Watched: 01/26/2025
Format: Shout! on YouTube
Viewing: Not sure
Director: Jim Wynorski
I saw this was streaming on YouTube - in real time - and turned it on, by chance, right at the beginning, and decided to stick with it just to watch the opening sequence. And next thing I knew, credits were rolling on this cinema classic.
On it's face, The Chopping Mall (1986) is a simple story about why it's a bad idea to deploy robots armed with futuristic and lethal weaponry as mall security. I mean, the room for lawsuits is breathtaking.
On another level, The Chopping Mall would make a fantastic pairing with Dawn of the Dead for a killer double-bill as it also uses horror to satire the consumer experience. This one also leans into horror films, Corman films (while being a Corman film), techno-shock media, and more. And it has the best possible signal as to what we're in for at the beginning by starting the film with the characters, The Blands, from Eating Raoul watching a demo for the Killbots.
Here in 2025 - almost forty years later - it's an amazing time capsule of the 1980's in cinema and pop culture. The film revels in B-movie violence, nudity and young people being dumb-as-@#$%. It's also a reminder that Barbara Crampton does not age on the same timeline as the rest of us. It's weird to say a movie in which heads explode on screen and 20-somethings are dispatched by rejected EPCOT trashcans is "joyful", but fun was had in the making of the movie. After all, this is a movie that features a mall petshop called "Roger's Little Shop of Pets" (referring, of course, to executive producer Roger Corman's Little Shop of Horrors). And, of course, gets a day or two out of Dick Miller to play his character from A Bucket of Blood.
It's a movie where the sporting goods store in the mall carries M-16's, and elevators are controlled by computers. And, is essentially about an orgy in a mall furniture store going sideways when lightning causes a power surge that sets off the Killbots.
Sadly - I can't find evidence that the robots from the movie survived after production. It would be nice to know they're out there or could wind up in a movie museum.
Sure, 1986 put out intentionally meaningful films and crowd pleasers. And this cost less than a million to produce (and takes place in the same mall used for 1985's Commando!), but in it's own way - I think is key to unlocking so much of what was happening in pop culture and media at the time.
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