Thank You and Have a Nice Day

Well hello out there internet people, it’s Slick Dungeon coming to you from deep underground. I’m here in my dungeon and I am stuck watching some really strange stuff. This week I watched the eighties classic Chopping Mall.

First off, if you are one of those folks who was born well after the 1980’s and you decide to have an 80’s party, stop with all the day glow neon and headbands and stuff. Educate yourselves by watching movies like Chopping Mall, where the filmmakers were on a tight budget and I am pretty sure wardrobe was bring your own clothes with you. The fashion is still bad and it’s a lot more accurate. So many mullets and feathered hairdos I lost count!

Anyway, I think I was supposed to review this thing right? Yeah, okay so I thought based on the title that this was going to about a serial killer who hung out in a mall and chopped people up. Nope! This is about killer robots that go bad and shoot lasers, electrocute and strangle people. There was, and I mean this literally, no chopping, in Chopping Mall. Not one person that died was chopped.

Still, this movie is so awkward it’s kind of awesome. For those of you not acquainted with it, the film takes place in a mall. Well, duh. A group of friends decide to have a party in the mall after hours where they drink, have sex and dance to some heavily synthecized eighties music. I guess no one’s house was available? Anyway the film tries to blur the line and make sure you know these are adults while still sort of implying they have curfews as if they were teenagers.

Anyway, these people having their party did not count on a lightning storm happening outside. Because you know what happens when there is a lightning storm? You got it, it hits the mainframe computer and normal robots go crazy. Just ask Short Circuit. But in this case, instead of a military robot turning nice, these brand new security robots turn into lethal death machines. There are only three of them because, budget.

The party people get locked in with these rolling bots and have to fight for their lives. The first couple are taken down in no time at all because, they don’t realize the robots have gone bad. Why the heck the rest of them keep splitting up is totally beyond me. Never split the party!

The guys gear up with all kinds of guns that can only be found in and American mall and the girls try sneaking around in the air ducts. The air ducts seemed like the best choice to me because it leads to the parking lot but the girls don’t stay there because it gets hot and claustrophobic. The boys, meanwhile find the first of the robots. Right before that one of the guys says the best line in the whole film, “Let’s send these f—–s a Rambo-gram!” Rambo-gram, I like it. I think I will use it for my social media platform idea of bringing over-steroided actors together with survivors of killer robot incidents. Watch out Mark Zuckerberg, Slick’s on the loose!

Despite the fact that no mall would have loaded and filled propane tanks, the guys set one out in front of the robot and blast it away. Explosion ensues and the robot seemingly dies. Until it gets up like we all knew it would. But that doesn’t happen for a few scenes.

One by one these people make the dumbest mistakes. Like not getting out of the way when a robot is in front of them. Or not sticking obstacles in front of the robots since they only kind of roll around. These robots would be toast anywhere with stairs but lucky for them — escalators.

They also use mannequins as decoys but then stand to the side of the mannequins to shoot. What a bunch of morons!

They figure out that maybe they should shut down the main computer and try to make their way to the third level. They basically get picked off one by one trying to do that.

At one point a guy shoots a robot eight times with a six shot revolver without ever reloading. Another time, a woman hangs off the side of a balcony and her hands move to different rungs without her ever actually moving herself up or down. Also, none of the bullets ever pierce a propane tank but they all explode when shot at.

Long story short they mostly die but do manage to take down the robots. The only ones who live in the end are the two people who never wanted to go to the party in the first place. To which I say, that’s why I don’t go to parties!!!

The two that live will seemingly have a nice long life but boy are they going to have to explain a lot to the police when they show up.

A few things about this film before I go though.

• Who in their right minds thinks it’s a good idea to have doors that lock down a mall with no possible way of unlocking it for an entire night? That has to be a fire code violation right?
• Did you know this mall is the same one used in the Arnold Schwarzeneggar cheesefest that is Commando? Well, now you do.
• Every time the robots kill someone they say, “Thank you and have a nice day.” I hate it when people say that to me on a normal day, but after you kill me? Forget it!
• The most awesome part of this whole movie is that the pet store is named Roger’s Little Shop of Pets. This is a callback to Roger Corman’s The Little Shop of Horrors. This is relevant because Chopping Mall was produced by Corman’s wife Julie. Don’t get confused here, The Little Shop of Horrors is not the musical Little Shop of Horrors. It’s the film the musical was based on!
• I had to wonder if the people who designed the killer robots for Robocop watched Chopping Mall and thought, those treads on those robots look totally stupid, let’s give ours legs that will fall over easily!
• Finally, and I mean this most sincerely of all, who thinks it’s a good idea to have a party in a mall?!?!?!?!? Seriously man, what the heck?

I’ll be back next week to review a film about a killer clown. No not that one. No not that one either, those were aliens not clowns. Yeah, you got it, Stitches!

Consumeristically yours,

Slick Dungeon