What am I watching? Chopping Mall!

Context!

Chopping Mall, aka Killbots - released in 1985, the same year as Short Circuit, one year before Robocop and giving neither movie a run for their money. Jim Wynorski, a director mired in crap 80s horror schlock, destined to make even worse exploitation flicks like “The Bare Wench Project”. I’ve only seen the third in that series, but.. oh.. dear god.. there aren’t enough bare wenches in the world to make that crap watchable.

This was one of those movies that were always forbidden fruit. I’d look at the box art in West Coast Video as I was thinking about what computer game I wanted to rent, dreaming about what it could be about. Cursed to never know what laid on that magnetic tape!

The budget is nowhere near allowing convincing miniatures or full sized animatronics. Apparently these ‘killbots’ consist of moving treads and three points of articulation in a rotating head, rotating torso, and clacking claw. What a far cry from the remote control masterpiece of Johnny 5 (although all the different aspects of Johnny 5 probably belonged to discrete animatronics used for different scenes).

The acting? Not horrible. After catching some stinkers like The Room, and Troll 2, this, in its adequacy, is almost Shakespeare in comparison. Nobody is chewing on the scenery or hamming it up too much.

Things I love about the movie:
- The sporting goods store is well stocked with shotguns, M-14s, Magnums, and plenty of easy access ammo.
- Iranian lessons that sexuality and promiscuity lead, not to earthquakes, but murderous robots that want to set you on fire. A common theme of 80s slasher films, but true all the same.
- This is essentially every Michael Crichton story writ small. Technology is going to turn on us and we’re all going to die! This would have been pretty amusing if it were dinosaurs running amok in the mall.
- Mom jeans used to be in fashion!

Disappointment in this movie:
- No chopping.

The plot doesn’t matter too much. It opens with a demonstration of the state of the art in mall security – “This will be the safest mall in the country!” Although who knows what kind of crime spree must be going on that mall security needs lasers, C4, tasers, and claws. Lightning hits the building and apparently turns the bots ED-209 lethal instead of Johnny 5 loveable. Isn’t this kind of how Robo Rally started?

A teenage after hours party at the mattress store starts to go wrong as the partiers are taken out one by one. Eventually the only ones left are the nerdy new couple that just met that night! To spoil the ending – who survives? THE GUY AND GIRL WHO DIDN’T PUT OUT. This movie has to be huge in Iran.

I feel like I’ve crossed one thing off my bucket list after having seen this. Aside from that there’s pretty much no reason for anybody to watch this movie. Ever.. Ooh, wait! Director and writer commentary! Guess who’s watching this again!

BONUS CONTENT:
Jim Wynorski, the director of this flick has gone on to the fresh new millennium with what have to be a series of further morality plays:
- The Bare Wench Project
- Busty Cops
- The Witches of Breastwick
- Cleavagefield
- Para-Knockers Activity

And a documentary - Popatopolis - made about Wynorski while filming Witches of Breastwick: