No the day I chose to celebrate in the blog is… BLACK FRIDAY!!! The day after being thankful for what we have, Americans cram themselves into retail stores and beat each other up for a deal on a shitty television that you don’t even need while the 30 pounds of turkey you stuffed into your face the day before causes you to let loose some noxious tryptophan farts. In fact, we are no longer able to wait until Friday. We have become so desperate for $100 laptops that we will ditch our families and go wait on line at WalMart. It’s so crazy we’ve even extended it to Saturday and Monday but I digress. Let’s celebrate Black Friday and our insane consumerist blood lust with the classic… Chopping Mall.
The Movie
Chopping Mall opens with Dr. Stan Simon introducing a group of skeptical mall store owners to their new security force- robots that look like Johnny 5 from Short Circuit if he hung out at the Mobil all you can eat buffet. The robots, called Protectors, are cutting edge security controlled by technicians and a high tech box on the roof of the mall. The demonstration is very impressive though a couple sarcastic pricks talk through the whole thing. The robots ill recognize mall employees by their ID badges and will not kill them, making the Park Plaza Mall the safest in the nation- as long as lightning doesn’t strike the control box on the highest point of the mall.
Alison and Suzie are waitresses at the high class mall eatery. Suzie is very excited for the after hours, mall party her boyfriend Greg and his pals Mike and Ferdy are planning to throw in the furniture store. Mike is bringing his girlfriend Leslie. Mike is not a tender lover nor is he particularly subtle about it. He is caught pawing Leslie in her father’s store but daddy seems to barely notice. Ferdy and Suzie are going to meet for the first time, a blind date at a mall party- how romantic. Rick and Linda, newlyweds, are also coming to the mall furniture store party. Apparently, mall parties are very exciting for 1980s twentysomethings. The party quickly devolves into a sex club with everyone bumping uglies except Ferdy and Suzie who are sitting on the couch watching horror movies. Did I mention how much I like these two? Of course, lightning strikes the control panel and the laser shooting, non-ID recognizing fat Protectors are no longer controllable and go on a killing spree. Our heroic twentysomething, mall partiers are left to stop them, an effort that includes breaking into Peckinpah”s Sporting Goods for guns none of them can shoot and crawling around in air ducts. Can the twentysomethings survive a night trapped with the Protectors? Why would you arm mall security guard robots with lasers? Why are adults having a party in a mall furniture store?
Why I Chose This Movie
There are dozens of horror movies set in malls and stores some of which I like even more than Chopping Mall. The original Dawn of the Dead is right at the top of that list but most of you know that movie. Instead, I wanted to highlight something a little less well known and Chopping Mall fits. The movie is so 1980s, hairstyles, fashion, attitudes and that makes it amazing.
Lessons
- Do not replace people with robots especially mall security guards. If they malfunction, the robots will kill everyone. Malfunctioning human security guards will just harass teenagers and maybe fall off their Segways.
- Do not have parties at the mall. Get a hotel room, a friend’s house or a campground like normal people. Being drunk at a mall is no fun trust me. The lighting sucks and the people are annoying. Also it’s a little weird if you have sex on the display furniture and beds. The only exception is if it’s a little kid party and you want to.. No even that is not right.
- Do not be a fucking savage at the mall. If you drop garbage, pick it up. Mall custodians should not have to clean up the crap your lazy ass dropped. Bend at the knees and pick it up. Seriously, people who leave their messes behind piss me off.
- Do not smoke. Smoking will kill you and the people around you. Not just secondhand smoke either but they’ll get killed by laser-shooting, fat mall security guard robots when they go to buy you a pack.
