The Mangler 2 (2002)

(In French, On Cable TV, April 2022) Some movies come with a reputation, and there’s scarcely a mention of The Mangler 2 that doesn’t specify that it’s a terrible, terrible film. This capsule review will be no exception: It really is wretched. A follow-up in name only to a film loosely based on a Stephen King short story, this “sequel” adapts the concept of evil industrial equipment to the twenty-first century, with a school installing a “military-grade” security system and a rebellious student corrupting the system with a magical virus. Or something. Once it gets going, The Mangler 2 is nothing more than a high-tech haunted house story with a few students trying to avoid being slaughtered by a berserk AI once it gets through the expendable adults in the place. If this plot summary has you intrigued, slow down: the execution is much worse than you can imagine, with wholly unconvincing sequences undermining any build-up of suspense. I’m not saying it doesn’t have a few weird odds and ends in the corners of the frame (including a separatist French-Canadian janitor with fleur-de-lys and anti-Canadian stickers decorating his workplace – the film is a Canadian production) but it’s all far less than the sum of its parts. Heck, even the sight of Daniella Evangelista running around in a bikini for much of the third act doesn’t do much – the film is beyond saving by that point, and even when it stumbles upon a halfway effective idea or visual (such as humans being wired into the AI to act as drones), it can’t really do anything with it. Wretched in the way only direct-to-DVD horror sequels can be, The Mangler 2 lives up to reputation… even if it’s not a particularly positive one.