261 Days of Horror, Day 81: Chopping Mall
Apr. 17th, 2007 06:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yendiChopping Mall. 1986. Directed by Jim Wynorski. Written by Wynorski and Steve Mitchell. Distributed by Lion's Gate.
A while back, I reviewed The Thing Below, and rightly called that travesty one of the worst movies ever made. Director Jim Wynorski has been around for a while, however, and one of his earliest efforts, Chopping Mall, is a modern classic. Which isn't to say it's good. But Chopping Mall is A) very '80s in every way imaginable*, and B) short. False advertising warning: It features absolutely no chopping, although it is, indeed, set in a mall.
The plot: Folks at the Park Plaza Mall (a shopping center very likely located somewhere in Canada), have decided to replace their $5-an-hour rent-a-cops with robots. This makes perfect sense in a world in which robots are available from grocery store vending machines. Which, given the quality of the security bots, is likely where they were acquired. See, they're big, they're dumb, and they're very susceptible to electricity. That said, they're actually military surplus, but they're completely safe, according the mall's management. The robots are managed by a pair of generic computer science nerds (who also, presumably, are paid more than $5 an hour). The 'bots are set to patrol the mall after closing, when the mall's automatic doors also lock anyone who has snuck in inside the mall with the security-bots. This mall exists in one of those special cities that appears to not have a fire code.
Meanwhile, a bunch of teen and slightly-post-teen employees are planning a party at the mall. There are four couples. Three of them are the typical teen party couples, there to get drunk and have sex. The fourth consists of one of the clerks at the furniture store (because the teens need a good place to hook up) and his less-than-willing live date. Since they're just going to party in the store (and they have mall employee ID cards), they figure they don't have to worry about the 'bots, and after all, the robots aren't lethal, so what could go wrong? So they just party until the morning.
Or not. The movie is short, but it's not that short**.
Sure enough, a convenient lightning strike hits the mall, frying the computer system and causing the robots to turn into their proper psychotic selves. They quickly identify the two computer nerds as enemies, and dispatch them and the mall's janitor. Once two of the teens leave to grab some snacks, the robots spot them, and kill them. Naturally, it spots the intruders inside the store, and the chase is on. Over the course of the next twenty minute or so, the three security bots chase down the eight teens, with casualties on both sides, until the two survivors (amazingly enough, the nerdy guy and his date) finally make it out alive, victorious over the evil robots.
What makes this movie actually watchable? It's certainly not the robot effects (imagine Short Circuit's Number 5, only without the charm or realism), the plot (a blatant rip-off of the 1973 James Brolin vehicle Trapped), or the directing (remember, this is Wynorski before he perfected his skills in later works like The Thing Below). But there's a lot that's worthwhile here:
1. Barbara Crampton. Topless, even. Yes, we get Re-Animator and daytime soap starlet Crampton! And if she's not an Oscar-winning actress, she's more than good enough to hold her own in a film like this.
2. Keli Maroney. Y'all have seen Night of the Comet, right?
3. Dick Miller. Because every '80s genre movie needs a cameo by him.
4. An exploding head! As Scanners has shown us, exploding heads make everything better! And we get a surprisingly good one here, as the first female victim gets her head blown up real good. As far as I can tell, the entire f/x budget for the movie was spent on this one scene***.
5. The sweet scenes with Allison and Ferdy falling in love as they watch old genre movies. Yay, nerd romance!
6. The utter cheese factor of the robots. It's not just that they make the robots of Short Circuit and Robocop look amazing. They make the robots from The Black Hole and Lost in Space seem like high-tech automatons. Also, after killing folks, they say, "Thank you. Have a nice day." Polite killer robots are always a good thing.
7. The fat guy in the restaurant. "More butter, please." Actually, the entire greasy spoon diner, complete with posters for movies like Slumber Party Massacre, might have been the best setting in the movie.
8. The robots, again. Because I forgot to mention that they can go up escalators.
9. The Day the Earth Stood Still references. If you can't make a good movie, at least make references to a good movie.
10. Cameos by the characters from Eating Raoul. Why? Who cares? It's just bizarre enough to be amusing.
Part of the reason that I enjoy this movie (bad as it is) is that it takes a largely sci-fi concept and re-casts it in a slasher framework. The robots even give us an old-fashioned throat-slashing as they pick off the kids. Like any good cheese-fest****, it doesn't take itself seriously, and if it's not exactly a brilliant comedy as a result, at least it's enjoyable enough, and ends after 77 minutes, with no pointless padding. Chopping Mall is far from a work of genius, but it's a good way to kill an hour late at night.
*In fact, the crappy '80s effects are way better than the f/x from The Thing Below.
**Yes, I've recycled this joke, too. Last time. I promise.
***Which wouldn't be a bad thing, except, y'know, it's a movie about robots.
****This was produced by Roger Corman.
A while back, I reviewed The Thing Below, and rightly called that travesty one of the worst movies ever made. Director Jim Wynorski has been around for a while, however, and one of his earliest efforts, Chopping Mall, is a modern classic. Which isn't to say it's good. But Chopping Mall is A) very '80s in every way imaginable*, and B) short. False advertising warning: It features absolutely no chopping, although it is, indeed, set in a mall.
The plot: Folks at the Park Plaza Mall (a shopping center very likely located somewhere in Canada), have decided to replace their $5-an-hour rent-a-cops with robots. This makes perfect sense in a world in which robots are available from grocery store vending machines. Which, given the quality of the security bots, is likely where they were acquired. See, they're big, they're dumb, and they're very susceptible to electricity. That said, they're actually military surplus, but they're completely safe, according the mall's management. The robots are managed by a pair of generic computer science nerds (who also, presumably, are paid more than $5 an hour). The 'bots are set to patrol the mall after closing, when the mall's automatic doors also lock anyone who has snuck in inside the mall with the security-bots. This mall exists in one of those special cities that appears to not have a fire code.
Meanwhile, a bunch of teen and slightly-post-teen employees are planning a party at the mall. There are four couples. Three of them are the typical teen party couples, there to get drunk and have sex. The fourth consists of one of the clerks at the furniture store (because the teens need a good place to hook up) and his less-than-willing live date. Since they're just going to party in the store (and they have mall employee ID cards), they figure they don't have to worry about the 'bots, and after all, the robots aren't lethal, so what could go wrong? So they just party until the morning.
Or not. The movie is short, but it's not that short**.
Sure enough, a convenient lightning strike hits the mall, frying the computer system and causing the robots to turn into their proper psychotic selves. They quickly identify the two computer nerds as enemies, and dispatch them and the mall's janitor. Once two of the teens leave to grab some snacks, the robots spot them, and kill them. Naturally, it spots the intruders inside the store, and the chase is on. Over the course of the next twenty minute or so, the three security bots chase down the eight teens, with casualties on both sides, until the two survivors (amazingly enough, the nerdy guy and his date) finally make it out alive, victorious over the evil robots.
What makes this movie actually watchable? It's certainly not the robot effects (imagine Short Circuit's Number 5, only without the charm or realism), the plot (a blatant rip-off of the 1973 James Brolin vehicle Trapped), or the directing (remember, this is Wynorski before he perfected his skills in later works like The Thing Below). But there's a lot that's worthwhile here:
1. Barbara Crampton. Topless, even. Yes, we get Re-Animator and daytime soap starlet Crampton! And if she's not an Oscar-winning actress, she's more than good enough to hold her own in a film like this.
2. Keli Maroney. Y'all have seen Night of the Comet, right?
3. Dick Miller. Because every '80s genre movie needs a cameo by him.
4. An exploding head! As Scanners has shown us, exploding heads make everything better! And we get a surprisingly good one here, as the first female victim gets her head blown up real good. As far as I can tell, the entire f/x budget for the movie was spent on this one scene***.
5. The sweet scenes with Allison and Ferdy falling in love as they watch old genre movies. Yay, nerd romance!
6. The utter cheese factor of the robots. It's not just that they make the robots of Short Circuit and Robocop look amazing. They make the robots from The Black Hole and Lost in Space seem like high-tech automatons. Also, after killing folks, they say, "Thank you. Have a nice day." Polite killer robots are always a good thing.
7. The fat guy in the restaurant. "More butter, please." Actually, the entire greasy spoon diner, complete with posters for movies like Slumber Party Massacre, might have been the best setting in the movie.
8. The robots, again. Because I forgot to mention that they can go up escalators.
9. The Day the Earth Stood Still references. If you can't make a good movie, at least make references to a good movie.
10. Cameos by the characters from Eating Raoul. Why? Who cares? It's just bizarre enough to be amusing.
Part of the reason that I enjoy this movie (bad as it is) is that it takes a largely sci-fi concept and re-casts it in a slasher framework. The robots even give us an old-fashioned throat-slashing as they pick off the kids. Like any good cheese-fest****, it doesn't take itself seriously, and if it's not exactly a brilliant comedy as a result, at least it's enjoyable enough, and ends after 77 minutes, with no pointless padding. Chopping Mall is far from a work of genius, but it's a good way to kill an hour late at night.
*In fact, the crappy '80s effects are way better than the f/x from The Thing Below.
**Yes, I've recycled this joke, too. Last time. I promise.
***Which wouldn't be a bad thing, except, y'know, it's a movie about robots.
****This was produced by Roger Corman.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-17 10:50 am (UTC)On the MST3K version of "Overdrawn At The Memory Bank" (which is full of "Casablanca" references), the bots point out that a crappy movie should never remind people of other, better movies that they could be watching instead.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-17 12:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-17 12:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-17 12:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-17 12:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-17 12:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-17 04:15 pm (UTC)Hat's off to you, sir.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-17 06:27 pm (UTC)So the robots in Chopping Mall are better than the ones in Short Circuit and RoboCop? (Which is what you're saying here.....)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-17 10:51 pm (UTC)