A group of teens wanting to spend the night at a shopping plaza get more when they bargained for in Chopping Mall, a very entertaining mid-80's cheese fest.
In order to eliminate criminals from stealing from their stores, a massive shopping mall named Park Plaza decides to create robots designed to detain anyone in it's path after hours who shouldn't be there. The robots have darts put inside of them made to shoot out and knock out criminals. One night during a thunderstorm, a bolt of lightning seem to turn the robots into killing machines with a mind of their own. A group of young people who work at Park Plaza decide to spend the night in the mall after hours for a little fun. Little do they know, the group of killer robots are roaming the dark corridors of the shopping centre ready to slaughter all of them for being there when they shouldn't be...
Chopping Mall was a very enjoyable horror flick for me. I loved the filming location of the mall and how 80's everything was, from the fashion to the mall decor. I was taken back to 1986 and was living for it. The theme of people staying after hours in the dark/desolate mall is a great horror sub-genre for me, done well by films such as Dawn of the Dead and The Initiation to name a few. Chopping Mall brought that fun atmosphere of exploring an empty mall with seemingly no one around to stop you from doing whatever you want.
The characters weren't really fleshed out or given any riveting backstories. Outside of maybe 2 or 3 of them, they were simply there to add to the body count. Kelli Maroney who I had never seen before was strong in the lead role. We got Russell Todd of Friday the 13th Part 2 fame, and the always terrific Barbara Crampton from horror classics like Castle Freak and Re-Animator. The special effects were up and down for me. In terms of gore and kills, I thought the movie did a great job in the blood department. But some of the robot laser effects were very dated and didn't look great. It only added to the cheesiness of Chopping Mall which in some strange way worked for the film.
All in all, Chopping Mall is a comedy horror film that I highly recommend seeing. There is a deserted mall, a group of horny teenagers, and killer robots. What else could you ask for from a cheesy late 80's scary movie?
7/10.
