The Lawnmower Man (1992 film)
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| The Lawnmower Man | |
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| Directed by | Brett Leonard |
| Produced by | Gimel Everett |
| Written by | Brett Leonard Stephen King (incorporating some elements from his short story "The Lawnmower Man") |
| Starring | Jeff Fahey Pierce Brosnan Jenny Wright Mark Bringelson |
| Distributed by | New Line Cinema |
| Release date(s) | March 6, 1992 (USA) |
| Running time | 107 min. |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
The Lawnmower Man is a 1992 film which uses elements from Stephen King's short story "The Lawnmower Man".
The film's original script, written by director Brett Leonard and producer Gimel Everett, was titled Cyber God and had nothing to do with Stephen King. New Line held the film rights to Stephen King's short story, and decided to combine Cyber God with some very minor elements of King's story. The resulting film, originally titled Stephen King's The Lawnmower Man, differed so much from the source material that King sued the filmmakers to remove his name from the title. After two court rulings in King's favor, New Line still did not comply and initially released the home video version as Stephen King's The Lawnmower Man. A third ruling granted the author $10,000 per day in compensation and all profits derived from sales until his name was removed.[1] On King's official web-page, it is not listed among the films based on his work. The film was released in Japan under the title Virtual Wars.
An earlier short film, also titled The Lawnmower Man and a more faithful adaptation of the short story directed by Jim Gonis dates to 1987 [2].
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[edit] Short story
In Stephen King's short story, Harold Parkette hires "Pastoral Greenery and Outdoor Services Inc." to cut his lawn. The serviceman who turns up to do the job turns out to have a machine that mows the lawn by itself while he crawls behind the mower, eating the grass. The serviceman himself is actually a satyr who works for the Greek god, Pan. When Parkette tries to call the police, the mower and its owner turn on him.
[edit] 1992 film
Dr. Lawrence Angelo (Pierce Brosnan) works for Virtual Space Industries. His part in "Project 5" involves increasing the intelligence of chimpanzees using drugs and virtual reality. One of the experiment's chimps escapes using the warfare technology he was being trained to use. Angelo, it transpires, is generally a pacifist, who would much rather explore the intelligence-enhancing potential of his research without having to apply it for military purposes.
Jobe (Jeff Fahey), the "lawnmower man" of the title, suffers from a form of mental retardation; he lives in the garden shed owned by the local vicar, Father Francis McKeen. McKeen's brother, Terry, is a local landscape gardener and employs Jobe to help him with odd jobs. When Father McKeen finds insects around the church altar he blames Jobe and beats him with a leather strap, for forgetting his chores.
While Dr. Angelo records audio notes about needing a human subject, Jobe is mowing his lawn. It turns out that Peter, the young son of Angelo's neighbors, is friends with Jobe. Angelo invites them to play some virtual reality games and persuades Jobe to participate in his experiments, telling him it will make him smarter. Jobe agrees and begins a program of accelerated learning, using psychotropic drugs, virtual reality input and cortex stimulation. Dr. Angelo makes it a special point to redesign all the intelligence-boosting treatments without the "aggression factors" used in the chimpanzee experiments.
Jobe soon becomes smarter, and Dr. Angelo starts taking Jobe to his lab at work to use the technology there. Jobe is seduced by a housewife, Marnie, during his daytime job; he learns Latin in an hour and a half at the lab at night (due to a script gaff Angelo compares this with the year that it took him to learn just the latin alphabet). Jobe starts to have telepathic and hallucinatory experiences, but continues with the experiment at the lab, until an accident makes Angelo call a halt. The project director, employed by a mysterious agency known as "The Shop", keeps a secret watch on the progress of the experiment, and soon swaps Angelo's new medications for the old Project 5 "aggression factors".
Jobe acquires telekinetic powers and takes Marnie to the lab to join him in virtual reality, the experience is so traumatic she is permanently brain damaged. Jobe's powers and abilities continue to grow, although the treatments seem to be affecting his mental stability, and soon he takes revenge on those who abused him when he was 'dumb'; Father McKeen is engulfed in flames and a young man named Jake is tortured by a 'lawnmower man' continually mowing his brain. Jobe directs a real lawnmower to run down Peter's abusive father in his third and most brutal act and makes the investigating police officers attribute it all to "bizarre accidents".
Jobe believes his final stage of evolution will be to become "pure energy" in the VSI computer mainframe. He plans to enter the VSI computer and from there reach into all the systems of the world, and he promises his "birth" will be signaled by every telephone on the planet ringing simultaneously. The Shop sends a team to capture Jobe, but they are ineffective against Jobe's abilities. Jobe returns to VSI, where he creates millions of virtual insects to attack the guards, and drives straight in. He confronts the director of the project and tortures him before using the lab equipment to enter the mainframe computer. With the network connections disabled, Jobe is trapped in the mainframe and looks for an escape route. Angelo primes bombs to destroy the building and joins Jobe in virtual reality to talk with him. Jobe easily overpowers Angelo and proceeds to crucify him, then he continues to search for a network connection. Peter runs into the building; Jobe allows Angelo to go free in order to rescue him. Jobe finally finds access through a maintenance line as the building is destroyed in multiple explosions.
Back at home with Peter, Angelo and Peter's mother (who has implicitly become a romantic interest) are about to leave when their telephone rings, followed by the noise of a second, and then hundreds.
- Tagline: God made him simple. Science made him a god.
[edit] Other Inspirations
Although supposedly based on Stephen King's short story of the same name, the movie's plot bears a much stronger resemblance to the novel Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes.[citation needed]
[edit] Director's cut
An unrated director's cut contains an additional 32 minutes of footage, and often considered to be an improvement over the theatrical release. The director's cut has been available on VHS in the North America for several years, but the DVD is only available in Europe.
[edit] Sequel
Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace was released in 1996, and was retitled Lawnmower Man 2: Jobe's War for the video release.
Comic book writer Grant Morrison said in an interview [1] that he was contacted by the owners of the Lawnmower Man franchise in 1995 and asked to write treatments for Lawnmower Man 2 and Lawnmower Man 3. Morrison claims he was asked to "bend the Lawnmower Man series in an X-Men superhero-type direction." Neither of Morrison's script treatments were used and Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace was produced without his involvement.
[edit] 1987 adaptation
Much more faithful to Stephen King's short story than the 1992 film, this twelve-minute Dollar Baby short film was written by future professional screenwriter and New Line production executive Michael De Luca (In the Mouth of Madness) and directed by Jim Gonis. The film was shot in 1985 while Gonis was a junior at New York University. Originally budgeted at $800, the final film (finished in 1987) wound up costing nearly $5,000.
The film has become a favorite among the King fans fortunate to have seen it as a much more faithful adaptation of King's original short story.
The film has screened at the NYU Film Festival, Horrorfest in 1989, a screening of King films at the Stanley Hotel (the hotel that inspired King's novel The Shining), a New York film festival of Greek-American filmmakers in 1991 and at the 1st Annual Dollar Baby festival in Orono, Maine in 2004.
[edit] Reference
- ^ Creepshows the Illustrated Stephen King Movie Guide" Jones, Stephen Titan Books 2001 pp. 75
- ^ http://www.stephen-king.tk/index.htm?http://www.stephen-king.tk/lawnmowerman.htm
