Babbling Old Man: Chopping Mall

Back in the 80’s there were three things that you had to fear most. 1. Being hit by a train while listening to your headphones too loudly. 2. Ending up on the side of a milk carton with the words “Missing!” and a terrible photo of you. 3. Walking on the third rail in a subway (thank you breakdancing movies). There were a few things that I wanted dearly as a child.

To be taken into space by some rogue alien and flying their ship or switching bodies with an adult. This movie took away something from me that I thought was the number one best thing about the 80’s: The chance to be locked inside a mall all night and free to do whatever the hell I wanted! Dreams were shattered once I watched Chopping Mall aka Killbots. These evil ass robots would make Johnny 5 from Short Circuit shit his robot guts.

Killbots are the security at the mall. No, its not some kinda secret government based mall. it’s a regular ass mall where apparently they feel the need to replace regular security with creepy little robots. The robots are supposed to just taser you or knock you out but after lightning strikes the mall the robots lose their microchip shit and start killing people.

The janitor deserved to die. He was a dick and he didn’t seem to enjoy his job anyway. The robots did him a favor. They also kill the dude that is supposed to be taking care of the robots. So now you have crazy killbots on the lose in a mall. No problem.

Oh, except that the mall isn’t empty! These teens (that look over 30) decided to spend the night at the mall having sex, smoking, drinking, and in one case being nerds. One of the groups come across one of the three killbots and gets her head blown clean the fuck off.

One of many goofy things about this movie is the inconsistency of the robots lasers. Sometimes they zap you and its like “Ow, my Jordache Jeans!” and other times its “Hey, remember when I had a head?” I love the fact that one of these goobers works in the mall and he didn’t know that fucking Terminators were watching the place at night. Now look. Hot chick ain’t got no head. And that’s like the third best part of a woman.

These “kids” decide to arm themselves to fight the robots. I’d be busy hiding in a bathroom and waiting for this shit storm to blow over, but hey, that’s just me. Oh, and because I’m Black and I know the rules! They always say that the virgins always survive (which they do in this movie) but the first goddamn one to go is the Black person. Not even Scatman Caruthers could’ve saved these idiots though.

The mall is full of weapon store and all kinds of flammable crap. I have a hard time even finding where to pay for parking validation. But back in the 80’s you could go to the mall and come home with fuel, flares, and a new Member’s Only jacket.

Of course two people survive and have the best story to tell over any dinner they ever attend for the rest of their lives. Somebody can be like “Oh, I remember having to sleep on my porch because I locked myself out the house! Bwahahaha!” to which they will reply “Me and my friends were locked in the mall overnight with three robots that shot lasers. Out of the eight of us only we two survived. This is good casserole by the way…”

They kill the final robot with explosives after they figured its treads couldn’t go on slippery material. So a company, likely Skynet, creates robots that can shoot lasers to patrol a mall at night but its hampered by slippery floors? Okay. Remind me to never make a machine that has the same weaknesses as an elderly woman.