Unseen Terror: Day 25

Well, the curse of the internet strikes yet again, as unfortunately the router AND modem of yours truly has been on the fritz over the past day or two, though thankfully some access has been recovered due to the help of a much more technologically-sound friend. Thus, yesterday and today's entries will most likely be up within twelve to fifteen hours from one another, as I was unable to even view day twenty-five's movie yesterday whatsoever until this very morning. Anyway, let's move along.

Successful mall Park Plaza has installed a new security system, including shutters scattered throughout  and across all exits. It also includes three high-tech, non-threatening security robots that will disable and subdue thieves and intruders if trouble should arise. One night, when four couples decide to spend the night in the mall after it closes down, lightning strikes the plaza, heavily damaging the circuits of the robots. The couples find themselves trapped, being pursued by the now-murderous creations, and must utilize what they can in order to survive the night.


Jim Wynorski is a pretty well known celebrity in the world of exploitation and horror cinema. The man has worked with the Corman family quite a few times throughout his career (Roger's wife Julie produces this effort), though you could make the argument that his second picture, Chopping Mall, was his biggest success since he's gone on to make a lot of real garbage, like Ghoulies IV and Raptor, the Piranha 95 of the Carnosaur franchise. He's also the man behind some fine cinematic porn parodies such as The Bare Wench Project and Para-Knockers Activity (I KNEW there had to be a decent parody of that franchise out there!), so.......there's that for you.


After starting up Chopping Mall, my first thought was that I was wondering if Wynorski was intending to make this as a horror-comedy, because this was a clear case of forgetting to pack in any genuine scares or suspense. Not that this is a bad thing of course, since I still love to have great fun. My second thought was "Hey, there's Kelli Maroney from Night of the Comet! And cult movie queen Mary Woronov!" Unfortunately, the latter only shows up for a small cameo as her character from Eating Raoul, something I keep meaning to check out one of these days. Everyone else is fairly fun too, and Barbara Crampton of Re-Animator fame even shows up to show off her....talents. The kills range in quality, from the surprisingly gory to the shockingly tame, but as I've pointed out before with other movies from this year's list, it may have been a little hard to compete with certain slasher pictures that were out at the time. There's also a pretty stupendous synth-based soundtrack that can grate at times, but comes with the territory of 1980s schlockfests.


Chopping Mall's originally released title was Killbots, despite the term never being uttered a single time in the entire picture. Its initial box office intake was poor, most likely due to this exact reason, or due to the fact that people watched the TV spots and trailers and most likely thought it was going to be incredibly dumb, which isn't far from the truth. When it was re-released on home video under its new title, it understandably gained a cult following, and has its now fairly infamous following. Plus, how can you go wrong with those enticing posters, as somewhat misleading as they might be? By no means is this a masterpiece, but you can get some kicks out of this cheesy, ridiculous piece of 80s horror goodness.


"Thank you, have a nice day."



Tomorrow (or even, today), we jump forward a decade and dip into BODY MELT!