KELLI MARONEY IN THE CORMAN PRODUCTION 'CHOPPING MALL'

Title: CHOPPING MALL Year: 1986 Rating: ****

While a group of people inside a shopping mall are fighting for their lives against murderous aggressors is straight from DAWN OF THE DEAD, director Jim Wynorski's CHOPPING MALL set the stage for ROBOCOP...

Originally titled KILLBOTS, the plot has law-enforcement machines, including an initial test to show how they work and, instead of becoming surprisingly lethal during a test run, the three robots needed only lightning striking outside to make their wiry-innards possessed, straight out of a mechanical FRANKENSTEIN... 

Kelli Maroney and Barbara Crampton in CHOPPING MALL

Yet CHOPPING MALL is really a body-count slasher/splatter flick with a science-fiction premise... and the gang's all here including two central virgins in final girl and boy Kelli Maroney (who would also shoot guns taught by a military father in the horror classic NIGHT OF THE COMET) and KARATE KID bully Tony O'Dell...

Of course there's a sexed-up "popular-looking" couple in square-jawed jock-type John Terlesky and full-chested-blonde Suzee Slater... and the virgin-couple's close friends/mall-workmates in slightly more cool and experienced Nick Segal and token screamer/suspense-barometer Barbara Crampton...

Suzee Slater and John Terlesky in CHOPPING MALL

Perhaps, with the ferociousness of the built-in-blade-wielding bots, there needed more deaths (including two mall workers)... but perfect-looking Russell Todd and Kerrie Emerson are (while good actors) basically redundant, seeming brought in from another horror movie, deleting the need for that rudimentary sexually-driven couple as well as any genuine heroics from the secondary friend-of-the-main-couple couple...

Either way, CHOPPING MALL is a great low-budget body-count exploitation-horror from the glossy neon-arcade era, filmed at the gloriously-capitalistic FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH two-story-including-elevator Sherman Oaks Galleria (where Kelli had also spent time), and, produced by Roger's wife Julie Corman, the 80-minutes doesn't feel too-short, making this programmer replete with every horror trope in the book — in an addictive and pulpy, page-turning, anything-goes fashion.

Kelli Maroney in CHOPPING MALL

Tony O'Dell in CHOPPING MALL

Russell Todd in CHOPPING MALL

Karrie Emerson in CHOPPING MALL

Barbara Crampton in CHOPPING MALL

Nick Segal in CHOPPING MALL

John Terlesky in CHOPPING MALL

Suzee Slater (kind of) in CHOPPING MALL

John Terlesky and Suzee Slater in CHOPPING MALL

Eating Raoul couple Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov cameo for CHOPPING MALL

Roger Corman regular Dick Miller in CHOPPING MALL

Roger Corman regular Dick Miller in CHOPPING MALL

John Terlesky in CHOPPING MALL

Kelli Maroney and Tony O'Dell in CHOPPING MALL

Barbara Crampton in CHOPPING MALL

Nick Segal in CHOPPING MALL

Roger Corman regular Dick Miller in CHOPPING MALL

Angela Aames in CHOPPING MALL

The KILLBOTS in CHOPPING MALL

Tony O'Dell in CHOPPING MALL

Kerrie Emerson in CHOPPING MALL

Russell Todd and Kerrie Emerson in CHOPPING MALL

Barbara Crampton and Kelli Maroney in CHOPPING MALL

Killbots in CHOPPING MALL

Killbots in CHOPPING MALL with shortlived favor-cameo Gerrit Graham

Opening of CHOPPING MALL

Killbot from CHOPPING MALL

Kerrie Emerson, Barbara Crampton and Kelli Maroney in CHOPPING MALL

Sam Peckinpah homage from CHOPPING MALL

Nick Segal, Russell Todd and Tony O'Dell in CHOPPING MALL

Russell Todd in CHOPPING MALL

Tony O'Dell in CHOPPING MALL

Kelli Maroney and Tony O'Dell in CHOPPING MALL

From CHOPPING MALL