Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.5
Overall		3.5

Chopping Mall Blu-ray Movie Review

Is there a sale on laser proof vests?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 26, 2016

Some of you who have been around long enough to have made it through various incarnations of home video formats may remember the Dark Ages of something called VHS tapes. It may be hard for younger collectors to realize what a sudden boon the home video market created for film lovers when these now clunky seeming cassettes showed up on the market. Up until the advent of VHS (and Betamax, of course), it was next to impossible to have a personal collection of favorite flicks unless one were fortunate enough to own 16mm prints and projectors. But suddenly with this “newfangled” technology, there was an exciting new supply of content available, something that started to grow exponentially once the VHS vs. Betamax “format war” was over and labels starting churning out tapes of their catalogs. Among the first big players in the VHS market was a rather unlikely one, Vestron Video, built out of the ashes of Time-Life Video (of all things), and then, once the nascent label got a secure toehold in the industry, with a slew of mostly second string features that were culled from the likes of the Cannon Films library. Vestron was a favorite of early collectors, and soon the company actually branched out into producing its own films (including such hits as Dirty Dancing), but it’s Vestron’s early video releases which still tend to spark a certain nostalgic fervor in collectors. Now, in a marketing turn that has perhaps appropriately been called a resurrection (considering the science fiction and/or horror aspect of many Vestron titles), Lionsgate is bringing back the imprint with a new line of offerings under the Vestron Video imprint.

It’s simply one of those odd vagaries of chance or fate that Chopping Mall, a film built around the seemingly silly premise of “killer robots” being developed as a security force for a shopping emporium, is coming out just as a number of unfortunate shootings and even stabbings at various malls across the United States have made front page news. Back in 1986 when the film was released, few would have probably thought of the need for an automated police force like the one shown in the film was anything other than a silly “high concept” premise, but intervening events have perhaps tended to give at least the subliminal aspects of Chopping Mall’s plot a little more impact. Chopping Mall begins with what appears to be a scene showing a bad guy making off with some purloined loot from a mall store, at which point he encounters one of the film’s now iconic “killbots” (the original title of the film). The bad guy pulls out a gun and tries to dispatch the machine the old fashioned way, but this robot will not be swayed by mere bullets. The robot has a weapon of its own up its sleeve (or whatever its slinky-like arm might be called), and fires a dart at the villain, who immediately collapses. The whole escapade actually turns out to be a promotional video for the security company which has created the robots and which is about to install them in Park Plaza Mall.

Chopping Mall rather smartly plays on the whole “amorous teens being slaughtered” routine that informed so many films of the eighties. Two things set this film’s formulation of this already trite premise apart from its many cinematic siblings. First of all, the teens don’t journey out to The Cabin in the Woods (so to speak), but are instead in what used to be thought of as an inherently safe urban environment, the suburban shopping mall. But second of all, some of the teens actually fight back, and rather viciously so, once technology goes awry and the robots “hired” to protect the mall begin killing the gaggle of teens who have decided to party in the complex after hours. Of course, one of the most distinctive differences between Chopping Mall and other “teens meeting their demise” entries is that the kids aren’t threatened by a mask wearing, knife wielding maniac, but by metal “bad guys” with an arsenal of high tech weapons at their beck and call.

In other ways, though, Chopping Mall adheres fairly strictly to the “rules” of the “kill the teens off one by one” genre, including the fact that it’s the sexually active kids who tend to meet their demise. That said, at least some of the mayhem is typically played for laughs (albeit kind of dark ones), including a sequence involving one amorous couple getting nixed because the girl wants a cigarette after sex and they have to journey out into the mall to find a vending machine (hey, it was the eighties—cigarettes were readily available everywhere). The film does have a number of really fun sequences, including a nice bit where the guys invade a sporting goods store amusingly named Peckinpah’s in order to get an arsenal of their own. And the way that heroine Alison (Kelli Maroney) finally overcomes one particularly nasty killbot may have you looking at your local Sherwin Williams store in a new light.

Chopping Mall is one of those films that just needs to be accepted on its own goofy merits in order to be enjoyed, but the film offers brisk entertainment for those willing to cut its lo-fi ambience a little slack. Despite what was not a huge budget, the film is impressively designed and shot, and while the “special” effects will probably strike those raised on CGI as incredibly quaint, for others that will only add to the allure of the film. While not as out and out humorous as Blood Diner, the other film being released in this first wave of Vestron Video titles, Chopping Mall has energy to spare even if it doesn’t spare most of its marauding mall teens.

Chopping Mall Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Chopping Mall is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films and its new Vestron Video imprint with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Reactions to this transfer will probably be based at least on part with how much prior experience individual viewers have had with the film in previous home video incarnations. Presented at close to its original aspect ratio, and sourced from decent looking elements, the difference between this high definition presentation and the old DVD is rather striking. While the palette looks a bit faded at times and is perhaps just a trifle on the cool side, color suffusion is generally very good, and in a few key "blood and guts" sequences, extremely vivid. The film has a lot of optical effects, and those tend to up an already pretty chunky looking grain field, which can lead to occasional compression hurdles, especially in some of the darker sequences. Those darker sequences have occasional issues with shadow detail, but the ubiquitous use of close-ups helps to ameliorate any major problems. Detail levels are generally good to very good, again with an understanding that this film was not graced with a mega-budget, and was shot on the fly at night at a San Fernando Valley shopping mall.

Chopping Mall Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Chopping Mall features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track that delivers excellent clarity with regard to dialogue, Chuck Cirino's electronics heavy score, and the nicely done sound effects. There's perhaps a bit of an underwhelming quality in the mid to lower ranges, something that deprives some of the "kills" by the robots a little sonic force, but that's offset by other, more energetic, moments that feature more traditional effects like gunfire. Everything is understandably narrow, but prioritization is well handled and there are no problems of any kind to report.

Chopping Mall Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Director/Co-Writer Jim Wynorski, Actress Kelli Maroney and Co-Writer/2nd Unit Director Steve Mitchell


• Audio Commentary with Historians/Authors Nathaniel Thompson and Ryan Turek


• Audio Commentary with Director/Co-Writer Jim Wynorski and Co-Writer/2nd Unit Director Steve Mitchell (2004)


• Isolated Score Track by Chuck Cirino is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0.


• Back to the Mall (1080p; 26:29) is a fun retrospective with some great interviews with many of the principal cast and crew.


• Chopping Chopping Mall (1080p; 8:19) is an enjoyable interview with the film's editor, Leslie Rosenthal.


• Talkin' About. . .The Killbots (1080p; 12:11) is a fun interview with robot creator Robert Short.


• Scoring Chopping Mall (1080p; 11:04) is a conversation with composer Chuck Cirino.


• The Robot Speaks! Ten Questions with the Killbot (1080p; 2:12) is a silly fake "interview".


• The Lost Scene (1080p; 3:01) provides an answer (in screenplay form--the scene was never shot) to what happens to the Bland couple in the film.


• Army of One (1080p; 6:01) focuses on a superfan of the film who has the working robot from the film in his collection.


• Chopping Mall: Creating the Killbots (480p; 15:41) is a vintage featurette.


• Trailer (480p; 00:50)

Chopping Mall Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There are going to be some who see the 3.5 score I've given Chopping Mall who will be asking, "Is he out of his mind giving such a high score to such obvious dross?", while other more rabid fans of the film will no doubt be asking, "Is he out of his mind giving such a low score to such an obvious classic?" (You'll note the common thread in these questions.) I make no bones that I find Chopping Mall a ton of fun even if I also have no illusions that the film is some kind of undiscovered masterpiece. This is the sort of popcorn munching fare that has a completely gonzo premise that delivers more or less exactly what it promises to. Technical merits are very good to excellent, and this new Vestron Video imprint is off to a gangbusters start in terms of supplementary material. Recommended.