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"The Lawnmower Man" is a short story by Stephen King, published in 1978 in the compilation Night Shift. It was first published in Cavalier in 1975.
[edit] Plot summary
In Stephen King's short story, Harold Parkette hires "Pastoral Greenery and Outdoor Services Inc." to cut his lawn. Yet a mystery surrounding the service is that no one has ever seen the person who owns and operates the enterprise. Parkette decides to find out the identity of the mysterious lawnmower man. In the earliest hours of morning he discovers the strange and horrible truth. The serviceman is not a service "man" at all but a strange inter-dimensional being that takes the form of a symbiotic organism, a machine that mows the lawn by itself while a strange naked man follows behind the mower, eating the grass. The serviceman has the appearance of a satyr who works for the Greek god Pan. The event is terrifying and beyond the comprehension and intellect of Parkette. In a panic he tries to call the police, but it is too late, and the mower and its human slave violently turn on him.
[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
- The Lawnmower Man, starring Jeff Fahey and Pierce Brosnan, released in 1992 by New Line Cinema. This film was based mostly on an original screenplay — the story concerns a scientist using a mentally retarded man for virtual reality experiments, who becomes more intelligent in the process but also evil — and only used minimal elements of King's story. King was so disappointed with the film's departure from his story that he sued to have his name removed from any association with it. A sequel titled The Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace was released in 1996.
- The Lawnmower Man, a 1987 twelve-minute Dollar Baby short film, written by future professional screenwriter and New Line production executive Michael De Luca (In the Mouth of Madness) and directed by Jim Gonis. Unlike the 1992 film, the short film remained faithful to King's story. 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) ultimately cost nearly $5,000. It 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] External links
