Chopping Mall (1986) by Jim Wynorski
It seems I struck gold when I started watching *80s horror flicks. I made a list, I checked it twice, and now I’m watching some hilarious nostalgia just for the sake of it. Yesterday, I watched Chopping Mall. Just to remind you: this came out two years after The Terminator and the same year Short Circuit was released.
What’s it about?
A shopping mall is…
50
+10 for 80s malls
+5 for the presentation “hecklers”
-10 for fat-shaming a customer
+10 for titties
-5 for eating someone else’s partially-eaten donut
+10 for after-hours mall party
+5 for Suzie’s lingerie
+10 for Alison and Ferdy watching creature features while everyone else is busy having sex
+5 for the goofy head ‘splosion
+5 for blowing the first bot to smithereens
-5 for wasting time shooting at the bots when it does literally no damage whatsoever
+10 for “Have a nice day!”
+10 for Ferdy surviving
“Because of Chopping Mall's connection to cult favorite Eating Raoul (it prominently features the protagonists of that film in a riotous cameo), because of the rising appreciation of the Corman brand, and because the film is generally what one looks for in an accidentally funny 1980s B-movie, its stature has deservedly grown. At a painless 76 minutes, you could hardly ask for more, and often is goofy garbage a nice change of pace from the grind of quality.”
↳ “Have a nice day!” Chopping Mall (1986) dir. Jim Wynorski
Plot: A group of young shopping mall employees stay behind for a late night party in one of the stores. When the mall goes on lock-down before they can get out, the robot security system malfunctions, and goes on a killing spree.
Starring: Kelli Maroney, Tony O'Dell, Russell Todd, Karrie Emerson, Barbara Crampton, Nick Segal, John Terlesky & Suzee Slater
This is such an 80′s movie. lol That said, the amount of mentions of it in the documentary made it so I just had to check it out. This challenge brings out my curiosity, what can I say? XD Anyway, it helped that I recognized two faces associated with horror: Barbara Crampton, once again haha and Kelli Maroney, who I know from Night of the Comet (which btw I credit my dad letting me watch when I was younger and I think is an enjoyable movie fyi) so there’s that. Otherwise, this movie was pretty much an excuse to have a group of young people trapped in a mall to party and have sex before essentially being killed off one by one by robots (they were def shameless about it lol), except for the two straight-laced characters ofc. lol It’s low-budget and cheesy but I do think it could have been worse. It did seem like the actors were having fun so that’s nice. At least it was a little memorable compared to some horror movies out there. Also, the poster for it, despite totally being misleading about what the movie is actually about, stands out. So I do get why it earned its place in horror history for those reasons. heh
March 21, 1986 - Chopping Mall is released in the US.
The sci-fi horror film was written by Jim Wynorski and Steve Mitchell. Wynorski also directed the film. It starred Kelli Maroney, Tony O’Dell, John Terlesky, Russell Todd, Karrie Emerson, Barbara Crampton, Suzee Slater and Nick Segal.
The original title of the film was Robots, before being changed to Killbots at the time of release. The movie performed poorly at the box office under the name Killbots causing Roger Corman to pull the film from theaters giving him a chance to find a new title because he believed the film could do better, it just needed “a fresh approach in the advertising.” Corman, Wynorski and others gathered in a company screening room to watch the film to try and find a new way to sell it. A janitor was in the room at the time and after the film had ended, he turned to them and asked, “Why don’t you just call it Chopping Mall?”
Cheesy movies are a special joy. Despite an earnest attempt to create compelling stories, filmmakers often miss the mark. Some movies turn out simply mediocre. Others become entertaining in spite of their flaws or authorial intent. They become cheesy. In Your Weekend Cheesy Movie, we’ll examine some of these misguided efforts for what they fail at achieving and what they manage to do right.