| Enter the LaNd of your nightmares! |
| Chopping Mall |
Chopping Mall
Reviewed by BombA
Tagline--Where shopping can cost you an arm and a leg
Directed by--Jim Wynorski
Written by--Steve Mitchell (V) and Jim Wynorski
Cast:
Zoe Kelli Simon .... Alison Parks (as Kelli Maroney)
Tony O'Dell (I) .... Ferdy Meisel
Russell Todd .... Rick Stanton
Karrie Emerson .... Linda Stanton
Barbara Crampton .... Suzie Lynn
Nick Segal .... Greg Williams
John Terlesky .... Mike Brennan
Suzee Slater .... Leslie Todd
Paul Bartel .... Paul Bland
Mary Woronov .... Mary Bland
Fear is a very relative thing. Things found scary to some would not necessarily be found scary to others. We can't really judge people for this, except for Nicole Kidman that is. I recently read that she is afraid of Butterflies, what a wuss! I mean come on, butterflies; they're like flying flowers! Anyway since bashing Australian actresses is the source material for my other website, I will move on. Onto Chopping Mall that is, a movie where oh-so-horny teens stuck in a mall are terrorized by oh-so-cute robots. Ya see that is what I was getting at earlier when I was talking about the relativity of horror, sure you may not be afraid of cute lil robots, but personally they scare the hell out of me.
Anyway near the beginning of this movie we are introduced to the tank-treaded terrors themselves. These are the robots that we will really grow to love. With their Kit-esque eyes, their short statures, their old-fashioned robot appeal, how could you not just love `em? They are some guy's idea of the next level in security systems. These robots are highly armed, fast, intelligent, unstoppable, perfectly safe, and most importantly they won't go haywire during an electrical storm, sending them on an evil, murderous rampage. That is, of course, until an electrical storm fries their circuits and sends them haywire on an evil, murderous rampage. Of course that won't be so much of a problem since the mall will be empty at night.
That night a group of horny youngsters stay over night at the mall for one reason or another. They have sex on mattresses that will probably be sold to unsuspecting senior citizens the next day and its all good. Of course there are 2 nerdy kids who will undoubtedly serve as our heroes. By nerdy we mean that they aren't obnoxious and they aren't humping each other's brains out. Our heroes are Alison Parks who is played by Zoe Kelli Simon, and Ferdy Meisel (that's right "Ferdy," that is not a type-o) who is played by Tony O'Dell. Some, but probably not many, will remember Ferdy as the nerdy kid from "Head of the Class." Or at least he played ONE of the nerdy kids. I think here were like 8 of them on that show. Anyway as these 2 are not having sex, they will surely survive this cute-robot nightmare. As for the others, well…
The cutie robots rampage their way through most of the film. They kill off most who stand in their way and should be praised for it. One of the deaths was, at least for me, particularly satisfying. The character is an obnoxious gum-chewer named Mike and seemed to really deserve his fate. I don't know why but I was just really pleased when he died. The other deaths were equally entertaining as well, but perhaps not as merited.
In this flick there are a few things that should catch the eye of you, the viewer. First and foremost the appearance of Dick Miller, who is something of a patron saint to Evil Teeth. In this film you'll find Dick playing a janitor named Walter Paisely. Interestingly enough he has played this character (or at least a character of the same name) a few times, firstly in "Bucket of Blood" which was one of Dick's few leading roles. This film also contains a pretty good "head-explosion" scene so keep your eyes peeled for that. Also pay special attention to the electric blasts the robots use, and their "have a nice day" catchphrase, which is sure to get a few chuckles out of even the most jaded of viewers.
Another thing to look out for in this film is of course the boobs. This movie really made me think in depth about boobs. Ya see I first saw this movie when I was like 11-years-old or so, and I remember seeing the boobs this movie had to offer and thinking that they were just gigantic. I didn't see it again until last year sometime and, despite being quite pleasing to the eye, the boobs just didn't seem so big. Am I to believe that my perceptions of female body proportions have changed that much? That's when I first started thinking about "boob-tolerance." That's right, "boob-tolerance." Ya see it works the same way as tolerance to alcohol does. If you haven't boozed it up so much then when you do it will take smaller amounts of alcohol to get you plastered. Likewise When I was 11 I hadn't seen many boobs, so I had a very low boob tolerance, therefore boobs that are only slightly above average size seemed gi-normous to me. Now, having witnessed hundreds of horror movies with thousands of boobs, boobs have to be a lot larger for me to consider them…well…large. Anyway the breasts in this movie are quite nice, but apparently my eyes were a lot smaller back then.
This is a film by Jim Wynorski, a fairly renowned director of sci-fi/ horror movies that contain a lot of boobs. I am sure we will be covering a lot of his films in the future here on Evil Teeth, as he has made enough schlocky movies to keep us plenty busy.
Anyway Chopping Mall is a fairly effective and entertaining sci-fi schlockfest, which should entertain anyone who would rent this kind of movie. This movie also goes by the name of "Killbots," which is a much more appropriate, but much less clever title. The tag line is "50% off arms and legs," which again suggests that things will be "chopped." Really though there just isn't a lot of chopping going on in this movie, so the original title is something of a misnomer. This can be forgiven. I mean after all, how could we stay mad at such cute lil robots?
