Chopping Mall (1985) 1h 17m

It's that time again where I face a film that, as a kid, I used to see the VHS box on the rental shelf at the local Phar-Mor and it would freak me out.  I think it was just the cartoonesq bulging eye at the top.  I also used to be freaked out by The Howling cover but to this day I'm not sure why.  At least Chopping Mall has a bag full of body parts being held by Dr. Claw.

So, who put what where?

Remember when shopping malls used to have a million floors?  Chopping Mall remembers.  In an attempt to bring in state-of-the-art security, this mall buys three robots that are a mix of Alpha from Power Rangers and Johnny 5 from Short Circuit.  In the informative video we are shown, the robots work by slowly following a perp until they're shot with a taser and probably killed.  If you show an ID badge though then the robot will leave you alone.  When a group of twenty somethings decide to stay after work and party/fuck on the display beds and couches of their department store, they end up running afoul of our security bots.  Slow chases and laser beams ensue.

These bots are trash as fuck but also built like tanks!  They all have these spindly grabber arms that go up like they're raising the roof right before they try to kill someone.  Fire, most explosions, and bullets that hit anywhere that isn't their visor will do nothing to them.  Then we have Suzy (Barbara Crampton) and her awkward death where a robot shoots her in the leg and it apparently renders her unable to craw or roll while the bot shoots over top of her.  I thought the thing could only shoot straight ahead until it aims at a gas can next to Suzy and lights her up.  Let me tell you, she can get up and run just fine after that.

The heroes this mall needs!

You know what?  Fuck the cover of this movie!  There isn't a single rad metal robot fist or bag of body parts in the whole thing!  Well, maybe after that girl's head exploded some bits went in a bag, but these robots had lame pincer hands!  I want the batter robot from the NES game Base Wars to be the security guard!  Someone make a time machine and fix this movie to fit my desires!!

Chopping Mall is horribly dated and such a goofy premise, but in its own way it was fun.  I'm not saying it's worth going to see at some midnight showing or anything, but if you want to have a bad 80's movie night then this is the kind of thing you might consider.  

I give Chopping Mall 2 Bride of Pinbot backglass images out of 5:

 

Class of 1999 (1990) 1h 39m

To the best of my knowledge, when I graduated high school in 1999 no one was in punk gangs and none of my teachers were murderous war robots.  My principal was also not Malcolm McDowell.  If he was then I would've been bugging him all the time to tell me about being in the Tank Girl movie.

Banana in the front, party in the rear.

Class of 1999, despite coming out in 1990, explains that in 1992 youth crime became such a big issue that by 1997 all major cities had schools that were basically just gang territories.  The gangs all dress punk as fuck, wear spandex pants, and may be too into Rufio from Hook.  Cody is released from prison just in time to return to his school where there are going to be three new robot teachers stepping in to help control the chaos.  Wanting nothing to do with his old gang life, Cody tries to keep his head down until he sees the gym robot murder a kid.  After that another robot murders his friend.  It's then that these robots begin to go AWOL and attempt to hunt down and kill Cody since he discovers their secret.

This film is a dystopian cluster fuck.  It's like 1983's Suburbia and Terminator 2 drunkenly jerked each other off in a bar bathroom and this was the product of their combined shame seed.  This film is the equivalent of what old men in the 80's mentally saw when they viewed slightly unsavory youths walk by their house.  Then that man would have some sort of wet dream about being a robot and spanking them in class while making eye contact with the other students... because that's a thing that happens in this movie.  There is also some sort of punishment the robots can do named "rap knuckles" which I really just wanted to be something hip-hop related, but then realized it meant to nun wack their hand.  I'm stealing Rap Knuckles though.  That's gonna be the new mixed tape fire I bring!

I give Class of 1999 1 preschool graduation image I grabbed off of Google out of 5: