When I was younger and my family went food shopping, I’d usually hang back by the entrance, where there was a video rental section. I can only hope it was unintentional, but the boxes closest to my prepubescent reach were the horror movies. They were right there, first thing you saw walking in, next to Bouquets To Go! and the magazine rack. The covers and taglines of almost every awful 80′s slasher flick were burned into my head from hours of produce-avoiding stares, and have probably influenced my tastes more than I’d care to admit. Some of the stronger standouts were The Serpent and the Rainbow, with a ghoulish Bill Pullman shrieking ‘Don’t bury me! I’m Not Dead!’, Jacob’s Ladder with its Francis Bacon face, April Fool’s Day (with that sweet hairdo), Evil Dead II‘s grinning skull, and Chopping Mall.
Most of these movies I saw at a later point in my life, some living up to the awesome gore their covers hinted at, others being generic ‘sexy teens get killed’ fare, the odd one here and there turning out to be much more than a horror film. Chopping Mall was different. Chopping Mall was shown repeatedly as Channel 11′s Sunday Afternoon Movie, unedited (except for bleeped cursing). This was the mid-eighties, before cable became a mainstay in so many houses. My siblings and I would watch the same 5 or 6 movies over and over on the 17 channels we had, mostly because there was nothing else on. Big Girls Don’t Cry, They Get Even was another repeated viewing, but that’s a story for another day. Why is Chopping Mall unsuitable for impressionable youth? Right here:
It’s a trifecta of emotional scarring- laser attacks, killer robots, sexuality both interrupted and punished, and head exploding. Well, more like a tetrafecta, but that doesn’t roll off the tongue as smoothly.
I should mention here I was a bright kid, but the line between reality and fiction for me was never too strong. I had panic attacks for weeks after reading a Weekly World News headline proclaiming the End of the World was coming in a month, as predicted by resident psychic Sabrina. So when I watched Chopping Mall, I assumed it had some basis in reality. It made sense- the news was always going on about how crime and theft were on the rise, and various new security measures were being taken. I was geniunely worried that similar measures were going to be taken in the malls near us someday. I kept my guard up for years, and now I see this was not in vain. Behold the future of mall security:
Reborg Q, being put into effect at AquaCity shopping mall this month. Do they realize they’re one random lighting strike away from diaster?! I suppose history is doomed to repeat itself. Ater years of exposure to awful movies, I’m left shaking my head, and finding stuff like this funny.
