The Mangler is a short story by
Stephen King from the
Night Shift collection. It tells a story of a laundromat in Maine, which has a demon-possessed industrial pressing machine killing people.
The short story has the examples of:
- Demonic Possession
- Did Not Do the Research: The plant used to summon a demon is referred to as both belladonna and the hand of glory. In reality, belladonna (deadly nightshade) and the hand of glory (mandrake) are two separate plants.
- Eye of Newt: Possible ingredients for a demon summoning include virgin's blood, horse's hooves, graveyard dirt, and belladonna/the hand of glory.
- Haunted Technology
- Homicide Machines
- It Won't Turn Off: When the mangler catches the arm of Stanner, the laundry foreman, Diment, the maintenance man turns it off. It doesn't stop. Diment removes the fuses; everything turns off except the mangler. Diment is eventually forced to hack Stanner's arm with a fire axe.
- Locked into Strangeness
- Post Modern Magik
- Too Dumb to Live: When Jackson and Hunton are planning the exorcism, Jackson explains that demons who have been summoned with the hand of glory are much harder to kill. Since the hand of glory doesn't grow anywhere in the surrounding region, they both assume that this particular demon was summoned without it. Consequently, they expect an easy exorcism, and arm themselves accordingly. They don't even bother taking any extra precautions, just in case they're wrong. Boy, does that turn out to be a big mistake...
- Vomiting Cop: Officer Hunton in the beginning after seeing the remains of a woman caught in the machine.
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