Review: Chopping Mall (1986)

Chopping Mall (aka Killbots) (1986)

Rated R

Score: 3 out of 5

Chopping Mall is a film from the later period of the great '80s slasher boom, when the genre was just past the peak of its success and wasn't yet circling the drain but was definitely staring into it. Sure, the big franchises were still going strong and reaching their commercial heights, but elsewhere, the fact that the simple slasher formula was no longer that fresh meant that, in order to hook an audience, you needed a gimmick. For Chopping Mall, there were two gimmicks: set it in a shopping mall, and make the villain a robot, or rather, a fleet of them. That way, you're cashing in on two great '80s trends at once, the decade's love affair with shopping malls and the post-Terminator boom in killer robot movies (that film having come out two years prior). There isn't much more to this movie beyond that. It's not that scary, the acting is hokey, the characters are unlikable assholes, the first act is dull, and there were only a handful of good kills. What it does have, however, is a trio of memorable killer robot bad guys, a fun pace once it gets moving, and so much '80s camp that it had to be intentional. Its secret weapon is that it never takes itself too seriously, interested more in being an entertaining thrill ride than anything, something I expected the moment I saw that Roger Corman's wife Julie produced it. It's not a film I'd recommend unless you're already a slasher aficionado, but if you are, it has plenty to like about it.

The plot is perfunctory. The Park Plaza Mall has just purchased a trio of Protector security robots to patrol the halls after dark, and thanks to a lightning storm, the central control goes haywire and the robots turn into killbots. Armed with tasers, tranquilizer darts, mechanical arms, and laser cannons, they immediately set their sights on a group of employees who have decided to stay after hours and party in the furniture store, and, having been locked inside the mall, must now survive the night against three robot slashers. I'm gonna be frank: the killbots are by far the most compelling characters in this movie. The special effects used to bring them to life are clearly where most of the budget went, and they did not cut corners, as these remote-controlled machines are given the star treatment whenever they appear. I bought them as monsters that couldn't be stopped easily, resisting gunfire, firebombs, and the simple trick of just flipping them on their side, and while the gore is surprisingly sparse for a movie produced by a Corman, one truly memorable kill early on establishes that these bots do not play around. Their "thank you, have a nice day" catchphrase, robotically repeated to all their victims, is just the icing on the cake that lends to their mechanical, emotionless, no-nonsense nature, helped along by a synth soundtrack that evoked Brad Fiedel's from The Terminator and, by extension, reminded me of Kyle Reese's famous speech about the T-800.

I wish I could say the same about the other characters. Virtually all of them are one-note '80s horror stereotypes: the male and female leads Ferdy and Allison (a handsome nerd and a "good girl", respectively) who you know are gonna be the last ones standing, Allison's valley girl co-workers Suzie and Leslie, the male lead's douchebag yuppie co-workers Mike and Greg, and the tough chick Linda and her white trash boyfriend Rick who you know are going to outlast most of the rest but are still going down in act two. Allison and Linda were the only ones who had much interesting to do; while Greg initially seemed like he had something interesting going on as he starts going crazy over the situation, he dies too early. A plan to destroy the robots' command center is plotted out, but is ignored shortly after. The film barely felt like it had a plot at all, such that I found myself wishing that there were more scenes with frequent Corman collaborators Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov as a rich, elitist couple who, in the opening, are thinking of buying a Protector for their restaurant. Instead of just a cameo, cast them as the mall's managers, either using the Protectors to wipe out employees they don't like or trying to regain control over them. That would've added some more wrinkles to an otherwise threadbare plot with unlikable characters. (Apparently, the original theatrical cut runs nineteen minutes longer; I'd be interested in seeing what it's like.)

It's the style that keeps Chopping Mall going. It's not really a scary film, and it knows it, so instead, it's more interested in being cool, a task that it does indeed manage to pull off. The '80s aesthetics lathered onto this film are thick enough that you'd think it was an affectionate throwback made in 2016 to cash in on '80s nostalgia, not an authentic example from the time period, and just on a visual level, it lends the affair a ton of personality that the script and the actors didn't quite do. The mall setting is very well-utilized, with chases through the halls, a furniture store, a restaurant, a boutique, and the service corridors providing plenty of diversity in terms of environments for the slaughter; the Sherman Oaks Galleria where they filmed this is as much a character as any of the humans or robots. The sense of humor also lends a good-time air to the proceedings. The Terminator this ain't; instead, it's a film that feels like it's in on the joke and knows how silly it actually is, and that even the genuinely imposing and threatening villains can't change the fact that this is still a slasher movie titled Chopping Mall, and originally titled Killbots, that is about robot rent-a-cops killing loiterers. It's interested in big set pieces and violent action scenes, which it shoots with aplomb, stretching its budget as far as it can go. It's cheesy as hell, and it wouldn't have it any other way.

The Bottom Line

If you like '80s slashers, this will give you what you want. It's a movie that is carbon-dated to the time in which it was made, but that is a key part of what makes it so watchable today, and why it still holds up despite its fairly obvious faults.