Chopping Mall review
Chopping Mall is a fun mid 80s horror movie that pretty much gets everything out of its concept. Striving to be fun at every turn, it mostly delivers with a brisk pace and no filler design. Plus…Barbara Crampton and Kelli Maroney.
Classic movie reviews will contain spoilers.
Chopping Mall
Directed by Jim Wynorski
Written by Jim Wynorski and Steve Mitchell
Starring Kellu Maroney, Tony O’Dell, John Terlesky, Russel Todd and Barabara Crampton
Chopping Mall Review
1986 is an interesting year in horror. It’s the year that Jason Lives came out and put a comedic bent on the already long in the tooth Friday the 13th series. Tobe Hooper returned with a sequel to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre that also took the series in that direction. April Fool’s Day, Troll, Critters, House, Little Shop of Horrors, Night of the Creeps…it’s like the genre got together and said “let’s just have fun out there”. While some serious horror like The Fly and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer slipped through…Chopping Mall is firmly part of the former group.
A group of young mall employees stay after hours to party. When the new security system comes on line…it unleashes three killer robots into the mall. The group must try to survive until morning with a mall full of resources at their disposal. Things do not go well.
For its first trick, Chopping Mall casts two relatively fresh faces to the genre, women who would become Scream Queens. Kelli Maroney had her breakout horror role two years earlier in the excellent Night of the Comet. Her co-star here…the legendary Barbara Crampton. Crampton rose to horror fame one year earlier in Re-Animator. Their presence pretty much ensures Chopping Mall’s relevance. At any point in the future when someone scrolls the IMDB pages looking for another movie to check out…they’re probably stopping on this title.
About that title…it doesn’t make a lick of sense. It obviously exists because it’s clever…but when you watch the movie…no one gets chopped up. There are all manner of gruesome deaths to enjoy…but not one person is chopped. Still…the title strangely tells you exactly what to expect anyway. People at a mall…getting murdered. No more. No less.
Which is a weird aspect of Chopping Mall when you think about it. Painted targets are lined up for commentary to shoot down. A takedown of consumerism and greed set in a mall date back to George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. The world watched HAL show the dangers of technological advancement a decade before that in Stanley Kubrik’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Chopping Mall is content to play with the concepts but doesn’t have anything to say about them beyond “these robots are bad”. Then again, who is buying a ticket to Chopping Mall expecting social commentary? They were probably more upset at the lack of chopping.
What Chopping Mall is interested in is a fun time. Big dumb effects on a shoestring budget. A classic 80s score. Nudity and death…the 80s horror staples. Sure, the robots look silly…the whole premise is dumb. That’s not a bug…it’s a feature. The mall is filled with stores that don’t resemble any mall I’ve been to (and a locker room?). But who cares? Chopping Mall sure doesn’t. And you shouldn’t either.
What you should care about is the smile you’ll wear on your face as the movie races from one death to the next. There are some funny moments to be had here too. Particularly the two sarcastic mall employees watching unveiling of the security robots. Played by legends in their own right, Mary Woronov and Paul Bartel. Your biggest complaint after the movie is likely to be that they aren’t featured more. But they set a tone of irreverent pathos that Chopping Mall carries throughout the film.
That film is as goofy as it’s 80s mall setting would lead you to believe. Cat and mouse with killer robots? Good kills and ridiculous attempts to fight back? Barbara Crampton? This mall has everything you need. Even Dick Miller (a ton of Roger Corman and Joe Dante movies) pops up to get his from the robots.
It’s not trying to do anything new…and it certainly doesn’t have anything to say. Sure, it’s place in horror history may be its cheeky title or that it cast a couple of beloved horror icons…but what’s here is that pure 80s cheese that everyone needs in their lives. And hey…it came out a year before Robocop…so it should get some kind of credit for introducing us to the menace of robots policing our streets. Or in this case malls.
Scare Value
Okay, so…no one actually gets chopped in Chopping Mall. Heads explode, there’s electrocution and bodies set ablaze…none of which make for as good of a title. Despite the mislead…the title does tell you exactly what to expect from the movie. A fun ride that doesn’t take itself too seriously and holds up as an example of good 80s horror.
3/5
Chopping Mall Links
Streaming on Shudder
Rent/Buy on VOD from Amazon
Buy on Blu-Ray from Amazon
Chopping Mall Trailer
If you enjoyed this review of Chopping Mall, check out our review of The Crazies
