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Chopping Mall
Killbots / R.O.B.O.T. / Shopping / Supermarket Horror
USA 1986
produced by Julie Corman for Concorde, Trinity Pictures
directed by Jim Wynorski
starring Kelli Maroney, Tony O'Dell, Russell Todd, Karrie Emerson, Barbara Crampton, Nick Segal, John Terlesky, Suzee Slater, Paul Bartel, Mary Woronov, Dick Miller, Gerrit Graham, Mel Welles, Angela Aames, Paul Coufos, Arthur Roberts, Ace Mask, Will Gill jr, Lenny Juliano, Angus Scrimm, Morgan Douglas, Toni Naples, Robert Greenberg, Maurie Gallagher
written by Steve Mitchell, Jim Wynorski, music by Chuck Cirino, creatures & special effects by Robert Short
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
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Eight teenaged mall employees (Kelli Maroney, Tony O'Dell, Russell
Todd, Karrie Emerson, Barbara Crampton, Nick Segal, John Terlesky, Suzee
Slater) decide to let themselves be locked into the mall overnight for a
little party - nothing extravagant, just your typical mix of booze and
sex. Thing is, the mall is being patrolled by three guard robots, and they
have recently had a malfunction due to lightning, and now they kill just
everybody in their way. And it's night, and only our teens are in their
way, so they pick on them. Our heroes are not that helpless though, and
while they might shrink in numbers, they grow in resourcefulness, and
eventually kill two of the three robots. However, the third one's the
toughest, and in the end, only wallflowerish Alison (Kelli Maroney) is
left alive to deal with it - which she does by luring it into a paint shop
then blowing it up. As a reward, she then finds out that her thought-dead
loverboy (Tony O'Dell) has survived the ordeal after all. Veteran Dick
Miller plays a janitor and one of the robots' first victim, Mel Welles a
diner cook, and Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov a bitchy couple at the
robots' presentation. By merely reading its synopsis, one might
come to the conclusion that Chopping Mall has nothing special to
offer - and yes, the film is formulaic as hell, its teen cast can't always
escape the feeling of being any more than cannon fodder, and most of the
dialogue is less than special ... and yet, there are elements in Chopping
Mall that make it one of the better slashers of its era, be it the
self-ironic approach to its story, the campy concept of killer robots that
is somehow reminiscent of both Judge Dredd and Doctor
Who's Daleks
and clearly anticipates RoboCop, the tongue-in-cheek appearances of
quite a few genre veterans (see above), the mall as an original location,
or simply a quite slick, action-oriented directorial effort. Whatever it
is though, this movie works and is more entertaining than it has a right
to be.
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