Thursday, February 10, 2011

Chopping Mall (1986)

R2D2 just got bad-ass...

Produced by Julie Corman, wife of Roger, and featuring many references to other Corman productions, including Little Shop of Horrors, A Bucket of Blood and Attack of the Crab Monsters, this run-of-the-mill entry in teenage horror features boring, blocky antagonists and a forgettable performance by scream queen Barbara Crampton. Originally billed as Killbots, the film did fairly poorly in its original run. When re-released under the clever new title Chopping Mall, it did much better.

The mall as teenager trap
The title says it all, although there is no actual chopping in this film. What you have instead is the epitome of 1980s horror: bad wordplays and trendy settings. Paramount of these is the mall, backbone of social life in the years of plenty, where children come to play and indulge in fattening treats, where the elderly can find the only company available to them, where teenagers become victims to the autocratic dictates of fashion... and to robotic night-watchmen. This is where the story begins, develops and ends, as if the world beyond held absolutely no interest.

Actually, the film begins in a mall-within-a-mall during a video robbery-cum-arrest meant to promote a new line of robots designed for mall security. Inexplicably, this video is shown to a widely heterogenous crowd of people assembled in the plaza, including Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov, who reprise their roles from Eating Raoul to awful effect. Thanks to this clever mise-en-abîme that features an aggressive robber being quickly neutralized by a talking cone on tracks, it becomes obvious how a mall would need to purchase laser-shooting automatons instead of hiring two or three unemployed Mexicans at minimum wage. We are certainly not won over, and so is the crowd. But as the presenter so convincingly puts it: "Nothing can go wrong". Then, WHAM! The title appears, in blocky red letters.

Chopping Mall has the flair for graphic design of a 1950s sci-fi film

So far, so good. But that's disregarding the dubious attempts at humor that come bursting right after. I mentioned that the mall was the epicenter of social life in the mid-80s. This is illustrated in a series of vainly humorous vignettes intertwined during the opening credits. I tried to chuckle at the sight of such jolly attempts at spectator-tingling, but to no avail. After all, campy humor works mostly when unintentional. What did make me grin is the ensuing thunderstorm during which lightning hits the power box for robot controls conveniently located on the roof of the mall. Nobody'd thunk it, but this turns the robots into rampaging killers. It happens on a Friday night, too, when four couples of teenage clerks have planned a saucy party in a furniture store. I guess you can picture where this is going.

Postmodern horror with a dull edge
The killings begin in the fashion of slasher films, as the cast members are isolated and picked off one by one, starting with the most sex-starved. But when the big-breasted blonde has her head blown to bits and her brains splashed all over the windowed walls of the store, the film assumes the airs of cheap alien invasion films. Lasers start crisscrossing across the screen, narrowly avoiding the screaming teenagers who rush through clouds of mattress plush. When they all regroup in the back-store, the mechanics of survivalist horror take hold of the narrative structure. The kids band together to try and stay alive through the night.

Big-breasted Leslie has about 0.0001 seconds left to live

Considering the infinite amount of supplies available in the mall, including, but not limited to propane tanks, fuel canisters, assault rifles, shotguns and magnums with unlimited ammo, you'd think that the kids would have a pretty easy time getting rid of a trio of wisecracking tin cans (that's right, the robots talk too). But that's overlooking the apparent invincibility of the pesky machines, who can withstand close-range explosions and machine gun fire, not to mention break down metal doors and electrify water pools. It will take real ingenuity to destroy these foes, and some crafty handiwork, which provides some of the few thrills contained in the film.

The highlight of Chopping Mall is a 90-seconds tracking shot taken inside the furniture store. It shows the four couples at various stages of the amorous rite, featuring the umpteenth revelation of Barbara Crampton's breasts, which is almost the only asset she brings to the film. This shot is surprisingly well-choreographed. It is sweet and humorous, revealing a little something about everyone, including their sweet "teenage" flesh.

The rest of the film is merely a tedious succession of lame action-pieces taking place in interchangeable mall corridors, each featuring new storefronts to marvel at. You'd think that a barrage of gunfire against a slow-moving metal cone would be exciting, but meh... it gets tedious after a while. And so does the recurring "Have a nice day" quipped by the machines after each kill. It's fun at first, but the sixth time around, the humor is completely dull. So too becomes the film, once the kids start getting chased around, rushing mechanically from store to store, leaving one of theirs behind at every turn, until the last killbot has been defeated and the final couple is left standing.

The spectacle of blue lightning trumps the spectacle of breasts
I mention this last couple standing because I wish to insist on how obvious the survivors are. Maybe this is typical 1980s screenwriting, but it reeks of dubious moralism. According to horror film lore from that era, it seems that only the pure ones can defeat impossible odds, especially since purity is herein tied to intelligence and rationality. In all honesty, I'm sure everyone vowed for any other character, but ultimately, they are let down by the rigid needs of a moral to justify the ensemble.

For one, I'm sad to see actresses who bare their breasts be sacrificed like vulgar sluts. These women have brought more to their roles than those who don't, if only the guts to pose for pervy cameramen and teenage viewers. To me, systematically killing the flashers is like saying that there is something intrinsically wrong with a woman's self-confidence. One might argue that rewarding these girls with survivor status only validates their objectification within horror films, exalting promiscuity and readiness to strip as the paramount values of heroines. To me, the objectification of women lies rather in the systematic slaughter of promiscuous girls, which is what effectively reduces their worth to their breast-baring abilities. This is precisely what happens here with Suzee Slater and Barbara Crampton, whose summary execution almost directly follows the revelation of their private parts.

Breasts aside, the spectacle herein lies in the dated but spectacular special effects. The multicolored laser beams generously dished out by the killbots and the blue bolts of electricity surrounding squirming characters may seem crude by today's standards, but they catch the eye much more efficiently than any of the lackluster sets and awfully designed monsters. If there's marginal fun to be had here, it is achieved by marveling at the irresistibly retro visual effects punctuating the film like so many energetic attempts at legitimate showmanship.

Dated FX and cameos galore are the main selling points of the film

Dreaming of Megan Halsey
There is Barbara Crampton in this film, and there isn't. Sure, she's beautiful, as always. Sure, we get to see her breasts. Not as extensively as in Re-Animator, but they're still present. What sucks is how flat her character is, how instrumental her mental breakdown, and how easily she falls prey to the killbots. I must say that I expected more from Roger Corman. I expected love and respect, when all I got was lukewarm affection. Obviously Corman is not Stuart Gordon, for whom Crampton is a muse, playing major parts in four of his films, and many of his perverted fantasies, appearing fully naked and given head by a decapitated scientist in Re-Animator while strapped as a dominatrix in From Beyond. The tragic innocence that has come to characterize her amidst genre fans is nowhere to be found here. Instead of being a damsel in distress viciously tormented by otherworldly perverts, she is now a mere sacrificial party girl. Poor, lovely Barbara... Even if I wept when you died, the film paid no mind...

As for Dick Miller, who appears onscreen as Walter Paisley for the fifth time since A Bucket of Blood (1959), he isn't given much to work with either. He does manage to light up the screen for a few moments with his seamless humor, poking fun at the accuracy of the killbots, but disappearing soon after, to fit the narrow needs of the screenplay whose teenage content is merely brushed by superficial attempts at self-reflexivity.

This lego rendition by Eric Weber perfectly exemplifies
how blocky and crude Chopping Mall truly is

Conclusion: A jolt that fails to electrify the viewer
Chopping Mall ruins its cult potential by trying too hard to be funny. Its use of dated slapstick, crude wordplays and overbid of shallow references to better films are transparent efforts to broaden the appeal of the generic premise. But instead of improving the ensemble, they contradict the generally straight-faced approach to dramatic tension, making the film a highly unsuccessful mixture of horror and comedy. The only things left to behold is the naive robot design and dated special effects. Unfortunately, such plastic elements cannot elevate what is essentially a boring, formulaic entry in 1980s horror.

2/5