The Stephen King Sci-Fi Horror Marked By Controversy, Stream Without Netflix Right Now

The Lawnmower Man was first published in a May 1975 issue of Cavalier and later included in Stephen King’s 1978 short story collection entitled Night Shift. While the original short story centers on an unnamed lawnmower man who worships the ancient god Pan, the film leans into the idea of using medical experimentation on an intellectually disabled gardener named Jobe Smith (Jeff Fahey), who develops psychokinesis and telepathy after being treated with experimental psychotropic drugs.

In the cinematic adaptation of The Lawnmower Man, the narrative centers primarily on a scientist working for Virtual Space Industries (VSI) named Dr. Lawrence Angelo (Pierce Brosnan). Angelo specializes in the research of psychoactive drugs used concurrently with virtual reality to increase the cognitive function and performance of his subjects. An early iteration of his experiment, Project 5, involved a chimpanzee named Rosco who became intelligent as intended, but exhibited signs of extreme aggression and had to be executed by the laboratory’s security workers.

Working with the best of intentions, Angelo wants to move forward with human trials and recruits Jobe for subsequent testing. Having developed a new formula that won’t make Jobe aggressive like Rosco, Angelo puts Jobe through further testing and training as his intellectual capacity becomes increasingly enhanced. In this version of The Lawnmower Man, project director Sebastian Timms has other ideas in mind, and swaps Angelo’s new medication with the medication that proved to be problematic with Rosco during the earlier Project 5 testing.

As Jobe continues to dose himself with the Project 5 medication, he becomes violent and goes on a killing spree. Leaning heavily into the concept of VSI technology, The Lawnmower Man continues to deviate from the source material when Jobe expresses his intentions to leave his physical body and live in a computer mainframe as a form of “pure energy.”

Much of the third act bears no resemblance to the original short story, but it’s still an interesting take on humanity’s relationship with technology at this point in time.

The original version of The Lawnmower Man that was written by Stephen King didn’t lean into these technological themes, but rather its titular character, who sacrifices those critical of its gardening methodology to the ancient god, Pan.

Far from satisfied with the final product, Stephen King filed a lawsuit against New Line Cinema to get his name removed from the title, which was originally presented as Stephen King’s The Lawnmower Man. The abysmal reviews (38 percent on Rotten Tomatoes) further solidified King’s case against the studio, resulting in a $2.5 million settlement in King’s favor. New Line Cinema would get in trouble once again in 1994 for distributing the home video version of the film with the original title even though they lost the lawsuit.