Robot security guards go rogue and start killing people at the mall. Don’t worry, it’s 2025, all our malls are dead already, and I’m sure our robot security guards will treat us well.
Starring Kelli Maroney, Tony O’Dell, John Terlesky, Russell Todd, and Barbara Crampton. Written by Jim Wynorski and Steve Mitchell. Directed by Jim Wynorski.
Welcome to the Mary Versus the Movies newsletter! Let’s go to the mall!
This week: 2/27/2025
EPISODE 176 – CHOPPING MALL (1986)
Robot security guards go rogue and start killing people at the mall. Don’t worry, it’s 2025, all our malls are dead already, and I’m sure our robot security guards will treat us well.
“Automatons go against their programmed natures and rise up against their makers” is a pretty well-worn trope, one rooted in fears of real slave rebellions; “gee, if only we didn’t need to use humans to do all this work, if only machines could do it; oh no–machines smart enough to do work might actually rise up against us too.” From the Golem to Roko’s Basilisk, our inability to understand what consciousness is lends itself to horror, to the fear that we can’t control our workers, that the workers are simply waiting for a spark to bring them to life and kill their masters. Even the promise of a post-work economy knows this is lurking in the background–what if the machines go wrong?
Well, in that case, you get Chopping Mall, wherein the robot security guards let loose in the Sherman Oaks Mall are struck by lightning, and decide everything is a threat. Instead of going after thieves, they wander the mall after hours, killing janitors, waitresses, and mattress store clerks. (They never kill the mall owners, of course–god forbid.) There’s the usual 1980s horror touches–exploding heads, lots of blood, lots of bare breasts, and everyone who has sex in the film dies, even a married couple. The comedic tone is set pretty quickly, with an opening scene featuring Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov reprising their roles from Eating Raoul, and running through until the ending, with a truly unbelievable and silly survival for one character.
As one of a series of 1980s horror comedies set at a mall, it’s less gory than Dawn of the Dead, less satirical than Gremlins, and less stylish than Night of the Comet, but this was the kind of genial trash we’ve been needing to see.
Starring Kelli Maroney, Tony O’Dell, John Terlesky, Russell Todd, and Barbara Crampton. Written by Jim Wynorski and Steve Mitchell. Directed by Jim Wynorski
HOLLYWOOD AVALON – KING ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD (2017)
What if Arthur was a bloke? You know, a regular street tough, a geezer, a guy up from the harsh streets of Londinium, who defeats an evil wizard-king with his merry band of criminals? Then you’d have Guy Ritchie’s version of the Arthurian story. And honestly? It’s not that bad. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not great–the story is silly, the CGI looks terrible, and there are parts that drag quite a lot. But it has Jude Law as the evil King Vortigern, swishing his way through the story, and Charlie Hunnam is pretty affable as a guy who goes from bouncer to king.
The script was cobbled together from various projects that had floated around for years; Warner Brothers wanted to create a cinematic universe to compete with the MCU and Universal’s proposed (and never completed) Dark Universe, since the Harry Potter franchise had (at the time) an obvious end-point (so much for that, btw). The stories of King Arthur seemed an obvious place to put that energy, what with people’s familiarity with the story, and the ascendancy of fantasy films in the early 2000s, thanks to Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. You can feel the disjointed nature of the process in the film we have–it plays fast and lose with the Arthur legend (Vortigern shouldn’t be Arthur’s uncle; Vortigern never betrayed Uther, he was a different generation; Arthur wasn’t raised in a brothel, but as a nobleman’s adopted younger son; Mordred is Arthur’s son, not a wizard who lived before him). But you know what? I don’t care. It’s close enough.
The movie works best when it lets Ritchie do his thing–street toughs swaggering through the story, narrative playfulness, capers, things like that. It falls apart when it attempts to be “epic”, and the CGI is really, very, very bad–muddy cartoons intended to be seen in 3D.
Starring Charlie Hunnam, Jude Law, Astrid Bergès-Frisby, Djimon Hounsou, Eric Bana, Aidan Gillen, Tom Wu, and Neil Maskell. Written by Joby Harold and Guy Ritchie. Directed by Guy Ritchie.
This is a preview of the latest episode of our series Hollywood Avalon. To hear the entire episode, join the Mary Versus the Movies patreon for $3/month to hear this and the entire series Hollywood Avalon: https://www.patreon.com/maryvsmovies.
What else are we up to this week?
Mary: We got to watch the Oscar-nominated short films recently; by the time you read this, one of them will have already won, but I’ve decided to rank them here anyway. I didn’t hate any of the films this year, though each one was weighed down with having A Message–nothing here had the grace of last year’s Henry Sugar. (But, well, I admit I’m biased.)
They were all depressing in their own special ways:
A Lien (USA): A family is torn apart when an undocumented immigrant is detained during his interview for a green card. Set during the first Trump administration, it’s obviously, depressingly relevant.
The Man Who Could Not Remail Silent (Croatia): A militia stops a train, demanding citizenship papers and detaining anyone they either don’t like or who can’t produce their papers. Set during the start of the Yugoslav civil wars of the 1990s, it’s depressingly relevant.
Anuja (India): A brilliant young girl who is functionally homeless has to choose between getting an education, or continuing working in a sweatshop, lest her sister be fired as well, and they lose any source of income. Again, depressing. Again, sure, relevant.
The Last Ranger (South Africa): The story of wildlife rangers defending rhinos against poachers who aren’t adverse to killing not only the animals, but the rangers as well. Oh look, another depressing one. This might be my favorite, though, both as character sketches and cinematography–it’s a frequently-gorgeous short film.
I’m Not a Robot (Netherlands/Belgium): A woman starts to doubt whether she is human or not. Often very funny, with a modern twist on The Stepford Wives, but it also has a pretty depressing core.
Personally, I think I’m Not a Robot will win, which is fine with me–sure, it’s going over very familiar terrain, but it’s well done and not as didactic as the other films. I’m rooting for The Last Ranger, but if this wins, I won’t be mad.
Dennis:
Pizza: We went to see Joe Dante’s Movie Orgy, the 5 hour b-movie/tv spliced together student film he did at the former Philadelphia College of Art. It was presented at the Space 1026 Gallery, with a show of artwork from UA (Philadelphia College of Art changed to University of the Arts sometime in the 90s, I think, before it was suddenly shut down last year). Mary introduced the movie with an essay, she’s a long time Joe Dante fan. Other than Bruce our host, there was only one girl and an artist dude there, who had a dog named B-mo, but the dog started barking at the evil horse at the beginning of the film and was whisked away. The girl stayed through the whole thing like a trooper. This was our second time watching The Movie Orgy and we still love it. We got Santucci’s original square pizza, one of those cheese-under-the-sauce deals. It looked unimpressive at first, but tasted good. It’s cheesier than it looks. Crust is ok. I feel like the sauce-on-top thing is a different experience, 3.5 out of 6 stars.
NEXT EPISODE: We start “Dennis Versus the Movies” month with one of Mary’s favorite movies from her childhood, the horror comdy The ‘Burbs.
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