Night Terrors (1993) and The Mangler (1995): A Tobe Hooper Double Feature

Night Terrors (1993) Directed by Tobe HooperStarring: Robert Englund, Zoe Trilling, Ilona Kimi, William Finley

What if the Marquis de Sade had a descendant running an eye-gouging cult in Egypt, and also there's a naked guy flopping around on horseback for no reason? This week we're kicking off HorrorWeen with the first half of our Tobe Hooper double feature, and we honestly still don't know what happened in this movie. Tobe Hooper didn't direct this so much as he got handed a flaming turd on his doorstep and had to stomp it out.

In this episode, we discuss:

Snake Blowjobs and a Flopping Dick on a Horse — We try to make sense of a movie featuring a woman repeatedly putting a live snake in her mouth across multiple scenes, a naked dude on horseback trotting around a beach for a full minute, and zero explanation for any of it. We debate whether the snake thing is erotic or just erratic.

A Shitty Tales from the Crypt That Went On for 40 Extra Minutes — Night Terrors feels like it should've been a 45-minute anthology segment. It meanders between two time periods, introduces a horse race guy who vanishes for 80 minutes, kills random people for no reason, and makes Robert Englund chewing every piece of scenery feel like an exercise in trivial bullshit.

Maximum Confusion, Minimum Coherence — We get into Zoe Trilling's performance as one of the worst we've seen, how this thing looks like a USA Up All Night production shot in Israel, and how neither of us could follow it even after talking about it for 20 minutes.

⁠The Mangler⁠ (1995) Directed by Tobe HooperStarring: Robert Englund, Ted Levine, Daniel Matmore

How do you turn a 12-page Stephen King short story into an hour and 46-minute movie about a possessed laundry-folding machine? You get more drugs, that's how. The second half of our Tobe Hooper double feature is a movie where a demonic steam press eats people, nobody ever pushes the goddamn tension bar, and the voice of Winnie-the-Pooh provided the monster noises but was so embarrassed he was relieved his name was misspelled in the credits.

In this episode, we discuss:

Steampunk David Lynch Dune, But It's a Laundromat — Ted Levine drives a '90s Jeep through a contemporary town, but the second you step inside the factory it's the 1930s and everyone's wearing doilies. The machine is the size of a dump truck, and the whole movie has the color palette of someone who just discovered HDR in 2002. It is offensively ugly.

“Are You a Virgin?” (Asked Four Times, Laughed Four Times) — Mark, the '90s mall goth with a duster and a mullet, is the best character in this movie. Ted Levine tells him don't say the word virgin, don't get out of the car, don't talk to the witness — within seconds he's punching this woman in the face with the virgin question.

The Power of Christ Folds Your Linens — We spoil the ending because who cares. The machine seems dead after an exorcism, everyone celebrates, then it re-demonizes because Ted Levine popped antacids containing belladonna — which we're pretty sure isn't a thing in antacids. The machine transforms into walking bad '90s CG, and it's so stupid you might actually laugh.

I'm Starting to Think Maybe Tobe Hooper Didn't Make a Lot of Great Movies — We close the book on Tobe Hooper for a while, discussing how The Mangler actually improves when watched right after Night Terrors, how it bombed despite starring Englund, Levine, King, and Hooper, and why Jim Cummings — the voice of Winnie-the-Pooh — did the Mangler's demon noises and later said it wasn't worth the effort. His name was misspelled as Tim Cummings in the credits. He considered that a win.

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