Day 46: June 15th, 2010

Chopping Mall.



At Least They Got The Mall Part Of The Title Right.

8 teenagers decide to spend some extra time in the mall after it closes. They party it up in one of the stores, drinking beer and having sex. What they don't know though, is that the mall has a new security team. A team of robots, which have coincidentally, had their mother computer struck by lightning and thus rewiring their system. They are set to kill. And kill they do...in lame and uninteresting ways.

Chopping Mall is one of the numerous horror films that I would see sitting on the shelf of a local video store when I was a kid and I would be intrigued by the great, at the time, VHS cover. A robot like hand holding a shopping bag with body parts in it. With the tag line"Where Shopping Can Cost You An Arm And A Leg". Unfortunately, Chopping Mall suffers from too many things to even make it a pleasurable B horror movie.

The killer robots, or killbots, looks pretty ancient. Even for the 80's. They look like a mix between Short Circuit, the Daleks and every other robot. Nothing too imaginative here. The deaths, with the exception of one awesome head explosion, are tame and lame. With a title like Chopping Mall, I was surprised too see not one chop. At least they got the mall part of the title right.

The acting is horror cheese, as expected. The special effects are horror cheese, also expected. The suspense, is nonexistent. The main problem this film has, are the villains. These robots are not threatening in the least. They look like toys. The film doesn't even feel like a horror film. Instead it plays out like an action sci/fi.

The continuity is appalling. In a film like The Evil Dead the continuity mistakes propel the film to a better level of awesomeness. It helped that they were trapped and going crazy from the evil demons. Here, it is too distracting. One hand holding a propane tank, cut to close up and both hands are on gun. Cut between the two shots 5 or 6 times and it is jarring.

Chopping Mall is a poor film, it's poor even by cult film standards. I can see myself giving this film two ratings. A film rating, and a trashy horror rating. One would be better than the other.

3/10