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★★★★★ (yeah, it deserves it)
Directed by: Jim Wynorski
Written by: Jim Wynorski, Steve Mitchell
Starring Kelli Maroney, Russell Todd, Barbara Crampton
Throwback Film Review by: Rachel Pullen
Chopping Mall Movie Review
Who likes a sense of security? We all do right? We want to know we are not gonna get blasted in the face with a flame thrower while at Disneyland or assaulted while squeezing avocados in Morrisons, and to achieve this we must employ security guards and all that jazz, but what if you don't feel like employing flabby gross humans, what will you do?
You invest all the money you could have used on paying a human wage to build a bunch of robots who act as security to your shopping mall of course! Duh, so welcome to the stage the premise of the hit 1986 movie Chopping Mall (it was not a hit, but it should be, so I'm creating the hype).
Chopping Mall is the story of a group of teens who decide to have a party in the furniture store in the mall where they work after closing time. Basically, they all have sex on the display beds in the same room and this whole part has heavy future swinger vibes, but while this is happening a thunderstorm is brewing overhead....doom!
For you see the mall bought up all those cheap robots to be security officers, but what they didn't know is that a lightning bolt hit the main electrical supply causing all the robots to get all super evil and understand the concept of murder, so yeah, that's happening...but do they understand the concept of love?
The robots, not unlike every villain in an 80s horror film, hate teens, drinking and pre-marital sex, and so when they discover the teens are doing all of that, it’s an all-out war, with lasers and tasers, so much drama!
The movie is basically just that, robots come, robots get evil, teems hump, teens get shot with lasers, then some live some die, the basic construction of an 80s horror, but with the tedious layout aside there is some charm to Chopping Mall I just can’t put my finger on.
I keep watching this movie and I don't know why, there is something about it I can’t get enough of, it’s beyond stupid, it’s knee-high robots, that you could tip over and run from very easily, killing a bunch of horny teens, but I love, I love every second of it.
This movie is the perfect dumb switch-off flick, you want a movie you can put on with your date, hump in the middle of but be able to jump back in? Chopping Mall.
You want to laugh at people getting killed but not feel bad? Chopping Mall.
You want to watch robots but not feeling in the mood for them transforming into cars near you? Chopping Mall...this movie has it all.
And on a serious note as well, for a low budget-ish movie, it does not look too bad, it’s the 80s so we have to let some things slide, but there is a consistency to the robot’s actions and weapons, the acting is on point for a bunch of up and coming actors and the mall, the lighting, the costumes all lure us into that feeling of middle America in the ‘80s, and that's the point, we are meant to feel safe in the mall - like capitalism can cure us of all our sadness.
Well, right now Chopping Mall cures me of my sadness!
So what did we learn this week?
Doing it in the place where you work is a rad idea
If an enemy is knee-high, push it over.
Robots cannot outperform humans in the workplace, but there will be consequences.
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