No other decade could ladle on the cheese quite like the 80s, and if the purveyors of said cinematic fromage include the likes of schlock-meisters Roger Corman and Jim Wynorski, you just know that it’s going to be extra stinky. But that’s not exactly a bad thing, especially when the results of their B-movie fermentation was something as gleefully stupid as Chopping Mall.
It would be easy to suggest that the title is the smartest thing in this willfully dumb movie by far (the tagine: “Where shopping costs you an arm and a leg” would presumably come a close second), but can a dumb movie really be so dumb when it knows it’s dumb? I don’t know, probably, but one thing you can’t say about the film is that it doesn’t utilise its gloriously camp premise to it’s fullest. So let’s all go for spot of retail therapy where you’re guaranteed to shop until you drop.
Welcome to the Park Plazza Mall, which has decided to take a harsher stance on crime by installing a state-of-the-art security system that could literally be described as over-kill. Not only has Death Star style blast doors been fitted over all the entrances and exits (surely a fire hazard, no?), but patrolling the various floors of the Mall each night are the Protectors, a trio of “high tech” security robots that are equipped with tranquiliser darts and tasers to subdue anyone wandering around after hours not wearing an ID badge. Surely nothing could go wrong with that, right? Well, thanks to a handy lightning bolt causing the main computer to overload, Protectors 1, 2 and 3 suddenly become incredibly overeager when it comes to their job parameters, deciding to kill any fleshy human they come across whether they’re sporting identification or not.
Of course, this proves to be the night where eight teens have decided to throw an after-hours party at the furniture store where three of them work. As Suzie and Greg hope to set up the nerdy Ferdy and Allison for a blind date, they’re joined by other couples Rick & Linda and Mike & Leslie, and soon the drinking and heavy petting has begun in earnest. However, unbeknownst to them, the Protectors have already killed their tech support and run a fatal amount of volts through a curmudgeony cleaner, and soon they’re drawn to the sound of premarital sex as they’re compelled to fulfill their prime directive to the full extent of their abilities.
Before you know it, the teens are fighting for their lives and even after raiding the gun store to mount some sort of defence, they realise that it’s going to take something more substantial than bullets to stop these psycho security robots. What eventually plays out may give you pause the next time you’re somewhere and see one of large, robot floor cleaners aimlessly wandering about – after all, according to Wynorski, all it takes is one stray lightning bolt, and it’ll be mopping the floor with you…
So, as we’ve already established, Chopping Mall is a very dumb movie – however, not only is it one that’s fully aware of how dumb it truly is, but anyone who’s seen other movies directed by Wynorski (Deathstalker II, Return Of Swamp Thing) knows that he’s a filmmaker who enjoys planting the odd tongue in a cheek as much as he can – even more so, in fact, after he eventually moved into softcore porn. Way back when I first viewed Chopping Mall, I have to confess that I was fairly nonplussed with the result. For a start, the video box art was genuinely insane, with a robot hand clutching a shopping bag filled with human body parts enhanced even further with a special, puffy VHS case (we used to be a society…), and no film could possibly hope to live up to that amount of implied carnage. However, if my disappointed, twelve year-old self could have looked past the camp shenanigans and distinct lack of mutilated limbs stuffed in various receptacles (talk about a bag for life), he would have seen that the movie is actually a knowing romp that goes all-in when utilising its surroundings.
Maybe it isn’t exactly George Romero’s Dawn Of The Dead, but when it comes to utterly embracing it’s setting to the fullest extent on a tight budget, it certainly beats the likes of Phantom Of The Mall when it comes to cheapjack, 80s trash set in a shopping centre. For a start, Wynorski’s love of silly puns and cinema savvy jokes is obviously in full effect long before you even discover that the gun store is named Peckinpah’s, or that the cast is crammed full with such Corman regulars as Paul Bartel, Mary Warnov and, of course, the ubiquitous Dick Miller. But even though the “younger” members of the cast are playing an octet of highly sexed bone-heads, they put up a far more spirited fight than you’d expect. In fact, for a low grade robot exploitation flick, Chopping Mall may skimp on the graphic gore (aside from a legitimately cool exploding head), but it goes surprisingly epic at times as the guys engage in all-out gun battles and set explosive booby traps with the murderous, metal, misanthropes.
In fact, I’d go as far to say that it’s genuinely exciting at times, even building tension with a moment where Alison takes refuge in a pet only to be showered with spiders and snakes, and the fact that the movie just wants us all to have a good time is picked up by the likable faces of Kelli (Night Of The Comet) Maroney and Barbara (Re-Animator) Crampton screaming hysterically while fleeing the squat, laser shooting killbots.
However, I have to say, while I found the Protectors quite a ludicrous sight once upon a time, somehow time has proven Wynorski inexplicably right as robots do indeed now patrol the halls of malls thanks to those clumsy, R2-D2 sized roombas that clean the floors. OK, so the only threat they pose is to the employment of other cleaners, but the fact that Jim Wynorski has managed to predict anything is something of a miracle trapped on film. Also proving to be rather an amusing counterpoint is the fact that Chopping Mall came out the same year Short Circuit was released, with both featuring robots with tank tracks becoming self aware after a blast of lighting – however, there’s quite the distance between getting the urge to woo Ally Sheedy and hurling a gawping himbo off of a balcony.
I’m not here to say that Chopping Mall is some sort of five-star masterpiece, but it is a tremendously fun goof-off that is fully aware of how ludicrous it is. In fact, I demand a big(ger) budget remake/legacy sequel that sees the fateful malfunction occur while the store is still open and getting sealed in with slaughter-happy clankers results in some actual chopping
A pitch perfect slice of low budget idiocy (complimentary), Chopping Mall may be the ridiculous jewel in the cheap-ass crown that is Jim Wynorski’s pre-porn output, I was surprised that a rewatch supplied some genuine laughs. The robots are endearingly clunky, the cast are mostly in on the joke and while the deaths could be messier, there’s nothing more relaxing than a trip to the maul.
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