Stephen King's 'The Lawnmower Man'

[cyberghostface]

Stephen King turns 72 today. It's been three years since I last shared this so I figured I'd give it another go.

This came from Marvel's Bizarre Adventures #29. Some brief nudity and violence/gore.

The story opens with Harold Parkette, a man who is very proud of his lawn. One day, however, a neighbor's dog chases a cat under the lawnmower while a boy is mowing the lawn for him and his wife is so upset that she makes him get rid of the mower. The grass begins to grow until Harold can't take it anymore. He eventually finds an ad for mowing in the paper and calls for it.



Harold goes to read his paper and falls asleep. He is awoken by the loud sound of the lawnmower. He looks outside to see that it is running on the grass by itself, sounding like an Indy 500.



A mole is hiding in the grass when the mower swerves on its own to run it over before returning to its usual path.







Inside, Harold calls the police.

Comments

[lordultimus]

Still better than the movie.

[alicemacher]

Heehee. The movie is possibly the most blatant example of the phrase "in name only" in entertainment history. So much so that King sued the studio to remove his name from the title.

[kamino_neko]

Like many other 'in name only' movies, it was the result of having an original script and attaching a vaguely related licensed name to it. (Original title was Cyber God.)

Unlike other such films, it wasn't due to a vague similarity in the plots of the script*, just the presence of a 'lawnmower man'.

* I, Robot is an odd case of this - the script (originally titled Hardwired) bore more resemblance to Eando Binder's I, Robot than to Asimov's, and I, without any evidence for it, choose to believe that it was originally intended to be connected to the Binder story and there was a miscommunication.

[tripodeca113]

Also better than Lawnmower Man 2:Beyond Cyberspace.

[michaelhealy]

If you just let him eat your grass clippings (and small rodents) you'd still be alive and have a nice lawn.

[xammax]

A great lesson of leaving well enough alone.

[silverzeo]

... watching JoJo's Bizzare Adventure and being around Furry circles have made this story seem passe to me...

In fact, looking at the cover, I think it plays off more as fetish comic than an actual horror....