Nowadays, it’s easy to see Stephen King’s name and have a conceived notion of his legacy. He remains well into old age one of the most prolific authors of his generation, producing masterpieces that dig under people’s skin and recontextualizes fears we’ve long taken for granted. In this Short Stop series, I will explore a period before he was the icon we know and love. Even with a handful of bestsellers to his name, his status had yet to cement. That is why I’ve chosen to take a look at his first story collection, “Night Shift,” and hopefully get a glimpse into the writer taking shape, before his style was cemented into a cultural touchstone. Was he always the master of horror, or was there a simpler time when he was as messy and weird as the rest of us? All it takes is turning the page to find out.
No story so far has embodied the cliché King narrative quite like “The Mangler.” There have been better works that more efficiently use their word count to tell stories that pop off the page and lodge themselves in your nightmares. Some characters resonate on a more empathetic level to the point that their journeys become tragic. The “Master of Horror” has earned that title by finding humanity underneath the ick factor. Anyone could have their bones crunch as veins pour everywhere, but what is it about his perspective that makes it sting more? This isn’t to suggest that “The Mangler” is high art in his catalog, but the violence feels recognizable for anyone who has ever had to clock in for low-wage tedium.
The worlds of this anthology so far haven’t been flattering. Before “The Mangler,” he explored a building with tremendous health code violations in “Graveyard Shift,” which also worked as a perfect metaphor for employee negligence. “The Mangler” exists in the same mentality in ways that feel more damning and, thus, more visceral. King’s compassion for the working class centers on characters who have no choice but to march into madness to please their superior. Given that the title refers to a laundry’s speed ironing and folding machine, there are many points where the reader would ask a practical question. Why didn’t they shut this down? Sure, one mistake could be excused, but the perpetuity haunts this factory. The mangler is an essential part of operations, and to imagine a world where that shuts down would put everyone at a different, though safer, risk.
As can be suggested, this is another case where the horror derives as much from the intensity with which King describes the deaths as it does from the preventative measures that could be taken. It would require some serious thought, but what keeping the mangler without resolving matters actually says is that the manual laborers are replaceable. They can find somebody else ignorant of the prior disasters to put themselves in harm’s way for the sake of potentially getting the job done. More than that, it must be traumatic to watch a coworker die in such horrific fashion and expect to keep working without losing one's bearings.
Another aspect of this mystery is how King plays with realism and fantasy through the character of John Hunton. He is a police detective assigned to determine what is causing this debacle. Like a typical story, the reader can’t help but assume that manmade laws are capable of keeping the world in order. Even still, the accidents keep happening, and efforts to defuse the situation prove impossible when unplugging the mangler results in no change. Whatever is driving this machine is not manmade and likely out of Hunton’s jurisdiction. As someone who likely follows the “to protect and serve” oath to a T, he can’t help but really dig into ideas that at first seem far-fetched, but push him to accept a logic that exists outside the legal system that has bound everything else about this environment to a steady manufacturing pace.
This isn’t a terribly complex or serious story, all things considered. Whereas “Graveyard Shift” builds this core empathy for its central characters through small, quiet moments, “The Mangler” starts with an intensity that never lets up. There’s a sweatiness to the premise where readers are stuck looking for relief. As they process the previous few pages through the interrogation scenes, they’re already gearing up for another attack that is more gruesome than the last.
The attacks have a debilitating and inescapable structure where even if one survived, there would be immense pain that would linger for the rest of their lives. It’s easy to imagine the torture being so overwhelming that it would almost be preferable to override the flight instinct and accept the fate of a manmade machine that has become cursed. Even still, King writes these pages with an interest in elongating the pain. He wants readers to understand why it’s called the mangler, and that’s in how the bones crack and the heat’s uncompromising brutality. There’s recognition again of humanity in some ways being lesser than the world it has constructed. The mangler has outgrown its function and is now seeking something more horrifying. Does it want to murder the human race, or will it somehow unleash an even stranger circumstance on the surrounding geography?
If there’s one thing that makes “The Mangler” distinct here, it’s that it eventually moves away from the realm of practical into outright ridiculous. The mystery by itself is a brilliant premise that plays well with King’s devilish playfulness. However, he decides to use this as a time to give in to literary theory for supernatural forces. It’s difficult to read this in the 21st century and have the passages of occult language produce the same impact it likely did in 1972 in the pages of Cavalier. American culture has become hyper-contextual to the point that pointing out how something is a trope is in itself a trope. While this is closer to post-modernism than the horror King existed within, both share the absurdism where any practical answer is impossible, which, in itself, makes a problem like the mangler a crazier foe.
With that said, King’s nerdery is on full display around the start of the third act of this story. Hunton seems intent on breaking down every cultural ritual that would involve blood. He’s especially drawn to the idea of a virgin’s blood, given that one of the victims fit the description. Even so, the consumption of various other materials makes it difficult to decide just what is going on. That in itself makes for a fun spin on the typical mystery, even if the lack of commitment at times makes this more an excuse for the author to flex his knowledge than settle on a greater purpose. It at most conveys the imbalance between man and the supernatural, that there have been ways to keep the forces at bay, but it has never fully solved the matter.
In what may be the most ridiculous conclusion of “Night Shift” so far, Hunton decides to perform an exorcism on the machine with hopes of expelling the evil forces living inside. It’s a concept that feels very much like King had been reading William Peter Blatty and was a little too infatuated with “The Exorcist,” and I’m not sure it ever feels like more than a gimmick. Whereas “Graveyard Shift” ends with a practical inevitability, this is one of those texts that, as shown previously, could’ve gone in a million directions. Given that Hunton lacks the interiority of the other short story, there’s nothing greater to attach to than the work safety concept. It is doubtful that a police officer could ever be a good exorcist, but he tries by relying on that old throwback of a bygone text full of spells.
Does this lead to anything meaningful? Not exactly. If anything, the mangler ends the story by escaping its prison and is ready to run rampant. Given that supernatural forces couldn’t solve the problem, the solution seems to be that nothing can. It’s a bit defeatist in terms of prose, mostly restating the story’s overall theme of how the working class is victims of the larger machines that mangle their bodies. They are nothing more than another cog to keep operations running. Everything can keep being replaced, much like the mangler’s need for blood.
Yes, the final image is one of the most terrifying examples that King has produced so far. If judged solely on how it gets under the reader’s skin and places fear for archaic technology, it’s an amazing read that gives the body a full workout. Even the fact that it lacks conclusiveness shows how this is not a problem so much as a cycle, where even the legal system isn’t enough to tamper with the pathway of incoming danger. The mangler is coming for all of us, and it doesn’t care how many limbs it takes with it. What does it want? Nobody knows. The historical context is a nice touch in that it shows how long this problem has been going on, as if it has existed alongside mankind since the dawn of time.
With that said, it fulfills the cliché that King doesn’t know how to end a story. He often has a great idea, but given his curiosity-driven approach to storytelling, there’s not enough in place to be more than a metaphor. There’s no character with enough depth to actually find the small moments of relief more meaningful. This is downright nihilistic, and not in the heartbreakingly tragic way that “I Am the Doorway” was. With that said, it makes sense that it was made into a franchise, starting with the Tobe Hooper film The Mangler (1995), co-starring Robert Englund and Ted Levine. Despite the first film playing on over 800 screens and grossing $1.1 million, it currently ranks as the most successful “Night Shift” adaptation so far. If nothing else, it’s faring better than Graveyard Shift (1990), which couldn’t even afford an endorsement from the author.
As mentioned, this story is a bit all over the place and fits into a certain vision of what people consider all of King’s writing to be. When compared to the half-century of writing that followed, it’s juvenile and overtly simplistic. With that said, it’s a story that fulfills the goals of its title. It sure does mangle a lot of people. If taken solely as a horror short story, it’s fun for a few frights. However, it lacks the extra elements to make this an essential read. It’s immersive and strange, but little else. For those who are nervous about graphic violence, please skip this story. Otherwise, if your heart has some sadistic tendencies, then it’s likely that the delight will pour through. Like most people in this story, I’m somewhere in the middle.
Coming Up Next: “The Boogeyman”
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