"The Lawnmower Man" is a short story by Stephen King, first published in the May 1975 issue of Cavalier, and later collected in King's 1978 collection Night Shift.
[edit] Plot summary
Harold Parkette hires Pastoral Greenery and Outdoor Services, Inc. to cut his lawn. The serviceman is not a service "man" at all but a satyr who works for the Greek god Pan. The serviceman, making good on his job to mow the lawn, conjures up an unholy, autonomous lawnmower that proceeds to mow Parkette's lawn while the serviceman, completely nude, devours the freshly cut grass. The event is terrifying and beyond the intellectual comprehension of Parkette. In a panic, he tries to call the police, but the serviceman and his diabolical lawn-mowing device proceed to brutally slaughter Parkette.
The police arrive at Parkette's house and believe that an insane nudist has killed him in a form of ritual sacrifice; they write off the occurrence as just another bizarre murder and leave, though not without noticing the powerful scent of freshly cut grass.
[edit] Adaptations
- A feature film, The Lawnmower Man, starring Jeff Fahey and Pierce Brosnan, was released in 1992 by New Line Cinema. This film was based mostly on an original screenplay — the story concerns a scientist (Dr. Lawrence Angelo, played by Brosnan) using a mentally retarded man (Jobe Smith, played by Fahey) for virtual reality experiments, who becomes more intelligent in the process but also evil — and only used minimal elements of King's story. King sued to have his name removed from any association with it as it bore basically no resemblance to his original story. A video game adaption, loosely based on film, was released for the Super Nintendo, Sega CD and PC CD-ROM. A sequel film, The Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace, was released in 1996.
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