I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

Brainless With A Splash Of Dumb

Killbots aka Chopping Mall (1986)

After wading through incomprehensible trash like Videodrome and beyond-horrible messes like The Video Dead I sincerely needed something simple, something without any kind of real plot, something... pleasantly numb. Oops, copyright infringement... I mean pleasantly dumb. Enter Chopping Mall. It's as brainless and harmless as any 80's so-called horror flick can get. It has the same basic premise: Put teenagers together where they cannot get any help and pick them off one by one. Good enough for me. It did terribly in the box office as Killbots (Gasp!) but did better when released again as Chopping Mall (labeling is everything I guess).

I don't change my hair or clothes for ANYONE.

As you watch this, if you've seen your share of bad 80's flicks (and I have) you'll recognize more than a few faces, if not any of the names. The one I recognized instantly (and who turns out to be a main character in this farce) is Kelli Moroney, who you might remember from Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Night Of The Comet. That's about it. On with the non-plot: Park Plaza Mall has just installed a state-of-the-art security system, which includes security shutters across all exits, and three high-tech security robots, programmed to disable and apprehend lawbreakers. They look like cheap versions of Johnny Five. Who you say? Ah come on, it was filmed in my state (in fact I think a couple of them were) and I actually got to watch them film one scene - Short Circuit. Secure-tronics Unlimited have developed these atrocities with the accompanying line that "Nothing can possibly go wrong." Uh, didn't they say that in Westworld AND Jurassic Park? That guarantees that everything is about to go wrong.

WE. ARE. BORING.

Four couples who you mostly want dead decide to have a party in one of the furniture stores in the mall. This is truly the mall that has it all - you'll see why in a bit. Since all have sex except for Alison (Kelli Moroney) and Ferdy (Tony O'Dell) you know those two are going to make it to the end of the movie. It's a horror movie rule after all. Meanwhile back at the farm... I mean in the control room, a short is caused by a convenient lightning storm that hits the mall three times (for all three robots I guess) since this mall has everything except lightning rods. It activates the security bots and sends them into psycho mode. Think of the much better, much more menacing Robocop security bots squished down to be about three feet tall. They kill the computer technicians (Why? Hey, this has no plot and no sense okay? Just go with the flow.) and a janitor and then look for more to rip apart (they have pincers, stunners and somehow lasers - that wasn't part of their original makeup, they must have developed that all by their lonesomes). And now the steel doors slam shut, locking the party in until morning. These are small doors (and obviously the same one showed over and over to save money) and no mall I ever saw had doors like that but oh well...

Like anybody is going to miss these guys.

The first to die is an 80's dude with a chin bigger than his entire head. I've seen him in other stuff, but don't really care where. He's getting cigarettes from a machine for his girlfriend (It's the 80's, remember?) when a bot stuns him then rips out his throat. No big loss. The girlfriend, looking for her smokes (oh yeah and the boyfriend) stumbles on his body and runs screaming in the mall in her underwear. A bot catches up to her (fast suckers) and 'explodes' her head in that miraculous way that has no blood or brains. In fact the gore factor in this movie on a scale - you know what? There just isn't a number low enough. They have the three women get into a vent to escape (yeah, that always works) and they whine the whole time. Too bad it wasn't full of knockout gas. The guys break into a sporting goods store (the mall has it all) and get a semi-automatic, rifle and pistol along with ammo (wow, what a deal - the store only had a glass front for protection). Too bad they didn't have one of those in the mall in Dawn Of The Dead. Oh well. How they think they can 'shoot' metal bots is just part of the brainless progression. Best line of the movie: "Let's go give those f'ers a Rambo gram." Seriously.

Just remember, the best weapons are at your local mall.

The girls, hot and still whining come out of the vents. The married couple dies next. Married? In an 80's flick? That was a little different. Four to go. They get the brain-dead idea of finding the control room (since it did the techs so much good) to stop the bots. Two more die after this idea. Now we have Alison and Ferdy, the only two who didn't have sex. Now Alison's father is a Marine, which somehow makes her a female MacGyver - not only is she a crack shot, but she also knows how to make Molotov cocktails using gas cans (The mall sells full gas cans too?) and sets up one bot by spilling paint on the floor and when it crosses through she throws a flare she also grabbed (What the hell kind of mall is this?). She's alone now as Ferdy appears to have been splatted by a bot trying to protect her so we get to watch her do her tricks for... ever. Finally she manages to destroy the last bot and dirty and exhausted looks up to see... Ferdy, who was messed up but still alive. Yay. They embrace and it's then end... of everything. Thankfully.

Head explodes nice and clean, no blood, no brains.

But hey, it's got a beat and you can dance to it... err I mean it's easy to watch and forget just as quickly so as a diversion it... kills time easy enough.