Is a schlocky horror film from 1986 that is way better and way more fun than it has any right to be. Oddly enough, though, it doesn't actually feature any chopping, nor does the poster (featuring a robotic arm with a shopping bag full of body bits) have anything to do with anything in the film.
It's basically like this. A big American mall is showing off its new security robots, the Protector Series. These are three foot high tank tracked droids with laser shooting eyes, grabbing claws, and a sort of taser attachment as well. They might look a bit comical but as the promotional video shows, they can bring a shoplifter to a sticky end in a multitude of ways. And they're already in place at this mall ready to go.
Meanwhile, a bunch of teenagers are planning an after hours party in a furniture store in the mall with beer and horror movies and casual sexual intercourse. They all work there but after hours they sneak off to the furniture store and get busy. But then, in a sequence of events nobody could have foreseen, a bolt of lightning hits the robots' control antenna and sends them rogue, and they systematically go about murdering everyone in the mall. Needless to say, it's up to our excessively randy young protagonists to save the day and destroy the Killbots (which was this film's original title).
Chopping Mall is a film that is way better than it has any right to be. The characters might be kind of limp (the boys are a standard quartet of Jerk, Nerd, and two other randos, while the girls are your standard issue group of three scream queens and one shy but resourceful young lass) and the robots might looks slightly more comical than threatening, but this is justified by the fact that they are mall security robots so if they looked evil and scary it might spook the punters. That being said, it's never really explained why a mall security robot would have laser beams and plastic explosives to hand. Who cares. Run with it. There's also a slightly genre savviness to it, where Ferdy (the nerdy lad) actually gets that if they split up the security robots will pick them off one by one, so they don't. There's also a sequence where the boys raid a gun store (America, fuck yeah!) and unload endless rounds onto them to no effect. Therefore a spot of resourcefulness becomes required to deal with them. Such as by tricking one into the lift on the top floor then cutting the cable to send it plummeting to the basement. However eventually it comes down to just Ferdy, Alison (the shy girl) and the last robot. Will they make it out alive? Or will shopping cost them an arm and a leg?
Part of the reason it works so well is because it's actually filmed in a real life multi-floor shopping mall. It's the one that part of Terminator 2 was later filmed in incidentally. Much like fellow 1980s schlock horror Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-o-rama was filmed in a real life bowling alley. There's also a very nice and jagged and sinister synth piece whenever the robots are on the prowl or nearby. And, of course, lots of gooshy deaths including electrocution, fire, being shot in the leg with a laser beam then run over, and just plain being clawed in the throat. It's like I said fairly standard 1980s B-movie fare but very nicely done and which clearly makes the most of its limited budget. And of course there's the classic 1980s message that excessive horniness is punishable by death.
But then again, why take my word for it? Some mad bastard has uploaded it in its entirety to YouTube.
(IRON NODER 2023 #13)