten Black Christmas. The remake. Not hard to do. The remake. The remake remake remake.

I still like the first remake better. All right. Well, Destiny Saria says, thank you very much. So I assume she's involved in that one. That's good. Okay, now this one you guys are going to have to educate me on. Carol Kuellar, regarding a ghost ruined my life.

She says, was 31122 the last episode for the season? I don't even know what a ghost ruined my life. life is, guys. Oh, that's a show? I thought you were saying, the ghost ruined her life. Well, I mean, is this the show on the travel channel,

or anybody have any ideas? Never heard of it? No. Me neither. I guess we gotta do our homework, boys. Yeah, I hope it's a show. I really hope that a ghost didn't really ruin her life.

Yeah, that would suck. All right, well, speaking of paranormal shit, regarding the paracon convention, our buddy Charles Rosenaise says worth a trip from anywhere. So that's all our feedback this week, guys. Kind of embarrassing, but that's it for this week.

Our show intro does come from Steve Carlton from The Geeks. Our artwork from Not Solani. If you'd like to help the show, please consider becoming a Patreon patron. We will let you pick the movies for a future show at any amount and for $5 or more a month. pick a commentary for a future bonus show. And if you have a chance, please give us a five-star Apple podcast review. You may win something. Okay.

On to featured attractions. And now it is time for our main attractions this week. Yet again, we ask that question. Is it really that bad? This time with two from the mind of Stephen King. So we're going to start up with 1995's The Mangler. A laundry folding machine

has been possessed by a demon causing it to develop homicidal tendencies. I guess that's as good a description as any. Director, everybody will know this name, Toby Hooper. But you may not know these two movies because, Brian, as you know,

I like to pick obscure ones. So in this case, Toby Hooper also known for night terrors and spontaneous combustion. You guys seen neither of those? I've seen spontaneous combustion. I've seen night tigers. Okay.

One for one on each of you. Okay. Going into trivia, Jim Cummings, the voice of iconic characters such as Winnie the Pooh. I assume the Winnie the Pooh. Tigger,

Darkwing Duck, Pete, Ed the Hyena, Ray the Firefly, Hondo O'Connor, Dr. Robotnik. and a variety of other animated characters provided the vocal effects for the titular machine and was glad to get to work with Toby Hooper,

who he was a fan of. Wait, the machine talked? I don't remember the machine talking. Apparently the machine made some gurgling noises or something. But that was definitely Jim Cummings. And according to Jim, he was glad to work with Toby Hooper because he was a fan, but he felt that the strain put,

Put on his throat by making the mangler noises. And get this, guys, the quality of the film itself, this is coming from Jim Cummings, not us, wasn't worth the effort. He said, he once saw the film on television and was amused to see that his name was misspelled as Tim Cummings. In the end credits, as he meant that he got paid to do,

in his words, a bad film, and no one would ever know he had been involved. So, the mangler. As always, our guests get the honor. Honor? Our guests get the honor of going first. What did you think, man? Was this a yet another Stephen King masterpiece or what? No.

No, of course not. It's not good. I remembered seeing it when it came out. and thinking this is about a clothes folding machine. And that's what the mangler is. It just folds clothes. I rewatched it this morning for the show. And I remember really not liking it at all when I first saw it.

It's bad. I knew that going on. And that being said, I was like, oh, it's still bad. But I'm not like furious at it. I knew it was bad. right so okay like there's a lot of weird stuff going on here with like ted levin's character right i think he's a cop but he seems he acts more like some kind of a weird osha inspector all the sudden i don't i'm not sure what that's all about and there's like a the the i guess the

neighbor or the the hippie guy that he kind of shares the back yard with or whatever it's his brother yeah yeah that uh that uh that relationship uh that uh that reliance relationship got a little weird. And, like, I mean, I'm not, I'm not going to say they were going to be gay, but I definitely got like a weird. It got a little, it got a little weird, you know. Yeah. And then at the end, we get the big reveal. That's not for that.

No, not at all. But, you know, it's just, I'm not going to like. Right? That was the, the question. I'm not going to, like, Google Mangler fan fiction because I need to know. what was going on with those two guys. Whatever. None of my business.

But that being said, when we get the big reveal about what the Mangler is and the weird deal that you had to make with you're cutting off your finger for the fucking thing. Really? But like, I guess it kind of makes sense. But at the end of the day, it's a laundry folding machine. Okay. I think the implication was that instituting this machine brought prosperity to this town. But really, you could go to the high school, hire a couple of kids to fold the laundry, and not have to sacrifice anybody either.

You'd probably get them to do it for like eight bucks an hour and some weed or something, you know? Sure. Yeah, yeah. So I think, and I'm sure I never read the story that this was based on or the book or whatever, but I'm sure there's a lot that got thrown out. Okay. I don't know. The weirdest part, though, is that apparently there is some kind of like cult following for this movie,

because there's not one, but two sequels. Ah, that's right. I'm sure they're terrible, too. Yeah. But those movies got made. So maybe this movie did pretty good at the box office or somebody found some kind of tax write-off that they could take advantage of. I don't know, man.

I don't know. It's not good. It's not a good movie. It's not as bad as I remember it, though. I will say that. All right. Fair enough. Brian, can I jump in?

Go ahead. Because I actually enjoyed it, man. I really did. I thought I was going to hate it. And I remember reading the short story, and I really hated the short story. Because it was exactly this. It was this fucking story. And it was a stupid fucking, I thought, what a dumb idea for a story.

for a story, you know, you've got a, you know, demon-possessed or blood spills on this. I think it was like somebody would cut themselves and the blood would spill on the mangler and it would take on a life of its own or whatever. But I don't know, man, for some reason Ted Levine was just fucking nuts enough. Like, it was Ted Levine's best Nick Cage. I'll put it to you that way in this for sure. I mean, there was definitely no cocaine harmed in this film. No doubt about that at all.

So, yeah, I enjoyed it, man. And I love the special effects. I love Freddie Krueger's makeup. I thought he looked great as a, you know, it looked like a very perverted old man, which I thought they did a good job with that. I thought he hammed it up to the best of his ability. But what got me was the,

when they did those long shots of the machine, and you saw these fucking huge, you know, pieces in the cog. The bike chain. Yeah. It was a bike chain. It was a bike chain.

It was a big shot. I'm an absolute joke, dude. And I loved it. I really did. I really kind of enjoyed this movie, man. I thought it was just so incredibly stupid and so far-fetched and so incredibly, terribly written and terribly thought out as an idea. I mean, this was obviously keying in the throes of his addiction.

There's no doubt about it when he wrote this story. I mean, made no sense in any way, form or fashion. But for that reason, somehow I found it charming. And I think Ted Levine just kind of stole the movie for me. Hmm. Is it bad? Yes, it is bad. But it is so good.

It's bad on that level. Because I, there's a lot of, there's so much wrong with this movie. But I laughed throughout the entire movie. Oh, yeah. For sure. For sure. Ted Levine, I guess he's a cop. Apparently, the civilians, other police officers. Nobody seems to acknowledge that he's a cop.

You've got this weird photographer, the JJJ Photoman. I think they said it was his pictureman was his name. I didn't even catch that. Yeah. Robert England just hamming it up. You know, oh, hell's bells the devil, you know, just what Freddie Kruger looks like, you know, as old man, basically. The machine just looks like, I don't understand why you would even want to work there. as soon as you walk in there.

There's people like constantly sweeping and mopping the same areas, this giant, like you said, cogs and bike chains. And they're surprised that people die here on a regular basis. It's crazy. But where I was just kind of losing my shit at the end was the CGI mangler monster that came to life and was chasing them through, I don't know, there just happened to be. just stairs descending to where, I don't know, underneath everything, which was hilarious.

Nothing was really explained. We didn't even mention the possessed refrigerator that was coming from the laundry service was moving or delivering a refrigerator from the 1920s or something. Okay. So you made an ice box, literally. Yeah, that apparently killed the child. Which, you know, that was a random thing that happened. But if I had to recommend this movie, I would recommend it on.

If you want to see something that's bad, but you can get a laugh out of it with friends, I would say check out the Mangler. Sure. And I am very intrigued about the Mangler, too. And I believe the third one is Mangler Reborn. Reborn. Oh, no. I might have a review on those next episode because I'm intrigued to see where you eat even go after this.

So the Mangler 2 stars Lance Henriksen. And I think I just looking at the box art, he's got like a bunch of hoses coming out of his head. Oh, okay. So is he the mangler? Possibly. Maybe. Huh. Never seen it, huh?

you couldn't tell us. No. I see the Mangler Reborn has Reggie Bannister from Fantasm. Ah, Fantas and Fentasm. That's a good sign right there. Is it, is it just me guys, or

does it seem like they, they were basically hiring all the rejects from Hooters to work at this laundromat? Like, they had a lot of, like, almost hot chicks. Like, they were like right there, but they weren't quite, you know,

good enough to, they were like, 19. 95 small town hot. Yeah, exactly. Apparently there's nowhere else to work other than this laundry. Kind of like a restaurant we've got around here called Wolfies, where it's kind of like, you know, it's the chicks that aren't quite, you know,

they can't quite make it to the Hooters, you know what I'm saying? But they've got, you know, they put on those really short shorts, and they definitely, they're falling out of those shorts in every which way. But I don't know, man. It was an experience for sure. sure, right? Sure. This movie was definitely an experience.

Any more to say, or you guys ready for scores? I think we're ready for scores. Not much to spoil, right? I mean, if you haven't seen this movie, you're going to get what you probably think you're going to get, right? Yeah, I mean, we could delve into

why it's possessed, but they didn't even delve into why it's possessed. Not really. You just got to feed it 16-year-old virgins every now and then. Right. Were they 16? year olds or

especially on their 16th birthday you feed it to it for some reason and the town prospers and all as well sure like it all right okay I guess scores we go

1 to 10 man you can do 6.66 you know 2.10578 whatever you want to do man pine I don't I don't think I need to break out the calculator over the main it's bad it's bad but it might it might be Brian you might be right it might be so bad that it's good um I remember really really hated like if you would ask me the first time I watched it I probably

would have given it like two watching it this morning I was yeah I was just kind of having fun with it so I probably put it probably maybe like a four I don't even a bad not bad yeah Not bad at all. Brian, I'm going to give it the old Garrett Collins myself, man. Four on ten? Four on ten. I'll bump it up to a five. I'll give it an extra point because I appreciate the main girl doing her best Robert

England impression at the end when she took over. Nice. Okay. I forgot all about that. Yeah. I had more fun with it than I expected. That's for damn sure. Because I really thought I was going to give it like a one or a two from everything I've heard.

And based on the short story, I thought, oh, fuck. They made this into a movie, really? But, you know, I thought they did it. Well, Toby Hooper. You know, there you go. Make everything to a movie. Hooper factor. Daryan's about to watch a movie about donuts.

Yeah? Yeah. Is that the next one? That's this week's? No, I got a couple weeks still, but it's coming. Have you seen it yet? No, I saw the trailer. It looks fucking stupid.

Uh-oh. Yeah. It's about Killer donuts. Killer donuts, okay. Yeah. All right. So now we are going to move on to the second film of the night, and this would be Stephen King's thinner,

a 1996 movie. And this is the description. An obese attorney is cursed by a gypsy to rapidly and uncontrollably lose weight. Yeah. Yeah, director Tom Holland, another big name, guys, also known for Fright Night and the Temp. I did not know this was directed by Tom Holland. I did, and I'm embarrassed that he did it, but we'll get to that later. Needless to say, this wasn't one of my favorites.

again, get to that a bit. Writer Michael McDowell, also known... Oh, look, get this, guys. The fucking screenwriter for Beetlejuice and the Nightmare Before Christmas? Did this atrocity? Huh. Okay.

Well, while in production, co-writer and director Tom Holland... Oh, now here we go. All right. This is what you call suffering for your art, guys. Tom Holland was stricken with Bell's palsy, a virus that paralyzed one side of his face.

Shit, he should have worked at end of the movie somehow. The effects could have been minimized had he gotten a steroid shot immediately, but the producers insisted, well, that's the story, right? The producers insisted that he keep working. So it was 36 hours before he got to see a doctor. it took more than a year and a half for him to fully recover. After, and it's probably taken him, well, he still hasn't recovered from this movie. Again, I'm slipping in my opinion too early.

After receiving Michael McDowell's script in 1990, director Tom Holland had to do more than 10 rewrites before executives would greenlight the film. So imagine how that script was before. Oh, my God, I can only imagine. Um, I, Darren, what are you thinking, man? What do you think about thinner? Um, I don't like it. It suffers from weird mid-90s, like pacing, I guess, and cinematography.

Um, the, the, like, the silliest part of this movie for me was Joe Montania as the mob guy. Because I don't think you could play up any more New York attest. Italian ethnic stereotypes than he did in this movie. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? Yeah. Hey, go ahead. These guys, they don't listen so good, huh?

All right. Take it easy there. I get it. He's a one-dimensional character, and he's basically there as a ridiculous plot device. Right, right. Again, I've never read the book, and I'm hoping the book is better. Unfortunately, I have. Another one of my not favorite Stephen King attempts.

Okay. Well, is it at least better than the movie, Lance? Gee, I, you, not really. No, well, that fucking pie, dude, that goddamn pie. Oh, man. That's a bad visual, reading the book and seeing the movie. Well, I, ugh. Yeah, I guess.

I just, I did like Carrie word in this movie. She was pretty hot about this time. Right. She was the daughter of the gypsy granddaughter. Oh, yeah, she was fucking hot as shit. Yeah, I liked her a lot. Just the, I guess the premise alone is very silly. Yeah, it's super silly.

The one thing that I think could have saved this movie is if we got into that other, I think it was the judge that got cursed with lizard and eternity kind of a monster. Like a Spider-Man villain, Brian? Yeah, exactly. But if we could have at least seen him or, you know, even just for a second or two, or really a movie about that guy, that would have been even better. But instead, just this obese lawyer wasting away while he continues to stuff his fat fucking mouth, the whole movie.

Right. It's not, is that a scary movie? Not really. I mean, don't run over a gypsy. that's that's the moral point here yeah well i'm not a fan of this one like the curse the cursed guys yeah the curse did it better right yeah not much to it what do you think brian i have a small soft spot for this movie only because when when i was younger this was always on cable like constantly this was always on neither like cable like movie channels or like t and t or t t

or something. Right. But it's not a great movie. It's the story. There are parts of the story where I think could have worked better, but the way it played out, it was just ridiculous. And you said it lanced at least of the pulsating pie were ridiculous also. Joe Montania. The pulsating pie.

Sounds like a great name for a band, right? Pulsating pie. Joe Montagnia as this, apparently he's supposed to be a high-ranking mafia guy, which you don't buy. Right. But I guess you had to call on somebody that might have had a relative that knew about gypsies. So why not have this guy that you just conveniently defended that. Yeah. Who better than a Sicilian to know about the gypsies?

The side story. of him thinking his wife is with the doctor was just out of place and not needed. Really bad. Yeah, really bad. I think... But would you have blamed her? No, she obviously... The guy was an asshole.

But she didn't have a problem with his weight. I mean, she was giving him head while he was driving to reward him. So... It's true. You know what, dude? If I could be fat and get head all the time for my wife, I'd fucking put on 200. pounds right now, you know? And, I mean, she was complaining about his

weight, but she was obviously feeding him well. I mean... Yeah, and feeding herself. But, yeah, there's not a whole bunch to this movie. I did like the effects of when he was skinny, but not when he was fat, because clearly he had

a fat suit on, and the makeup was really bad, but I felt like when he was bad, so... I felt like when he was super skinny, he He really looked like he was wasting away. I thought that was cool. Was he in Margaritville, at least? I don't know.

I'm not even sure what was going on with the sheriff. What was his curse? I don't know. I don't remember. Oh, man. I just watched the movie. I couldn't tell you. But I will say I do appreciate the Stephen King cameo that we didn't get in the mangler.

I was just going to say, the best part of this. movie was this is probably the longest Stephen King cameo of any he almost had a role as the fucking he was the attorney right no he was the pharmacy guy yeah that's what it was when he was claiming that day the old woman was stealing

I thought he was a lawyer or a judge for some reason so god damn it this movie didn't want to be much of an impression like I said there was elements that could have worked. Like, I thought it was a super dark ending that the daughter ended up eating the pie and

she ended up eating the pie because he wanted to, I guess, die with his family. But other than that, I think if it could have been in the hands of a better writer, this could have been a little bit better, but this one is definitely, it really is bad. Well, when you

consider that the script was written by, what did we say, the guy who wrote Beetleju? and Nightmare Before Christmas. And the guy who wrote the novel, or the novelette, because I think it was like one of those that was in like one of the books that had like four or five stories in it. Stephen King, like arguably the best horror writer of all time, right? Well, is it possible the screenwriter didn't even read the book when he...

I don't know, man. He asked somebody what the book was about, and then he was like, got it. And then came back an hour later and had a movie. money well spent right there we definitely had the right to expect more from this guys am i right i mean come on this was a this was a big disappointment i mean there could have been a lot more to this than than what we got for sure this this was this was pretty bad um as far as the makeup the fat suit the like you said brian it toward the end there you thought it looked like he was wasting away. I mean, to me, it felt like he, he just had like eye shadow on his cheeks

or something. It's just completely fucking phony to me. I don't know, man. This is, Stephen King is, as you well know, Brian, my favorite author of all time. I've read literally everything this dude's ever written except for the Gwendy's Buttonbox books, which I just bought. So I'm going to be reading those one after the other now that they're all written. But, uh, I don't know, man. Every once in a while, he'll kind of do a stinker. And for me, when I was reading it, this was also a stinker, kind of like the mangler. The difference being, Toby Hooper took the mangler and made it into like, I don't know,

kind of like a version of Mandy or something, like where at least if I was, you know, stoned or tripping or something, it would have made perfect sense. this movie I dude I could have been on all manner of drugs and it would make no sense to me at all and I just I can't get over the bad acting like you said

the stereotypical it's just insulting everything about it like you know Darren you said it best dude the high point of this movie was the hot gypsy chick and she was hot but other than that man

there was really nothing redeeming about this for me. I think that the story from start to finish was pretty bad. Yeah, I mean, I guess like you guys were saying, you kind of get the Shakespearean, you know, ending

there where there's like an error where somebody ends up eating it that shouldn't, and it's a big tragedy or whatever. But I just, at that point, I had been so raped by this piece of shit that I didn't even give a fuck about it, you know, that I couldn't even be heartbroken because at that point I'd lost all feeling I was completely numb I

mean this was just just really really bad this this was one of those that I reviewed with beed and Marcy for the King's own and you know they could tell you I was not a huge huge fan of this at all so man sorry sorry we had to invite you for this week dude no I picked this week I chose to be here for this yeah well maybe we'd get you again, you know, soon for something good, right? Like, maybe we can get you on with Beat and Marcy. And we'll talk about the unbearable, what's it called? The unbearable way to...

A lot of massive talent with Nicholas Lowe's. Yeah, we'll cover that one. But I'm trying to drag it out and say some good things about it, but there's nothing good I can say about this movie. It's a bad one for me, guys. Sorry. All right, scores. Oh. Oh. I might have to get out the calculator for this one.

I think I'm probably going to give it a two. And the reason why is because it failed in so many fundamental ways that you wouldn't like, you wouldn't, like the fact that this is a Stephen King movie or an adaptation of one of his books, in a way almost makes it worse because I know, I know. This is Stephen fucking King we're talking about. He doesn't, he doesn't, like,

I understand that some of his, yeah, some of his adaptations have been less than stellar. We're talking about a few of them now, but like the, I think the biggest failure here is the unlikeability of the main character.

He's an attorney, and he killed somebody. And he's just a cock sucker, dude. He is. His wife was, wasn't his fault. Literally. That's true. You're true.

Yeah, that's exactly right. But, like, if he had, like, shown some kind of remorse about what he did or tried to make it right, despite the fact that he wasn't going to prison or anything like that, then we could be on his team. And then as he's, you know, undergoing these trials and tribulations and losing this weight, we might actually feel bad for him. But he's just a piece of shit. So go ahead. Lose all the weight you want. I'm giving it a two. I know, dude.

I know. And, uh, man. Go ahead, Brian. I'm sorry. I think two is a very fair score. I agree with everything you said,

but I'm going to be a, just because I have that nostalgia of this always being on TV. Uh-oh. I'm going to give it a three. Oh, no. I'm going to give white man from town. Three. Okay.

oh man i don't know dude yeah two two two is generous two two is generous but uh before you say something lance if you give it anywhere under a two you got to remember the previous movies that were ones or zeros is it that bad no i'll give it a two i'll give it a two i'll give it a to. It's not, yeah, it's, I mean, you know, I mean, I didn't like want to shoot myself in the head after watching it or anything like that. So it wasn't from Jennifer or to Jennifer or by way of Jennifer. What was that movie called? It's one of those. Yeah, it wasn't that. So, yeah, I, I guess, I guess it gets it too, you know, but, um, wow. Come on, man. Stephen King, you really let us stand on this one. Very, very disappointed. Again, didn't really enjoy it when I was reading it either. I thought it was kind of a shitty little novella.

So, you know, not a huge fan of it there either. And I don't know, man. Stephen King does very few works that I don't absolutely love. Even some stuff that other people hate. I really love. But you did pick two here, Brian. You did well. You accomplished your mission.

tonight. Yeah, because this one, this one is really that bad. So anyway, Darren, we again want to thank you for joining us, dude. Of course, fellas. Give us something positive. Now, do you have all the teams filled out yet for the next contest or what? Not yet. There's still plenty of openings.

Okay. Has anybody taken Chucky and Tiffany? No. Can I get Chucky and Tiffany now? I'm going to put you down right now. Okay, yeah. All right, there you go. And I'll take the whole family.

I'll take the seed of Chuckie, too. That little British-speaking bloke, even though he is born in America and his American parents. But, okay, I'll buy it. I thought he was made in China. Yeah, he was made in China. Yeah, you could look at his head. Yeah. Yeah, and I'll definitely go with Fiona Dorif in the family as well, because she was.

is so cool to meet and talk to you at Frightmare. Oh, yeah. So give me the Chucky family, dude. Locked in, buddy. They're all yours. All right. What else is coming up besides food-related, man? That's about it, man.

That's all I have to look forward to. Killer donuts, right? Food-related horror month. All right, Brian. Can't be any worse than President Evil, I don't think. Well, hopefully not. never know, man. Brian, what's up with action and stream themes, man? In wrestling?

Wrestling, still, we're not doing anything until WrestleMania, which that might come a little bit later because Nez is, he's going to actually be there for at least one of the days. They're still doing the two-a-day thing, which is ridiculous. Action, we have Lady Blood Fight, which is

basically, if you've seen Van Damme and Bloods sport. It's the female Kumite. Okay. That's sweet. Yep, weapons. And we got that coming. Stream Fiends. We just dropped Thunderheart with Val Kilmer.

Excellent movie. And we have Scarface on deck after that. Ah, okay. And quick reviews and ESP shorts. New ones coming sometime this week. All right. Scarface.

So you've got the Stephen King sized plate of cocaine coming up, right? No, we got the Tony Montana mountains on the desk. Okay. All right. Well, as always, we want to thank you guys for listening to another episode

of the horror returns. We would love to hear your feedback and ideas. For fuck sake, guys. Give us some goddamn feedback. What the fuck is it going to take? Brian, you're, God, help us out here, Brian. I mean, you run the Facebook page, dude.

I mean, is there shit I'm missing? Like through Twitter and all that other bullshit that I'm too old to keep up with? You don't want the comments on Twitter. You don't ever want to comments on Twitter. I look through Instagram because I know we get some every time. Yeah, so. All right, maybe the Kardashians will chime in or something, huh? On Insta.

I know they're listening. Okay. Well, you can always reach us at the horror return. at gmail.com or just go to www. www. thehorror returns.com and check us out from there. So next week we're going to

check out the brand... Wait a minute. Are we going to check at a brand new movie next week, Brian? Says it's coming on theater. Says it's in theaters. Okay. Hopefully it'll be in our neighborhood. We're not in New York or L.A., you know.

Neither am. All right. Although I am going to Stockton for a wedding in September Darien saw might be able to swing through Reno, dude. If so, we're going to have a beer or something. Yeah, absolutely. Let me know.

All right. So, Brian, until the horror returns again? You're telling what next week's money are. Oh, that's right. Sorry. You won't be alone. What is you won't be alone? It is the new, I'm assuming, has to do with witches, and it stars New Meera Pace.

Everything's got. that newie repays lately. Great actress. Let me guess. It's not going to be in English. It's probably going to be in fucking Norwegian or something. Am I right? Yeah.

Well, we've done subtitles before. We'll make it. Hey, Lars from Denmark. Our listener, Lars from Denmark will understand it. So he can translate for us. And we're also getting, oh, 1960s Black Sunday. Never seen it. Darian, I know you have, right?

Absolutely, yes. Okay, all right. So now, Brian, we can say until the horror returns again. Good night.