A Gloriously Dumb Idea That Deserved Smarter Execution
Every now and then, a film emerges with a concept so ridiculous it circles back around to brilliant. A pack of teenagers trapped in a shopping mall overnight being hunted by malfunctioning security robots? That’s not just campy gold—it’s practically a license to print cult status. Throw in a neon-drenched 1980s setting, synth music, and gratuitous carnage, and you’ve got the ingredients for a low-budget classic.
Unfortunately, Chopping Mall doesn’t live up to its wonderfully absurd premise. Directed by Jim Wynorski and released in 1986, the film squanders its own concept by delivering something too cheap, too lazy, and far too lacking in both tension and fun. What could have been a fun, trashy genre entry with a knowing wink becomes a slog through cardboard characters, dead-end pacing, and killer robots that look like rejected props from a RadioShack training video.
Sure, it’s earned a cult following over the years. And yes, the VHS cover art was glorious. But let’s not pretend Chopping Mall is a lost gem. It’s a dumb movie—and not in the good way.
The Setup: Mall Madness
Set in the Park Plaza Mall, the film opens with the unveiling of a new high-tech security system. A trio of squat, tank-like security droids (called “Protectors”) are designed to patrol the mall after hours, neutralizing intruders with stun guns and tranquilizer darts. To make things worse, a lightning storm—because of course—zaps the system and reprograms the robots into killbots.
Meanwhile, a group of young people who work in the mall (because of course they do) decide to have an after-hours party inside a department store. They drink, dance, and pair off for sex—standard horror movie behavior. But once the mall shuts down, the robots begin their blood-soaked rampage.
What follows is a cat-and-mouse game as the teens try to evade and destroy the robots. That’s the entire plot. No twists, no mystery, no commentary. Just laser beams, exploding heads, and running through empty stores.
The Robots: Budget Daleks With Tazers
Let’s start with the killers themselves. Chopping Mall doesn’t feature a masked slasher, or even a supernatural menace. It’s security robots—three clunky, slow-moving, awkwardly designed tin cans on wheels. They look less like sentinels of death and more like robotic vacuum cleaners having an identity crisis.
Armed with lasers (of inconsistent power), little claws, and a monotone voice that mutters “Thank you, have a nice day” after each kill, they’re unintentionally laughable. There’s zero tension watching one slowly roll into frame. These things move like they’re afraid of bumping into furniture.
And their design? Boring. Forget The Terminator or RoboCop. These bots make the Short Circuit robot look like HAL 9000.
Even worse, there’s no variety in their kills. Once you’ve seen a laser to the forehead and a sparkly electrocution, you’ve seen it all. The kills lack creativity, which in a movie like this, is the whole point.
The Cast: Generic Meat for the Grinder
Like many 80s horror flicks, the cast is composed of teens (or 30-year-olds playing teens) designed less for character depth and more for T&A. There’s the nice couple, the horndogs, the nerdy guy, and the virginal final girl. You’ve seen this lineup before. You’ll forget them five minutes after the credits roll.
The main characters include:
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Alison (Kelli Maroney) – Our final girl. Sweet, wide-eyed, and remarkably underdeveloped.
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Ferdy (Tony O’Dell) – The nerdy guy who improbably becomes a romantic lead.
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Suzie (Barbara Crampton) – One of the more recognizable faces, wasted in a thankless role.
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Greg (Nick Segal) – Suzie’s boyfriend, whose main character trait is yelling.
To the film’s credit, Barbara Crampton does what she can, but even she can’t polish this mess. Her death scene is meant to be a shocking moment, but it lacks buildup or weight. It’s just another checkmark on the “kill ’em all” list.
The rest of the cast stumble through bad dialogue and awkward blocking. No one has chemistry. No one seems genuinely afraid. There’s no emotional glue holding any of this together.
The Dialogue: High School Play Meets Mad Libs
Here’s a sample of the film’s dialogue:
“I guess I’m just not used to being chased around a mall in the middle of the night by killer robots.”
That line isn’t even meant to be ironic. And it’s far from the worst offender.
Wynorski’s script is filled with flat exposition, groan-worthy one-liners, and exchanges that sound like they were improvised on the spot—and not by actors good at improvising. Everyone speaks in a kind of deadpan, affectless tone, which might’ve worked in a deadpan comedy but is tone-deaf here.
What’s worse is how often characters narrate what we can already see. “It’s coming this way!” “We’ve got to get out of here!” “It’s locked!” There’s no subtlety. No wit. Just tired, placeholder dialogue.
The Pacing: A 77-Minute Movie That Feels Twice As Long
You’d think a film this short and this trashy would breeze by. But Chopping Mall somehow manages to feel padded even at 77 minutes. Once the initial kills happen, the film enters a repetitive cycle: hide, run, robot attack, regroup, repeat.
There’s no escalation. No real variation. Just the same beat, over and over. The mall setting should offer a playground for inventive sequences—imagine a fight in the food court or a battle in the arcade. But the movie doesn’t bother.
Instead, characters dart into random stores, set up quick traps, and then get picked off in the most uninspired ways imaginable. Even the finale lacks punch, ending with a whimper and a freeze-frame that feels like a shrug.
The Soundtrack: Budget Synth That Gets Old Fast
The synth-heavy score by Chuck Cirino is serviceable at best. It opens with a promising theme—a kind of John Carpenter-lite riff—but quickly devolves into repetitive loops and clunky cues. There’s no variation to reflect rising tension or emotional beats because, frankly, the film has none.
At its best, the score reminds you of better films. At its worst, it sounds like a keyboard demo reel.
Missed Opportunities: Satire? Social Commentary? Nope.
There’s a rich tradition of horror films using malls and consumerism as backdrops for social commentary. Dawn of the Dead did it brilliantly. Even Night of the Comet managed a sense of satire. Chopping Mall had the setting. It had the moment. It had the opportunity.
And it does absolutely nothing with it.
The mall is just window dressing. No jokes about capitalism. No tension between consumption and surveillance. No acknowledgment of the irony of being hunted by security bots in a temple of consumerism. Just mannequins exploding and mannequins falling over and more mannequins.
Even the kills don’t use the mall’s variety of stores creatively. No death by escalator. No fight in the sporting goods section. Nothing in the mattress store. How do you set a horror film in a mall and not play with your sandbox?
Cult Status Doesn’t Equal Quality
It’s tempting to look back at Chopping Mall with nostalgic goggles. It played on late-night cable. The poster art was cool. And it had a young Barbara Crampton. But cult status doesn’t automatically make something good—or even enjoyable.
There are moments of unintentional humor. The robots saying “Have a nice day” after murdering someone is funny once. But the film doesn’t lean into absurdity enough to be fun-bad. It’s just bad-bad.
Compare it to other so-bad-it’s-good 80s horror (The Stuff, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Basket Case) and Chopping Mall falls flat. Those movies had either heart, style, or sheer audacity. This one just has blinking lights and a stale script.
Final Thoughts: Skip the Mall
Chopping Mall could’ve been a blast. It had a silly premise, a perfect setting, and the right ingredients for a fun cult horror flick. But instead of going big, it went lazy. The robots are dull, the characters are unlikable, the kills are unimaginative, and the script is DOA.
Barbara Crampton deserved better. So did the audience.
Unless you’re hosting a bad movie night and want to pad your lineup between Troll 2 and The Room, there’s no real reason to revisit this one.
Rating: 4/10 – A wasted opportunity, flatlining despite its promising concept. Good poster. Bad movie.
