And welcome to Pick Six Movies, the podcast where each season, we select six movies all related to a single theme, and then on each episode we take a look at the people who made one of those movies to answer the question⦠Huh? Then, on top of that, we give you a full review of the movie, from start to finish, to see if it's any good, and more often than not, the movies we review on this podcast are genuinely awful.
I'm Chad Cooper and, along with my lifelong friend and podcast co-host, mr Bo Randstall, this season's theme is Domo Arigato, featuring six movies where robots are up to all manner of unexpected hijinks. This is episode 5, and boy do we have a doozy of a movie for you with Shopping Mall. It's everything you want in an 80's slasher movie Young adults stranded alone, this time in a shopping mall, with a murderous killer.
This time it's three robots and they stalk down the young adults one by one and they kill them off until the movie ends. And you turn it off and you never think twice about it for the rest of your life. Doesn't that sound delightful? Of course it does. But enough of my gibber jabber. Let's get Mr Bo Randstall in here to explain to us how Shopping Malls destroyed the America of yesteryear, only to set the stage for this terrifyingly terrible slasher film.
Oh, and there's gratuitous nudity, both male and female, and I guess there's robot nudity, cause they don't wear clothes. Can robots be naked? Rosie the robot on the Jetson she wore a maid's costume, so I guess if she took it off she'd be naked. You know what Robots can be naked? Listen to me. Gibber, jabber on. Let's just get Mr Bo Randstall in here to talk about Shopping Mall before I prattle on a little bit more. Bo, do that thing, you do.
Elizabeth King once wrote If capitalism is America's religion, the mall is its church. The American urge to consume has been bored into us through decades of advertising and culture. Who doesn't love that feeling when a new box from Amazon shows up at your door? It's a dopamine hit of satisfaction, a release of pleasure on account of you having more stuff. We got rid of the mall and made the stuff come right to us.
An advancement in consumerism, but not so much in the world where malls had a different intended purpose. See, malls weren't supposed to be just a place to go and spend money. They were supposed to bring us as a society together. Cue the music fellas. It sounds like an introduction. The guy who first devised the idea of the American shopping mall wasn't some guy in a boardroom eager to put all the things you can buy in one handy place.
Nope, it was a Vienna-born architect by the name of Victor Gruen, a socialist of all things.
Gruen had noted that people were fleeing urban areas in a wake of industrialization and he was worried that these suburban spaces where the population was flocking to would, in his words, create a quote feminized space where the only people who could possibly live were women and children, on account of there being nothing to do but, one presumes, bake and clean the house and play in the vast stretches of empty spaces.
Gruen saw this as a problem of society, a need for a place where people could come together and share in cultural experiences. These buildings, in Gruen's mind, would be state-owned facilities where people could come and mingle, exchange ideas. It was a blast of old-fashioned Greek democracy, positioned squarely in suburban centers. So in the 1950s, just as World War II provided another boost to the urban flight and a rush to the suburbs, gruen began building his shopping malls.
It was a dream that would become, for Gruen, a nightmare. By the time the 1960s rolled around, there were 4,500 shopping malls littering the landscape of the suburbs. Their presence on city planning, infrastructure and the very economies of suburban communities cannot be overstated. They became cultural centers, sure, but not an exchange of ideas as Gruen hoped.
They were monuments to capitalism and consumerism, a place where one could compare one's life against another's and buy all the things that would fill the gulf between the life you had and the life you wanted. In a 1986 issue of Consumer Reports, this shopping mall, as an invention, was named one of the 50 greatest consumer innovations in history, right up there with antibiotics and personal computers.
In 1985, a law professor at the University of California in Los Angeles penned a letter attempting to sway the New York Court of Appeals to lift a ban on pamphleteering in malls. The court decided that this sort of thing was disruptive to all the shopping and buying and food courting. But this professor argued that the mall had become essentially a town square and some amount of disruption in all that. Shopping was important and even necessary for the betterment of democracy.
Gruen would have been proud. This was what he wanted all along the mall as city center, a place where ideas are debated and exchanged. But not everything was rosy with the advent of malls. I mean, it started as a way to subvert the feminization of suburban culture, already a fairly sexist idea. But then came the racism. Yeah, you knew that was coming. Most of the flight from urban areas to the suburbs was from your old pal the Caucasian, a phenomena known as white flight.
So more white people than any other demographic were fleeing the city, percentage wise. And it also helped if you could afford a car to get to said mall, which required reasonable and steady income, something white folks had more than their fair share of when compared with other groups, especially in the 50s and 60s, and the jobs opening up in the suburbs.
Yep, you needed cars to get to them too, and basic access to the malls isn't the only thing that was inherently problematic when discussing race. If someone in the black or Hispanic community did manage to make it to a mall, they reported high degrees of racial profiling by mall security 65% of black people and 56% of Hispanic people believed that they were profiled when entering stores and malls.
According to a 2004 Gallup poll and if you needed more proof, barneys of New York and Macy's were so guilty of it an investigation was called and both stores locations were found to practice high degrees of racial profiling in their anti-theft practices.
That could explain why, during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2015, the largest mall in the country, bloomington, minnesota's Mall of America, was chosen as a site of a large scale protest, as if to say here in this place, we do not feel we are being respected or treated with basic human dignity. But, of course, nothing can last. Malls fell victim to the one constant change. Online shopping hit consumers and consumers loved it. All the stuff.
None of the walking and shopping and shutter being around other people. You can have whatever you want dropped on your doorstep and you don't even have to look at the person who brought it to you. The final nail in Gruen's utopian ideal of the mall Get rid of all the interaction and leave behind the raw consumerism. Between 2008 and 2009, malls posted losses of 6.5% in sales.
And suddenly malls were closing, at least 15% of them Giant edifices that once contained hundreds or thousands of people now empty, some left abandoned so that nature herself began its reclamation of the spaces. By 2022, that number was more like 20-25% of all malls in this country were closed. These are haunted places, these empty and abandoned malls. To look at the internet, to see some of the images, is like looking at sets from some post-apocalyptic film.
Before he died in 1980, gruen said I am often called the father of the shopping mall. I would like to take this opportunity to disclaim paternity once and for all. I refuse to pay alimony to those bastard developments. They destroyed our cities. It is perhaps fitting that, in the wake of his demise, so too did the mall die. And yet there is life in the old girl yet, or perhaps a resurrection, as befitting our Halloween season.
Local communities have, in some places, bought up the old private malls and turned them into communal spaces, places where local hospitals have satellite centers or community colleges or cultural centers.
For some of these same communities, for whom the traditional mall meant profiling and disenfranchisement, there is also the rise of the Mall Walker, a punchline shore, but also a pretty remarkable thing Elderly citizens, who are often left behind in the need for community as friends and relatives die or lose touch or simply don't want to be around creepy old people.
These elderly citizens can go to these mostly abandoned malls where there is maybe one anchor store holding on an orange Julius and then a whole wing devoted to a trade school or something. They can walk these malls with others like them, people still looking for ways to be active and to be social. Alexandra Lang, who has studied the rise and fall of the mall as an institution, says about this phenomena quote the mall in its quiet early hours provides affordances.
Most cities and suburbs cannot Open open walkways, consistent weather, bathrooms and benches. A 2010 study found. Quote spatial practice often exceeds the conceptions of designers and managers, transforming malls into community space. This is particularly true in declining inner suburbs, where poor and racialized communities depend more heavily on malls for social reproduction as well as recreation and consumption.
It's just a fancy way to say that the malls have become actual places of community. Again in keeping with our Halloween season, gruen had to invent his monster, watch it die and then return as the thing he intended all along. And given the cultural obsession with malls in the 1980s, it's no surprise that someone would make a horror movie set inside one. Someone would expect the king of B-movies, roger Corman, to jump on such a thing, but you'd be wrong.
It was his wife, julie Corman, that hitched her wagon to the mall craze. Julie Corman had a deal with Vestron Pictures, one of the great B-movie studios of the 80s, to make a horror movie that takes place in a mall. She turned to a writer-director inside the Roger Corman stable to bring her vision to life a guy by the name of Jim Wynorski. He talked extensively about Wynorski on the episode On Return of the Swamp Thing way back in season 5, episode 2. A movie Wynorski also directed.
If you don't recall that one or didn't listen to that episode, first of all, shame on you. The short version is that Wynorski is a great, a weirdo, with a penchant for large breasts and making everything from cheap sci-fi movies to cheap skin flicks. He's made a career for himself and that's something. But make no mistake, jim Wynorski is not what you would call an auteur.
Still, at the time of Chopping Mall's inception, wynorski was a go-to guy in the Corman world, having written movies like Forbidden World and Sorceress and Screwballs a porkey's knockoff for Corman and he had recently written and directed the movie the Lost Empire, which IMDb describes thusly seeking revenge Officer Angel Wolfe, her Native American friend, wide star oh boy, and Outlaw Heather infiltrate a fortified island where an undead wizard in his evil cult forced
captured women to take part in gladiatorial tournaments. So you kinda know what you're getting with this guy. But he did work fast and on a budget, and that goes a long way with Roger Corman and Julie. Corman pitched the concept to Wynorski who said he could write a script on the cheap if he'd also be allowed to direct. Corman agreed Julie that is and Wynorski was off to the races. He enlisted the aid of a buddy, steven Mitchell, a guy he knew from the horror convention circuit.
The two bonded when they kept running into each other at conventions for EC Comics, the pre-code horror comics that are truly wonders to behold. It was Wynorski who said that they all to do robots in a mall and went on to say he was inspired by a 1954 film called Gog, in which malfunctioning robots hunt people in an underground base where a space station is being built.
Others are quick to point out that there is a made for TV movie from 1973 called Trapped, aka Doberman Patrol, a movie that is very similar to Choppie Mall, only substituted Doberman Pinchers for robots. Regardless of how it was inspired, wynorski and Steve Mitchell put together a story in about 24 hours. Julie Corman dug it and passed it along to the suits at Vestron and, despite the fact that there wasn't, you know, a real script, they gave it the green light.
They did write a script, believe it or not, which took another month and change to get done. And, lest we forget, jim Wynorski is kind of a creep. So when it came to casting the movie, he led his dick, lead the way. Dana Kimmel, an actress known at the time for Lone Wolf McQuade and who would later go on to be in Friday the 13th, part 3, was originally cast as the lead, but she quote did not want to do anything that was sexual, and so she got bounced from the cast.
Enter Kelly Maroney, who had a huge run as a young woman on Ryan's Hope, the old soap opera, and then landed the role of Cindy in Fast Times at Richmond High. She would be best known for cult movies like Night of the Comet, chopping Mall and Not of this Earth. Wynorski wanted to date Maroney and cast her because he wanted to get it wet, and also Maroney was quote game for anything Generic white guy dudes.
John Toleski and Russell Todd were cast as Mike and Rick respectively, and Tony O'Dell, aka Jimmy from Karate Kid 1 2, plays Ferdy, the nerdy hero of our movie. And much love, as usual, to the Queen of B movies, barbara Crampton, who was still early in her career at this point, but not that early. She was already the woman who was eaten out by that decapitated head and reanimator one of the truly shocking moments in film history.
And she would of course go on to be in movies and television until this very day. She is currently on a run of the Young and the Restless, while appearing in indie movies all over the place, and is doing voice work for video games, recently the character of Mom in the zombie co-op shooter Back for Blood. Is there anything she can't do?
Oh, and you'll probably recognize some character actors in the mix too, like Dick Miller and Paul Bartell and Mary Warnoff, the latter couple featured in the movie Eating Raul, a cult movie if ever there was one. And Dick Miller was not only a Roger Corman staple he's been in pretty much every B movie worth a damn in the past half century or more. So the movie was intended to be shot at the Beverly Center in Los Angeles, but that cost a lot of money and this movie didn't have a lot of money.
So they shot some exteriors there and then they filmed all the interiors at the Sherman Oaks Galleria, which was also the mall used in Fast Times at Richmond High and the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Commando For the furniture store. The production took over an empty space and made their own store, which doubled as storage for all the equipment during the day when the mall was open.
The shooting of the movie took about 20 days and for better or worse, shopping Mall was ready to unleash on an unsuspecting public. Only it wasn't called Shopping Mall at first. It was called Killbots and it was test-marketed to audiences in March of 1986. The test screenings went poorly and the movie was, part of the expression, chopped down and given the new title Shopping Mall.
When it finally did make its way to wide release, the movie was met with decent, if unexceptional, business and critical reviews that landed somewhere south of good, though. Some critics found some fun with the film, even if they admitted that it was no cinematic achievement. But it was on home video that Shopping Mall found its audience, one that would inspire a DVD release in 2004 on the back of some really good VHS sales and rental numbers.
Maybe it was the poster, maybe it was just the silliness of it all, maybe just the sun shining on this particular dog's ass on this particular day, but Shopping Mall was, after a while, a success. But does this consumer concoction have any fire in the bellies of its robotic security guards, or is this one big not topic? To find out, let's get chat in here to ring up the damage on this.
Jim Wynorski, jim, ladies and gentlemen, birdies and suesies, it's 1986's Shopping Mall, and welcome back everyone to yet another episode of Pick Six Movies, this one not content with just referring to the 80s all the time on account of us being old, we're going to watch a movie set so firmly in the strata of the 1980s.
It is chock full of malls and big hair and slang and crappy effects, really colored clothing and gratuitous nudity that is both a trademark of the 1980s and our pal Jim Wynorski, who of course directed this. So Shopping Mall is a movie that I feel like has been sort of always with me in some weird way. Like I don't think it's a great movie and we'll talk about all the reasons why no, it's clearly not, but it feels like that friend you have.
That you don't really have that much in common with, but you've always been around them, and so you're just sort of weird.
You got some weird friends, man. I don't know anybody like this movie.
Oh, I know a lot of people that are like the living embodiment of Shopping Mall. When I watched this movie.
It reminded me that there are certain films that were made in the 80s that really captured the essence of the 1980s, like you mentioned in the intro Cameron Crowe and Amy Heckerling's Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing captures the 80s in a certain way. All the John Hughes films you know just across the board.
But I also think that those movies are separate from movies that were made in the 80s that define that generation of filmmaking, like Rambo or Indiana Jones films fall into that. Ghost Busters and Terminator and Back to the Future and all of the unlimited slasher movies that were cranked out during that particular decade. You know, I just think that certain movies were able to just capture the essence of that decade without trying to recreate a certain moment.
But I think that Shopping Mall may be one of the most fantastic time capsules for the 1980s ever captured on film Because it's got so much of the mall culture and it's got a slasher film component to it and it's this techno disaster type nightmare. It feels like the 1980s just shit out of film.
It has all the trappings of the 1980s. It's not trying to be a time capsule, which kind of makes it a better time capsule.
It's the opposite of Wonder Woman 1984.
That's a great example in a horrible movie. I would rather watch shopping mall than Wonder Woman 84.
It's more authentic and genuine and it's shorter and it's more entertaining and, if you like it, there's a lot more nudity, both male and female.
This is true. Say what you will about shopping mall, it is fairly equal opportunity. I mean, it's certainly more exploitative with the women, I guess.
but you see as many male nipples as female nipples. This is nipples a nipple.
I guess that's right. When was the first time you saw this movie? Three days ago? Oh really, you had never seen this before.
No, this one never came across my radar. It always just looked a little too bad and I don't know why. I mean, I'm surprised that you and I never watched this together, but I had never seen it. For those who don't know, there were certain people in the 1980s children who were just like, left to their own devices and just figured things out and there wasn't a whole hell of a lot to do Like, and going to the mall was one of them. Tv only had three stations.
They all showed the same thing News, game shows, soap operas, syndicated garbage. In the afternoon, local news and then three hours of programming and that was it. Yeah. You had one station of PBS that showed you stuff to learn from, and then you had one wild card of a UHF station, if you were lucky, and that just showed a bunch of public domain cartoons and public domain movies and cheap pay to play trash, like there was nothing to do but get in trouble, watch that crappy TV or go to the mall.
And that's assuming you had a car to get to the mall. Otherwise you're just roaming the neighborhood, completely unsupervised, with a stick and ill intent.
And if it was near New Year's Day or Fourth of July, you were blowing things up with fireworks.
Boy. Those were the days.
Well, there are also maybe one or two movie theaters in town. This is how bad it was. Remember when they turned that 7-Eleven into a video rental store.
Oh sure.
It went tits up. I'm in that video rental store and I'm standing there looking at the movies to rent and the movie Mannequin it's on the shelf and I'm thinking about watching Mannequin and I pick it up and then I turn around and I look over at the marquee for the shitty movie theater in our hometown and they're showing the movie Mannequin. Now, this was not one of those late to the game dollar theaters.
This was full price movie theater and they had eight screens at the time, like they built that out. But I was like how in the hell is there a VHS copy of Mannequin available for rent? And they are still showing this movie on the big screen.
Probably wasn't legally obtained, is what I would suggest. I don't know. That was what the shitty cam version of Mannequin.
My point here just being, is that movies during this era? I don't know that. I have a point here yeah. I don't think I do. Oh OK, when was the last time you went to a shopping mall? Let's talk about that for a moment.
I walked into a shopping mall within the past two years.
It's been a decade since I've walked into a shopping mall proper.
The only reason I did is because the child I was with legally was taking you to the cops. Oh no, no, wanted to get some Chinese from the food court, oh, and so we were going to that. But we walked into the mall and she said I don't like this place. And I said I don't either. And then we turned around and left. So I was in the mall once in the past decade for about 38 seconds and that was it.
I go to one of those outdoor shopping epicenters, kind of like a Lowe's and a Target, and then everything else is just stitched together. It's it's not encased in a giant building, but back in the day going to the mall was a thing to do.
Again, this is before the internet, when you could just look at all the porn you wanted. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, there's one on the what. Now, oh boy, I'll tell you what. Let's take this offline.
But I've got something I think you're really going to like.
Yeah, I mean you could walk in the place with 20 bucks, hit the food court, maybe buy a cassette tape or go to the movie which was attached to the mall, and all of that for a relatively inexpensive amount of money and that blew your afternoon and you had nothing but time. You had no sense of mortality or how quick all this goes by. So, you just blew time hanging out watching people go by and sipping an oversized orange, julius.
In a lot of ways it was kind of wonderful and in a lot of ways it's very sad.
Let's talk about this movie.
Oh yeah, please Out of the gate Bo.
I awarded this movie one very enthusiastic star for its opening credits, of which there are none. Kudos to you, chopping ball.
The movie we go right into a dude breaking the window of a jewelry store.
But it's a fake opening, like a James Bond or Indiana Jones or something, but I was like, hey, they're getting into the movie.
That's fine. Those are real things that happen. This is just a movie made by the security company, but it's this thief swiping a bunch of jewels yeah, he's a burglar.
He's wearing a little black hoodie. I wish his shirt would have been white and black striped, but then that would imply that he got busted by the cops or a bandit mask. That would have been good.
One of those that ties at the back of his head. That would have been pretty good this jewelry he's stealing.
It's clearly costume jewelry that costs like 18 bucks retail. The dude would have made more money by carefully cutting out the window paint of glass that he smashed and selling that on the streets.
I buy most of my glass. Just I've got a guy. Let's just say that Sure.
Everybody's got a glass guy. Why would you pay retail for that? That's just foolish.
It's a fine question. I've never done it. Hey, you need glass. I got glass. Do you think they have the overcoats? Yeah, Like what do you want? Do you want? You want some stained glass? I've got. Plexiglass, I've got security glass.
What do you need, buddy Huh.
My glass guy. You live in a hurricane zone.
I got that covered. See that right there. That's a federal tax stamp.
It doesn't get more legal than that.
So back to our movie. Yeah, our bandit stealing this jewelry Right and then a four foot tall kill by on treads rolls up behind this bandit and says stop right there and surrender your weapon. And this kill by clearly looks inspired by short circuits, johnny five and our own heartbeats crime buster, only 80% cheaper and about 60% smaller. This bandit turns around bow and starts firing his pistol at the kill by left and right.
He just empties his chamber and he's like, yeah, he runs off and the kill by gives chase and then fires a taser into the back of this bandit, rendering the bandit unconscious and then the end flashes on the screen.
I was like, wow, this is going to be the shortest episode we've ever done.
It was awesome, wasn't it? You're like is that it? And they're like oh crap, this is just a head fake. And I like that. It's listed as a secure Tronix production. Uh-huh Like, what are we doing here? And then it cuts into this real to real projector, showing that this is a short movie about a mall robbery at night and it's being shown to a small audience of people in folding chairs sitting in a real mall at night through meta.
Indeed, I think if I was the head of secure Tronix, I would have had some real life bandits go rob these people's stores during the mall presentation and then, when they went back to work, they were just like we were robbed. We need killbots to protect our crummy merchandise.
That guy was right. You know, secure Tronix is one of the unsung heroes of filmmaking of this era. Not only did they do, obviously, the killbot safety video, they also did breaking away the bicycling epic. And they really yeah, they did the original credit kid. Those were both secure Tronix films, but then they went under. Just you know bad deals.
This blonde woman wearing a very smart looking suit and glasses. She takes the stage and she says ladies and gentlemen, that ends our fake out intro to the movie. Here is the head of development for secure Tronix unlimited Incorporated International, a division of global common, its parent company, omega Corp. Mr Dr Stan Simon oh, by the way Chad, worth pointing out.
We've got our cameo here by Paul Bartell and Mary Warnoff.
Oh, they're showing up. They're going to be here. Another cameo. The woman making the announcement is Angela Ames, who had some small parts on Cheers and Night Court, but she was the woman who was getting her baby's photos made at the opening of bachelor party. When Adrian's Med and Tom Hanks come in and they do that impromptu photo shoot with their head all around her large cleavage.
That's her. Oh, bachelor party holds up pretty well. Oh, almost certainly not. Chad Everything.
I remember about it is problematic at best. Guy putting his wiener in the hot dog bun and that old lady yanking on it.
I'm just thinking of the list of shit that they tout as being acceptable yeah. An appeal for the party itself yeah. None of that is okay.
I want to say, though, whenever I use paprika in the kitchen, the words thank you.
Thank you, you made me the happiest spice in the whole wide world Always comes out of my mouth. I have the same problem. I do the exact same thing.
It's paprika. So Dr Stan Simon. He comes up on stage and he says hello, people of the mall, full disclosure. The doctor in my name is followed by a question mark and legally must be pronounced doctor Stan Simon. And yes, that's my Christian name. My parents were high on PCP when they named me. Let me introduce you to your new security team, the protector 101 killbot series 2000. And then there's these three killbots behind him sitting on the stage.
And that's the point where Paul Bartell is like they look like the three stooges.
And then he says I don't know that one in the middle has an unpleasant ethnic quality which is the one genuine laugh of the movie for me. I couldn't tell if this movie was self aware or just terrible, and after watching it twice but I'm still not sure. But I think it's just terrible.
Paul Bartell and Mary Warnoff wrote their own dialogue for this movie.
That doesn't mean it's not racist.
They're both satirists to one degree or another and they're kind of reprising the roles from eating Raoul and those characters are very aristocratic, racist, close minded kinds of characters. So I think it's just in keeping with that character. I don't think Paul Bartell actually believes that. You know, that robot had an unpleasant ethnic quality. I think he was just goofing. I don't think that's directly racist. But also, all these people are dead.
There's no way to know. Doctor Stan Simon stands up and says so, are there any questions? And this one dude stands up and he says yes, what do your machines do Besides kill people? I was like kill people what I judge jury and executioner for some handsy kids at a Spencer's gift.
But let me just stop you right there. They don't kill, they just incapacitate. They fire sleep darts or something. They've got sleep darts, they've got the tasers. They've got laser beams that shoot out of their faces Once they identify a suspect, they alert the police.
Plus, getting into the mall now is almost impossible because we have steel doors that lock from midnight till dawn. Come to think of it, the killbots are unnecessary since we have those no steel doors. Forget that last thing I just said. You're going to want the killbots. You can't get the steel doors without the killbots. It's a package deal, pete. That's how it works.
You're buying the killbots. The steel doors come with the killbots. You can't get the doors and no killbots. That's the I say. On the cake is Paul and.
Mary, the satirist from the racist side of town he lanes in. He's like maybe we could use one of the restaurant. Get rid of the people we don't like. And I'm like, based on that ethnic quality comment earlier, I know what kind of people you're talking about.
Another guy in the crowd site how they got to tell who's a good guy and who's a bad guy over here.
And then Dr Stan Smith says I'm so glassed, you asked total stranger who I've never met before. Wink, wink. All employees have to do is show their name badge and they won't be shot with sleep darts or confused as mal debris or electrocuted. And then Dr Stan Smith calls the Kilbot control room and he says bring Kilbot number one online. And Kilbot number one comes online and scans Dr Stan Smith's badge and it says thank you, have a nice day.
And then the guy in the audience goes yeah, follow up question. Well, what if the bad guys get another employee's badge? I mean, couldn't they just run around causing all kinds of crimes and they just flash somebody else's badge? Unfortunately, I'm not taking any more questions.
Don't worry, nothing could possibly go wrong. Possibly that's the first thing that's ever gotten wrong.
And then we get the movie's title chopping mall, and we get this montage of vintage 80s mall culture with the opening credits, which is arguably a waste of time, but it does help to establish the footprint of where this movie is taking place.
So, counselor, I will allow it, and he gives us a little entertainment along the way, because we start off, we see a kid go into an elevator he's eating a big ice cream cone and then a bunch of adults rush in and the door is closed and they open and the kids covered with chocolate ice cream all over his face and shirt. How or why did that happen? I have no idea.
That's a pretty good gag. We see a couple of kids making out on a bench and this old couple see him and they're like I don't have some of that. And they start making out a little bit, let's clarify old couple.
These people are in their 80s.
They're of the Koala Chlamydia age, where they are in some kind of assisted living facility that is just running wild with syphilis right now.
They're doing a little like teeth swapping yeah that's sexy. We see a guy stealing about 50 LPs. Those are large record albums for our younger listeners and they're stuffed up under his shirts. It's obvious that he's stealing these and he's wearing a button-up shirt. I'm like this is a rookie mistake.
Yeah, that's not great. Honestly, when CDs first came out, they put them in the long sleeves. That was a real anti-theft deterrent, I mean for some people Chad.
Our friend Ben, who's probably stolen more things than anybody I've ever known in my lifetime. Two things he stole that I was always impressed with. One was he went into a store that was called TGNY. It was a precursor to Walmart, like a local five-in-dime chain. He and another guy went into this TGNY, went back to the sporting goods store and just picked up a canoe and walked out with it. Wow, that is impressive, Thinking no one's gonna stop me if I walk out with a canoe.
They're gonna think I paid for it.
And he was right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And he lived probably close to a mile, and they carried it back to his house. Another fun fact he lived nowhere near a body of water.
But he had a canoe.
He also stole full-body cow costume from a Coach House gifts in a shopping mall by stuffing it down his pants, which is impressive. And then he proceeded to put on that cow costume, wear it to a high school football game and jump down on the field, and what the write-up report said from the vice principal was that he was down on the field simulating masturbation with cow outage.
Yeah, how do you nod, I don't know, when you're milking yourself in a cow outfit. I posed that question to you. How do you not seem like you're masturbating Any?
lawyer worth a nickel can say do you know what masturbation is? Yes, these are udders. This isn't masturbation, right? Sure, they look similar, but, sir, you need to go spend a little bit of time with 4-H Can you milk an udder and a penis?
Yes, the answer to that is clearly yes, but just because the motions are the same does not mean they achieve the same level of inappropriateness in public or even satisfaction.
You'll have to go ask the cow in the bull to get that answer. During this montage in the mall we do see a kid in a video game arcade playing and then this guy rolls up who's clearly a pedophile. So the kid leaves and then the pervert takes over playing the kid's game. Which wasn't that an awesome opportunity when you were in an arcade. And then some kid's mom comes up. You know, billy, we gotta go. And then Billy leaves and you take over, or a pedophile rolls up and scares the kid away.
Yeah, but you get that full play. Yeah, that was the best man.
Like hey, you want to take over my game? Hell yeah, I will.
You just saved me 25 cents buddy Also, there's a gag where a woman is navigating the crowd at the food court with this tray of food.
Yeah, How's that gonna end, Beau?
Oh, not good Chad. We see a guy holding a bunch of boxes. He dumps them on the escalator. When he sees some babes with sashes and bathing suits coming down the other side, hey, you want to be in a movie.
You got a bikini. Oh, you got high heels. Tell me more. Put on this sash. You're gonna be in the movie. All right, you know how to milk a cow. You know how to milk a bull.
As we've discussed twice now on this show, Jim Weynorski is a great A-Cream and I am sure that your impression of this is far closer to the truth than either of us would care to do.
Yeah, and I just want to go on record and say I was shocked at how reserved this movie was with its creepiness Although no, we'll get into it in a minute but the majority of the nudity takes place in one of the most strange environments, with all types of comings and goings going on, pun intended.
There's a real like polyamorous vibe to a lot of this, so the woman navigating the tray of food, like this whole bit, ends with her just getting to the table and then totally whipping it and dumping the food all over somebody else at the table. It's a real tin chocolate cream pies.
Whoa, if you get that reference, you're old.
As a wise man once said, there are as yet undiscovered tribes in the Amazon. Who could see that?
joke coming. We get to a restaurant in the food court where all of the walls are covered in cross promotion of other terrible slasher and sci-fi films. One assumed that were produced by Roger Corman or members of his family. And here we meet two of our movie's four female characters, Allison and Susie. They are working as waitresses in this restaurant. Allison is our movie's final girl and Susie was gonna call her the waitress. To keep all of this straightened until they one by one get killed.
I like how they're shouting out all that make them up diner. Speak to this fat chef who's working in an open kitchen. He looks like if chef by RD's life went terribly wrong in every way. He's openly smoking and he's wearing this t-shirt that looks like a used diaper, Just smeared with shit.
This was at a time when a short order cook was expected to be smoking as he cooked, it looked disgusting and unshaven and it is the culinary embodiment of the line ah, you can barely see dim nipples. Like if you could take that line and shove it into a cook's outfit. It's this guy, it's this human being.
Allison drops a plate. This gives both she and Susie a chance to bend over and give us a little exposition as they're cleaning up the mess. And Susie says tonight's the night, you gotta come to this party. I set you up, this really cute guy. And then chef boy RDUI shouts out hey, come on, take the food. The wallet's hot. I'm not gonna go take out a break and do the drugs and the walk in the cooler which he does have a terrible Italian accent, which was surprising.
And Susie, by the way, is warning Allison about this fat customer that likes to get handsy. And the way she puts it is yeah, that orca beaches here every week, which is wow that is really rough.
The scene does end with him shouting out more butter, Poor.
Allison. It's up dropping a dish and that's where Susie is, like I forget what chef boy RDUI has to say. You should come to this party that we're gonna have. We'll get to that.
The movie cuts to Kilbot control room where some technician is just hanging out. And then the movie cuts to the city skyline where bolts of lightning are striking earth with such force and frequency I thought we were on some planet from the Dune series.
And then one of the bolts I mean it's like kapow kapow one bolt strikes the mall and, like Frankenstein, our monsters come to life, but in this movie the monsters of the Kilbots and they directly bypass that stage of benevolent kindness and they just go straight to murdering, rampage as part of this particular narrative.
This is a storm equivalent to the one that sets off the horrible, fine chain of events in the movie Poltergeist. It is lightning, and when everything is going wrong Also the nerd here watching over the Kilbots when the lightning hits also smoking.
Yeah, because it was the 80s and that's what you did in every movie and you looked at pornography, because he's looking at a playboy or penthouse or something and unfolding it and he's giving it a va va, va boom, and then one of the Kilbots just comes over and, using its pincher claw, kills this nerd technician.
It just goes right through the center fold and grabs the guy by the throat question mark. When he falls down he's got a bloody neck, but it's real unclear as to how this particular murder happens.
I love how this movie doesn't give any real reason as to why any of this is happening. I mean, it's like in short circuit, the robots got electrocuted and that's what brings them to life. This just jumps from A to Z so fast, Like there's never a moment of well you know, sir, if the Kilbots were to get a surge of electricity, it could potentially cause problems with their safety software. Like none of that. Like you're in a movie called Chopping Mall. What do you think these idiots want to see?
No bullshit, Cut the credits, and even the nerdlinger will get to in a little bit. Ferdy, his character should be the one that's like oh, I think I see what happened, that lightning hit the antenna. No, no, no, none of that. Like you said, we're not fucking around here. The movie's called Chopping Mall. Let's get to some chopping, chop, chop.
So we cut to our three male leads in this movie who work in a store that's called Furniture King and they sell housewares and, as the name implies, furniture is a bunch of couches and lamps and TVs and whatever the film crew could scrounge up from the local Goodwill store.
And yeah, you know this is a real Goodwill kind of put together situation.
There's Mike, who's the douchebag of the bunch, and then there's Greg I'm going to call him the sensible one. And then there's Ferdy, who's the nerdy one. That's easy to remember, cause Ferdy rhymes with nerdy and every male in this movie has a female counterpart. So Greg, the sensible one, he's paired with Susie, the waitress from earlier.
Mike the douchebag is paired with Leslie, the sexy one and I'm using that term loosely and then Ferdy gets paired with Allison, our final girl, and then later we're going to meet Rick and Linda. Now, none of that matters, but we are going to try to keep it all straight, as the killbots, one by one, murder these people.
They're giving Ferdy a little bit of grief just because he's a nerdlinger and they're like hey, we got some beer for the party, but we need a place to have it and Ferdy, our nerd because of you know, nerdy is like geez guys, I don't know if we should host the party in my store over here because, hey, this is my uncle's store and I'm a for a big promotion maybe.
But Ferdy doesn't even look like a nerd. He's a handsome dude. He's just wearing glasses and he's not terribly tall, but there's nothing about him that like you didn't have some white tape that you could stick in the middle of his glasses. How is that not there?
More than that, Chad. It's that we're going to take off the glasses and suddenly we're dealing with a hunk and a babe, and it's that in space Like Ferdy is the most competent put together person in the entire film and is treated like he is the biggest doofus. But that's also a very 80s kind of trope. But they don't do it well here, well, no, well, I mean you've shown me anything that's done well in this movie.
Mike the douchebag says the fridge is full of beer. Rick and Linda bringing the food and we've got clean sheets. And I was like clean sheets, what's going to you, oh God. So then the movie cuts to our fourth couple, the aforementioned Rick and Linda. They are in a truck and the truck's on the side of the road having car trouble and they're on the way to the mall for this party boat. And this feels like a scene from what I would classify as a in the woods camping horror film. But we're not.
We're in this urban California shopping techno horror film. Cause here, arguably, you're setting up why the truck won't start later in our movie. It's had a little trouble here, it won't turn over later. But here none of this matters. It doesn't matter that they're in the truck, doesn't matter that it won't turn over.
None of that, just have them show up at the mall. There is so much unnecessary backstory in this scene. Not only do we get the fact that the truck is hard to start, we get the fact that Linda is the one who fixes it, because she's the really good mechanic Don't matter later at all. Right, they're married, but they have all this money suck in the new business.
R and L automotive and the R and L are in a heart. That's cause they're in a heart.
Also don't matter. The guy's kind of reluctant to go. But then Linda shows him a little lingerie that she was like. Well, I guess I won't have anywhere to wear this. His eyes bug out like a cartoon wolf and he puts the pedal to the metal to get to the shopping mall. But all of this stuff is completely unnecessary to the film, yeah Just have them show up at the mall.
Yeah, and one wonders if there is not some version where the fact that she's a good mechanic and he's not somehow it has something to do with something when it comes to this movie, but it never materializes. It's a real check-offs mechanic that doesn't ever go off, I guess.
So Mike the douchebag goes into a women's clothing store to check in with Leslie the sexy one, and he sneaks up behind her and just grabs her breast with both hands. Oh sure, classy, typical Mike the douchebag. And then Mike says, hey, I can't wait for tonight. And then these two just start violently making out in the store. She is an employee of this place and she's just sticking her tongue down the throat of this guy, not just an employee.
The employee of her father, who may question, mark owned this clothing store.
Because he just comes out and is like hmm, yeah, how about you leave a little room for the Holy Ghost?
Would you mind removing your hand from the front of my daughter's Calvin Klein dungarees?
Sorry Dad, I was just excited because we're going to Susie's birthday party.
Very good Lock up and I'll keep an eye on this riff-raff.
Allison's dad is on the phone with her at the mall and why she has to call her dad to say, hey, I'm thinking of going to this party being held here at the mall for some reason.
I thought all of these people are in their mid to late 20s.
Oh, absolutely. Everybody in this movie absolutely looks like they are old enough to drive, vote and be drafted.
Rent a car, possibly adopt another person.
In fact, for a while there I thought Susie had adopted Allison.
Well, she gets off the phone with her dad and she's like I love you, daddy. And then the movie pans out and we see that Allison and Susie are in a locker room where they're changing clothes, and it also appears that there are showers for the mall employees to use. But I worked in a couple of malls earlier in my life. This is 100% made up. This does not exist in the real world of. Maybe it's a fancy California mall. I don't think so.
I think that the director was like anybody want to be in a movie. Take it top off, walk around over here. We're in the shower scene at the mall, are you sure I have to do?
this, Mr Woodhouse. Hey, you know how to milk a cow.
You know how to milk a bull, you like to ride escalators? You like to ride anything else when you going? Hey, come back here, sweet cheeks.
Allison tells Susie hey, I'm going to go to this party. Of course Susie is very excited by this. On their way out, susie borrows a bunch of hairspray and makeup. Then they head back inside the store because they're going to the furniture store in the mall. I'm like, why go out in the first place?
We hear over the loudBo the mall will be closing in 10 minutes. And then outside there's more lightning strikes. Back inside, at the Kilbot Observatorium, the night shift technician shows up to take over for that guy who likes spank books and is now dead, by the way. What did the daytime tech do? Because the Kilbots don't work during the day? Labor ain't cheap. But fire that guy, Increase your margins. Kilbot Incorporated.
It's just there to make sure that lightning doesn't hit the panel. Yes, so.
Uh-oh, the new guy comes in and the day shift guy isn't there. And the night tech is played by actor Garrett Graham, who I know as the guy that was terrified of red cars in the Kurt Russell movie Used Cars, written and directed by Robert Zemeckis and co-authored by Bob Gale the two people who brought us Back to the Future. That's a pretty good movie. You've never seen it. I mean it ain't great, but it's pretty funny.
You can see hints of Back to the Future in the finale of that, like the race against time and how it all comes together. I was like I can see how they built on this a little bit.
This same actor is also the titular bud in Chud too, but the Chud.
He was the voice of Jay Sherman's nutty adoptive father on the animated series the. Critic he did a bunch of voice work. He didn't just disappear into drugs and alcohol and bull milk, not like I'm planning to. This other tech comes in and first techs. Nowhere to be seen. Did the Kilbots just clean up all of their carnage and porn Again.
It's like the player character in the game Hitman just dumping a body in the nearest dumpster.
I'm like there's gonna be a lot of blood, but maybe not. Well, they have a vacuum attachment. Tech number two sits down and starts reading a book that appears not to be pornography. The book's title is it Came from Outer Space, which, now that I think about it, that could be erotic fiction?
I guess it could be. You say it like that, wouldn't that be? It Came in Outer.
Space, or on Outer Space or with Outer Space. There's a whole series in the it Came series about.
Is there a box that I can buy so I could just read it cover?
to cover. There is, but if you're gonna get it, get the illustrated version worth every penny.
They come pre-stuck together and with 3D glasses.
Oh, that is handy.
So he hears the robot's power up but it does a real like psychic out where he looks over and he's like huh and they're all powered down, and then he looks back and they're dum, dum, dum, dum dum. Yeah, and then the pincher comes out again and the phone rings and the door closes, and then, finally, the killbot fires this like hook into the back of this dude's neck and down goes, garrett Graham. All right, yeah so long, but the chud.
We cut to the party over at Furniture King. This whole place is about the size of a high school classroom and all four of our couples are just drinking Paps Blue Ribbon out of the can, like you do. There's a bunch of white guy dancing going on to the song Street Walking by Sylvia St James, the title music track to the movie Street Walking about Times Square hookers that came out in 1985. And I thought are the four people in this movie just jamming out to the soundtrack of Street?
Walking. A good song is a good song. It doesn't matter where it came from. If you could dance to it, it works. Yeah, yeah, like Judgement Night isn't a great movie, but the song Judgement Night is fantastic.
Ferti's in the bathroom of this furniture store, trying to look less nerdy or less handsome, I couldn't tell. He gives a breath check in the palm, like, and he gives a little couple of bonacoblasts to make his mouth ever fresh. Then he heads out to find three of the four couples drinking and making out. And then Ferti gets thrust into the arms of Allison, our final girl, and it's one of those. Why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near and they're just.
They're looking at each other like I'm in love.
Yeah, why died and everything. And meanwhile back in the store proper they turn around and Greg and Susie are totally making out in front of God and everybody. I am not a public display of affection kind of person, as a Mm hmm, and certainly not to this you know what?
buckle up. It's going to be a bumpy ride. We cut to the outside of the mall and the killbots are just patrolling around. The mall is now closed, and over at furniture king, this party is really going strong. And killbot number one drives by but doesn't do anything, and then killbot number two comes online and starts to patrol its level of the mall. And then all the killbots are out and they're rolling around in the mall, which, by the way, this mall has carpet Gross.
Imagine how disgusting that is One of the reasons they have the killbot, because, as we saw with all the blood in the office, they're also constantly vacuuming.
They're like the proto Roomba.
They're just Roomba's with a homicidal intent. Hold on.
Invention idea Tie a gun to the top of your Roomba to protect your house and keep it clean All right.
Quick note make movie called Roomba side Termo.
Roomba no the.
Roomba nader, now Roomba with a view. That's the more romantic one. Roomba cop. Roomba cop is not bad. Hey Sleazebag, roomba, hey Sleazebag. I'm stuck on this small wooden ledge separating the hallway from the bathroom. How about you? Give a Roomba a hand, will you? Can you fly Roomba?
We come back to furniture king, and things have escalated quickly because Rick, you know one of the two married people. He's presumably just naked in a bed bow that is for sale to people in this very tiny furniture store, and his wife, Linda. She sachets out wearing her panties and bra combo. Keep in mind, this furniture store doesn't have separate room, it's just one big room with furniture in it and the size of a 7-Eleven.
And then Linda comes out, she leaps onto Rick and then these two start grinding. The camera just slowly pans over and here are Greg and Susie who are on a couch. That's just right over there, Bo, it's right there. Reach out your fingers, you can touch. Greg says hey, you smell like pepperoni. She's like why would you say that? And he's like don't worry, I like pepperoni.
Let's get naked and have sex on this couch that someone might buy tomorrow, While our friends have sex over there on that bed that someone also might buy tomorrow.
One of the weirdest moments in a movie filled with a lot of weird little moments is as Susie is stripping. She starts humming some inappropriately peppy tune as she is stripping.
I think she's humming Street Walking, street Walking. Sure probably, so Got to be home street, street walking, then the camera keeps panning.
Yes, let's keep going. What else is happening? And now Mike and Leslie are also on a nearby couch with a sheet thrown over them and they're getting into some uncomfortably close fucking.
As the camera pans over, it goes past a box of better cheddar snack crackers. I was like, do they still make better cheddar snack crackers? Because our house is a Cheez-It's household, we also certainly partake of goldfish brand cheddar crackers as well, but not so much the better cheddar crackers.
Oh look who's fancy, While we have goldfish in our house we don't know anything about better cheddar.
What does that say about me? We're panning across these three couples in various states of dress and sex and I'm like, hey, is that better cheddar crackers? They still make those. Hold on, let me get an internet. Well, they do.
I just not been looking.
Oh my God, no to self by better cheddar crackers.
Yeah, sure that camera is uncomfortably close to her nipples, but I've got important information to sort out here which is can I and, more to the point, should I invest some time and money into getting some better cheddars in my mouth?
Is that a can of melon flavored Hawaiian punch in the background? I believe it Do. They make that? They do, but you have to buy direct from the manufacturer.
Oh my God, that's a 64 ounce bottle of Ecto Cooler. Hang on a second oh, oh wait, you can make your own. Guess who's having better cheddars and Ecto Cooler this weekend?
The movie eventually pans over to Ferdy the nerdy and Allison, our final girl, and they're innocently watching the 1965 black and white movie Attack of the Crab Monster, which may or may not be an intentional choice, as our three kill bots also have pinchers on their hands, like crabs.
Chad. Let me just say here is why it's an appropriate choice. Roger Corman owned it and it was free to put it in the movie.
I was just trying to give credit where credit wasn't due. In this movie, something scary happens and it causes Allison to jump into the arms of Ferdy because she needs a big, strong man to protect her. And in the background you see a socially distant orgy taking place. These three other couples are full on having sex in the background.
Absolutely.
Just think about how uncomfortable it is to be in the real world, around people making out, you know, like at a party or if you're in a movie theater, like you've been somewhere and you see like this is awkward. Imagine that times three and they're having sex Like that's insane.
I would be slowly pulling the sheet back to reveal them in totem, Just to get a look like hey, if you're going to be fucking around me, I want to see the full.
I'm leaving. I'm like I'm out of here. I don't want the smells to start to mix. I might throw up. I've got my camera out.
My phone is recording this. I'm arranging lights around them. I'm going to turn this into a real, like only fans kind of situation.
Ferdy offers Allison some wine and she's like Ferdy, are you trying to get me drunk? And Ferdy's like no, I just thought to a nice girl like you might be thirsty. You know this is my uncle's furniture store and you know Greg set me up with you and you know I wouldn't tell about this sex orgy going on to anybody because I didn't anticipate he'd set me up with someone as pretty as you. Please don't tell my uncle. And orgy happened in this building.
And then in the background, one of these women just starts having a very loud orgasm like you do yes, or maybe it was one of the guys who just really gets high pitched whenever someone milks the bull. Then Ferdy says hey, allison, maybe I should take you home. The mall's security gates are going to be closing in about an hour.
And then the film cuts to the TV screen where we see the finale of Attack of the Crab Monster and the words the end, making it the second time in this film that the filmmakers gave us the viewing audience and out to turn off this movie or leave the theater and go about our more productive lives.
But we didn't know. And then we cut over chat to legendary B movie sable, Dick Miller.
He was in Heart Beeps. This is a heartbeaps reunion though it kind of is. You're right. We got Crime Buster Junior and we got those racist weirdos through a house party in Heart Beeps and we got Dick Miller.
It's practically Heart Beeps too, and, honestly, a hundred percent more entertaining. It's a prequel to Heart Beeps. This is how that couple rose to prominence and got that fancy house.
That's right, and it's also how they recognize the robots.
That's it.
Dick Miller. He's a janitor in this and he's mopping the floor of the mall with a liquid that appears to be spoiled chocolate milk.
Yes, some other janitors roll up on them and they give him some shit about a thing.
They're drinking, bo, they're drinking beers walking around the mall, I was like is that what happens when the mall closed? Then what happened when I worked at the mall? Just, people are having orgies in the furniture store and the janitors walk around.
Mold janitors are their own breed man. They are the greasers of the mall just living on by their own rules. One time I was hanging out, you might have been part of this.
I was hanging out with you, or our friend Ben, the one who stole stuff all the time. Somewhere I don't know where these came from, but somebody had a handful of pornographic magazines and we're like 16, 17. I was like what can we do with these? It'd be pretty entertaining.
So we tore out the centerfolds from them and we went to the mall I tell this story because I feel sorry for the janitors who had to take care of what's going to happen and we went into the public bathrooms and we took the centerfolds and we creased them up the middle and set them up on the back of the toilet. Were you part of?
this shenanigan? I don't think so.
And we set them up on the back of the toilet. But before we did all of that, we went into the makeup section of a larger department store and we filled up our hands with white lotion and took it all in and then we proceeded to just spider web this white lotion all over these centerfolds in the toilets, propped up and then left and just laughed our asses.
It's funny, because like lotion really looks. Nothing like cum. My. God, maybe you're doing it wrong, I don't know. It's more red because of the blood Wait.
It's pink.
Right, it's got to kind of a pinkish frothy quality.
And then, and you know what happened the very next day, when I looked at the headline of the local newspaper in our hometown it read Bull milkers strike again at local mall bull milkers terrorizing society for the past 40 years.
The janitors are giving some shit about getting locked in the mall overnight at one point or something. Yeah, again, it's like this tease of a backstory that is unnecessary and not filled in enough, so you're just left wondering like so what happened to Dick Miller.
He got locked in the mall and they had to let him out the next day or something. I don't know.
There's a whole movie that we just don't ever see. About this, it's like home alone.
just less entertaining, it's the draft script of career opportunities involving Dick Miller running around a mall screaming hello, can you get me out of here?
I don't have my medication or the first draft of die hard, like we have no idea it could have been anything. And he says, yeah, I'll be out of here at 10 minutes, don't you worry about it. And they're trucking off and he's just seething and muttering to himself, as I assume Dick Miller did a lot in real life.
And then a killbot rolls up, knocks over the mop and bucket full of thick brown liquid and the killbot says may I see your identification badge please Like? Oh, such polite killbots, your parents would be so proud. And then Dick Miller before he can show his badge, the robot fires a wire into the mop water and then it electrocutes Dick Miller to death.
At first it just knocks the bucket over, now he bumps.
He bumps into the bucket and then it fires the electrodes Right.
So it kind of sets up the whole thing. But before it fires the electrode, Dick Miller is giving it some shit for like, oh, you knocked over that bucket, Stupid robot can't do nothing. And then it fires the thing and just zaps him and he collapses like smoke curling out of his mouth, which leads to a visual gag of Leslie back in the furniture fuck store saying boy, I sure could use a smoke.
I guess I didn't catch that either time I watch this, but I'm proud of myself for saying that. Mike the douchebag is then sent down to go buy her some cigarettes from the vending machine, but before he leaves, leslie says oh, mike, hurry back. And she pulls the covers down, exposing her breast, which, by the way, during this whole scene, mike the douchebag was topless as well. As I mentioned earlier, there's a lot of nipples in this movie, you know.
I feel like they just got done fucking and her just showing a breast. Is it the inspiration that I think she thinks?
it is. I think he left because he didn't want to sit there and listen to her.
Yeah, Well, and he tells her like hey, there's a pack of camels by the register and she's like you know, I only smoked Virgin lights. He's like, ah, Christ, all right. So he grabs his badge, just in case he runs into a kill, and he finds the cigarette machine which, by the way, a buck 25 for a pack of smokes in 1986, chad, that an eight year old could purchase that a five year old could purchase. Nobody was looking, nobody cared.
Oh, those were the days, man I found a pack of candy cigarettes in a store not too long ago. I bought them, gave me my kid smoke up.
He's like this looks terrible. Well, how about these? It's real cigarettes. Try that.
He's by the cigarette machine and then a payphone behind him rings and Mike answers it and he says no, Jamal, there are no messages for you. And he hangs up and all I could think was what was the other part of this conversation? Hi, this is Jamal. Are there any messages for me?
Oh, thanks, Click another movie that is happening outside the borders of the movie we're watching that. I am kind of curious about the Dick Miller movie.
Whatever's going on with Kilbot control room like a real Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, like it's some sort of anthology that's just dancing around the fringes of this particular film.
Who is Jamal? Why does he have this guy's number? It's all told out of order. Like Pulp Fiction, you just cut back to John Travolta sitting on a toilet in the mall bathroom. You're like wait a second. What's going on again? I thought he was already dead. Any of you fucking Kilbot smooth? I'll accept it. Cute. Every last mother fucking one of you.
So after he hangs up the phone, a Kilbot rolls up and says show me your identification. And Mike pulls out his ID and shows it to the Kilbot and he says flat two correct and not two. And it's this jumbled reference to the day the earth stood still. And then the Kilbot just shoots Mike with a sleeping dart. It's real. Oh, there comes the day. And then out comes the claw. So you're like oh, mike's eating it.
Leslie decides to get up and put on a shirt and she walks out into the mall and she's shouting out for Mike. She's like Mike, mike, mike the douchebag, are you there? And then the movie cuts back to Ferdy the Nerdy and Allison, our final girl, and they're still on couch watching TV while Rick and Linda continue to have sex in the bed behind them. And Ferdy's like what's up with these two? All they do is fight and have sex. Like when were they fighting?
Somewhere around the time that Vincent Vega was taken. Uma Thurman out on the date.
And then Allison says to Ferdy, thanks for not trying to have sex with me, you're one of the good ones.
No, I'm just homosexual, that's okay. I feel like you don't know what that means. Of course, you do you silly, so do you want to blow job? Or no, no, no, you don't understand I. I'm just not attracted to women, because I'm not attracted to women either.
We have a lot in common.
How about I just sit on your lap and wiggle around and see what happens? Nothing, nothing is going to happen. You're silly.
Anyway, we come back to Leslie, who's going to the cigarette machine and she's wearing her Playboy Bunny brand panties with the little Playboy Bunny ears on the ass.
She goes to the cigarette machine. Doesn't see that Mike is just leaning against the wall on the other side of said cigarette machine?
Yeah, his legs are sticking out in the light.
I mean, these are clearly Mike shaped legs and finally she notices she's like oh my God, Mike, and she pulls him forward and she sees that his neck is slit and starts pumping blood out.
She takes off running and in a killbot shows up and gives chase, not even giving her a chance to show her ID, and this killbot bow starts firing pink Star Wars brand laser beams at her, but it's Star Wars stormtrooper level accuracy.
Well, it's moving, you know that's fair, and so is she.
So, yeah, that's that's hard, but it does shoot her in the ass, which is pretty down she goes, but she makes it back to Furniture King as all of her sex loving peers look out the front window and bow. What happens next.
This thing fires a laser beam at her head and it explodes like a watermelon with an M80 shoved in it. It is pretty great.
It's like scanners, I mean yeah, when you're watching this movie because nothing like this has happened so far it kind of feels like a modern day PG 13 film like, oh, they're going to pull their punches in her head, boom.
Just blows up. It's pretty good. And then we see another killbot coming down the hallway and everybody in the furniture store is freaking out. They blast through the glass doors and just start shooting up the place.
I like that the second killbot blasts blue Star Wars brand laser beams and the first one has pink colored Star Wars brand laser beams when they're shooting them around. That you could hire these killbots for a gender reveal party, like, if they shoot a pink laser and you kill somebody, it's a girl. If they shoot a blue laser and they kill somebody, it's a boy. Isn't that fun?
And it would be about as safe as your regular gender reveal party. We only had one exploding head in this gender reveal party, not a wildfire that displaced thousands.
I listened to a podcast called the Decoder Ring and they tell the secret history of things and why they happened. And they did one on gender reveal parties and it all started with a single patient zero of a woman who made a cake and did a gender reveal at her home and it was published in this soon to be mommy magazine that was subscribed to by pretty much every obstetrician's office in America.
And they did this one little feature story and because every mom to be read about it, it just took off no pun intended like wildfire. And the interview with the woman she was just like I regret ever doing that. She's like this is all my fault, the more you know.
Sort of like the guy who invented the shopping mall of like. I unreservedly reject the fact that I invented this. I fucked up. I am so sorry. Yes, my bad. I was trying to do something good and I fucked up. Isn't that how most things go? That is the title of my autobiography. I was trying to do the right thing and I fucked up. I was telling a kid today at school because I mold young mindshad. They were like man, I keep trying to do good and I always get my own way.
First of all, that's good self-awareness. Second of all, welcome to life where you're just constantly trying to do the right thing and do good and you just end up fucking it up for yourself. I mean, I put it slightly less profane than that. But I told him like hey, that is 100% the rest of your days. Get used to that feeling.
Back in our movie the Killbots. They blast through the front doors of furniture King and everybody. Inside are remaining six living humans. They all rush to the back room. It appears that they're safe for a moment, and then Ferdy tries to call for help. But doesn't he know that phones don't work in horror movies? No, that's not going to happen. So then suddenly it's midnight and the whole mall goes on lockdown as the metal doors closed on this facility.
And I thought I can end this movie right now. Just start pulling fire alarms.
That's a great idea, and you're done.
The phones don't work. Yeah, keep pulling fire alarms.
They'll show up, but instead Chad. What happens is that Allison is like hey, how about we all get up in this air duct? And the plan is, chad, we're going to climb through the air ducts, take that to the parking level and get in the cars and get out of there, which isn't the worst idea or fire alarms.
But are the fire alarms in the air duct? We'll go find them All right, have at it, ladies.
Also the kill box shed, who are outfitted with some sort of plastic explosive. Yes are about to blow open the door. Apparently, that's just a bonus you get if you order three. Yeah, you also get the plastic explosives. You got the security door.
You got the three kill box. Now you got an option. Do you want different colored lasers? No upcharge. Yes, pink and blue. Got it All right. Now another question Do you want focused laser functionality, a lot like what you see in your supermans that have? That's a yes. With that you're also going to get the plastic explosive squirts. A tiny little of dollop, kind of looks like somebody milked a bull. Then they fill it up with a long wire, knocks down a door.
Aren't they try to prevent doors from being knocked down? And you're viewing this the wrong way.
A criminal taken off the streets is a criminal that is not on the streets. They're not called kill bots on accident. We sell them is that? They're just going to patrol and call the cops? They're going to murder everybody.
I don't know why I would want it, then why wouldn't you?
want it.
Because we have just regular people come to the mall, have you ever seen someone killed in front of you?
and then you get a murder boner. It's the greatest feeling in the world.
I love other brochure. They've got bullet points of why you should pop these killbots, additional security security doors if you buy two multicolored lasers murder psychological aphrodisiac.
What does that mean? Oh, you'll find out, buddy. You want these things in action. Man, it's going to be high noon. You know what I'm saying.
Oh my God, I love it so much.
It's also crazy how close we are to the end of this movie. It's almost over.
So the guys end up having to run while the girls are in the ducks because the killbots blow their way into the place.
Jesus, it's the killbots.
Feets don't fail me now and the girls are starting to really sweat it out in the vents and Suzy is having a good old fashioned freak out in there. Where he's like oh my God, my boyfriend needs me. And they're like Suzy, what the fuck are you talking about? We're almost out of here. All we got to do is keep going and we're going to get out of here. Oh man, those robots must turn on the heat. They know we're in here. Yeah, Suzy, shut the fuck up, William.
Chill out, baby, chill out, all right, be cool, be cool. Be cool like Fonzie. What's Fonzie?
like Suzy. Cool correct. A. Mundo. Meanwhile, the guys are hoofing it to Peck and Paw Sporting Goods. I get it for guns.
See Heston Second Amendment.
Emporium Right Hunter S Thompson shopping mall.
It's very subtle and so they end up having to bust the glass to get in in this place is just ceiling to floor with automatic weapons and shotguns, ammunition all open to the public, like you can just take it off the shelf, load it up and start murdering people. Like from a modern perspective, it is shocking that there are this many guns and bullets. But what's even more shocking is this was probably pretty accurate.
Absolutely. I also like the fact that there are several propane tanks that you can use, because you know why would you want a gun without an explosive of some kind?
This feels like a level of from Left 4 Dead 2. Yes, you know, chopping mall like oh, I get it. So it's zombies and robots Interesting.
And so Rick is like we're going to send those fuckers a Rambo Graham. And you're like, oh right, 80s, Of course everybody had a Rambo joke.
How awesome would it be to get a Rambo Graham when?
he's like I heard it was your birthday, another day older. I want you to know that death is coming and there's nothing you can do. Maybe you're wondering do you get to win this time? Yeah, they drew first, but will you get to win this time? Happy birthday, jeanette.
All right, do you get to make a wish this time? Yeah, you do, because it's your birthday.
Let's just remember to survive a birthday. You got to become a birthday. I don't know what that means, but a happy birthday, deborah, all right.
Then Richard Crita shows up in the corner. He's a birthday machine. We made him that way.
You ever go to cameo and look at how much celebrities are hawking their whatever broader personality and voice and whatever to people? Not one time Chad. It's an awesome game. You got to go in, get somebody you know and love and you just start throwing out names and figuring out how much they charge for a cameo.
Although I've never been on the website cameo once, and I'm not. That's not saying that there's anything wrong with it. I should. I just never have. But someone I know got a cameo from the kids in the halls Kevin McDonald, uh-huh, and it was fucking epic. Kevin McDonald went all in on it. It wasn't just a I'm going through the motions, he went full Kevin McDonald on it and it was a thing of beauty.
But you're recording like a minute. Oh here, all right, right now ready. Dean Norris from Breaking Bad Uh-huh. How much is he charging for a cameo? Do you think a hundred bucks, 200 bucks? Okay, all right. John O'Hurley from Seinfeld and some game shows and, I'm sure, something else.
What's he charged? Oh okay, All right. John O'Hurley 150 bucks, 200 bucks.
Fred Stoller. Remember Fred Stoller, the state of comedian. What's he charging?
250, 35 bucks. What you can't afford. Not to get a cameo from Fred Stoller at those prices.
It is one of the best games ever to go through and just look at these people and to see like who is so not desperate for cash. I get it Like this is doing Comic-cons without having to go anywhere. Joel McHale 250 bucks is the going rate right now. What? Yeah, that's not terrible. The guy who played one of those twins, lewis Moncada I don't know which one of the twins he was he's a hundred bucks to wish people a happy birthday. Dave Foley is charging a hundred bucks from the kids in the hall.
I saw him do one where he did the full soliloquy of being the worst doctor in the world. That's fantastic. When I search for Dave Foley, mick Foley, professional wrestler, came up. His is a hundred and forty nine bucks. It's crazy man. It's a blast to go through and play. Who costs more this person? That person Is Henry Rollins on there.
There's no way but hold on. No, all right, that makes sense. I don't know why he would ever do that, but I would also love I can't imagine that he would do it.
The most expensive cameos that are out there right now Kevin O'Leary, the guy from Shark Tank. He wants $1,500.
Oh go fuck yourself, Okay yeah.
He took the words out of my mouth on that. There's a bunch of iced tea. He wants 600 bucks. Nope, robert England, 500 bucks.
I get that one.
Don Johnson 500 bucks. No, it's crazy man, but the bad thing is is that once you go to cameo and you noodle around for a little bit, all of your social media and targeted advertising across websites is going to be 100 percent cameo for the next six months.
Yeah, that's fine, you're going to use that money on bullshit anyway. Why not get Eric Roberts to tell you what a good job you're doing? That's why I need Kevin McDonald is I just need Kevin McDonald to give me a pep talk, and whatever he's charging, it ain't enough. And then every time I'm feeling a little blue, chad right, you know, you're an evil.
Evil Y boy right or just like. Hey man, I know you've had a really rough time your illness and your family having financial problems but I got you a two minute video recording of Ernie Hudson doling out some pearls of wisdom.
Great, great. He's the best Ghostbuster, but he didn't do nothing. But he's still Ghostbuster. Let's finish this.
Oh yeah, yeah. They're all strapped up with guns and ammo. They've got like crisscross ammunition on their chest. It's all ridiculous.
Just firing bullets wildly into the air, chad. That's how they draw the attention of the killbots. And sure enough, one comes around the corner and they get in a good old fashioned gunfight. Where it's shooting lasers, they're shooting bullets.
The bullets don't really have much of an effect.
They throw a propane tank at it, yeah, and then they shoot that and the thing goes up like a Roman fucking candle, yeah, and you're like, oh, that's one down, two to go, but don't get so confident. But first we got to cut back to the beds, where Susie is still freaking out is like Greg needs me and they're like Susie, would you shut?
the fuck up. That's it, I'm leaving. And so she just kicks through an air vent and drops down into one of the stores, and Allison and Linda they follow suit.
It turns out they're in a Sherman Williams, I'm guessing paint store, and then the guys decide, hey, we need to go get somewhere those propane tanks that worked pretty good, we need some propane or some butans. One of them and Greg's like wait, I've got an awful, evil, wonderful idea. While he's taken off, susie is determined to go find the guys and the girls decided like well, we're going to arm up to yeah. And so they're grabbing anything that they can use for a weapon.
And then you see Chad, one of the kill bots, just kind of backs into this little alcove and powers down like he, he, he, they'll never. So while that thing's hiding, the guys are trying to pry open this elevator.
Yeah, it's a stuck elevator. I'm like what's your plan here? To get inside and be trapped?
We'll get to that. And then nerdy Ferdy is like hey guys, do you think that the kill bots can read our minds? And they're like what? No, what are you talking about? He's like I don't know. I guess they could just do lots of stuff, and I was wondering if they could do that too. But you just shut up. You're not helping anything. Linda then shows them how to make some Molotov cocktails out of gas containers and rags, which seems self-evident to me, but everyone seems real surprised.
Like a combination of gasoline and rags.
Huh, I like that these gas cans are full of gasoline and on the store shelf of a mall, yeah Well this is the same.
All that has like fully armed M16s and explosives. Allison stashes a road flare down her shirt in the midst of all this, which will come into play later.
At least the movie's phoning that in and I was like what is the name of this store? Like Pyromaniacs are us, yeah. And when she tucks it into her bra you're like, oh OK, I get it, we're going to. And I just want to say this reminded me a little bit of that first toy story, but I absolutely adore that movie. And when Woody takes the matchstick and puts it into his pistol holster and you're like, oh, he's going to use it at the end of the movie.
And when he strikes it to light, that rocket and that car immediately blows it out. It's such great writing, it's such a head fake to lead you down this alleyway and then to just sucker punch you in a direction you don't see coming. I adore that. It's pretty good, original toy story, good movie and I will happily debate that. I think Toy Story 2 is a superior film.
Hmm, it's good, it's good. I think the whole original trilogy is quite good.
I saw that fourth one. I don't remember anything about it.
As far as I'm concerned, Toy Story ends with all of those toys holding hands and writing that shoot down into hell. That is where the movie ends for me. I stop it right there.
You just turned it off and you're like well, there we go.
That is the end of the toys, and a fitting end. They all told each other how they felt about each other. They had some closure in their relationships and then they all died, and that's fine.
My son came to me and asked me what would happen if you left a crucifix with the Toy Story toys. I was like I don't know.
That's interesting. You're going to walk in and it's going to be upside down. That's for begin season.
I'm sure he read these online. He came to me and he said if one of the Toy Story toys died, and then Andy comes in, like is he just playing with a corpse? Like do they get rid of it? You're all about valid questions. I like where his head's at and you know what. Like father likes son, what happens if you take one of those real dolls and throw it in the Toy Story?
room. Well, it's a pregnant.
It has a Mr Potato Head son I read a story on the internet the other day about this guy who came into a house and he was an EMT or something like that, because a dude had died in the house and they took out his corpse because they knew he was dead because of the stink, I'm sure. But then the guy who was the EMT or the cleaner or whatever, he eyed a real doll in the house and he got arrested trying to break into the house not once but twice to steal this real doll.
And he did steal it and I'm sure he had sex with it. But I was like you know what. He came up with a plan and he executed on it. Good for you, perverted weirdo.
Oh, back in the movie Chad, the kill-bot that we thought was blowed up. Not blew it up at all, it just gets itself back up and is like, oh boy, that sucked. Where are those punks?
It's like every car in Grand Theft Auto Just wiggle your stick left and right and suddenly we went from being flipped over to back on our wheels.
Ferdy the nerd ends up wiring the elevator to work while Greg and Rick are making more bombs from these propane tanks. But even though he's got it working, he can't get it to go up or down, but he can open and close the doors of the elevator, which seems like a real half measure to me.
Sure, that's not what we need it to do, but go on.
The girls are going to find the guys and the kill-bot that was hiding out, hee-hee-hee, comes out of the alcove. Susie screams and it goes chasing after her.
The guys hear this, but while they're coming to see what the ruckus is, allison tosses one of her Molotov cocktails, but the robot just drives through and starts firing its lasers again, and so the guys are kind of chasing after the sounds of the screams, and then Susie falls and, rather than even remotely attempt to get up right, just lies there and is like no, no, please don't shoot the gas can in my hand, which is, of course, exactly what the kill-bot does, yeah.
And then Susie is mysteriously replaced by a stuntman on fire, yes, who tries to get up, and it's kind of gruesome, though, like the fact that you see ostensibly Susie, although this looks nothing like Susie.
It's like a 250 pound man who's working for scale and a sandwich.
It's like me in a burn suit. Just like slowly get up like oh Christ. Oh boy my back will help here. We're knocking off for lunch, after this right, the cupcakes for anybody. Were you concerned that?
the mall is now on fire. I mean, earlier I was talking about pulling fire alarms for funsies and to keep you alive. Here there is a full blown ring of fire six to 10 feet across, burning this carpet that is completely made of combustible materials and a burning corpse beside it.
Well, I wasn't as worried because ground chewing gum just shoved into a carpet doesn't burn. It's actually flame retardant and so, given the amount of just trash and gum and snot and semen like all just soaked into this carpet, it's not going to burn for long, it's going to burn itself out pretty fast.
For what it's worth it's flame. Special needs. Oh, I'm sorry. Please try to keep up with the times.
Right, I come from a different generation, chad. You're right. You're right and honestly, I'm glad you said something because I want to learn, I want to be better.
I know you do. I know you're always working on you, because if you're not working on you, how are you going to be able to help other people work on themselves? 100% yeah. What are we talking about here?
Oh, yeah, so now we're down to five. Susie dies horribly. As far as deaths in this movie go, it's the head kidding blown off, mm. Hmm, but that's quick. This one's slower because you hear screaming for a while and it's pretty gruesome, and the guys show up, pop off some shots and then they finally just start running again because the killbots are just firing lasers left and right.
But they do. 80s action hero running gun style. Yeah, like it's run, run, run, run and then turn around like with one arm and like Right.
Yeah, linda, ferdy and Allison are on the second level and they lure one of the killbots chasing them into the elevator, which the guys end up closing the doors using their wiring rig, and then Rick pumps the elevator with propane, leaps to the second floor and the folks on the top floor start shooting, but it's Allison who ends up having to like, give me that with one of the guns.
Yeah. And shoots the tank, which explodes, sending it hurtling the elevator as a whole, hurtling down the shaft and, one presumes, killing the killbot or at least putting it in the garage.
Right or on a level that doesn't have an escalator, can ride up stairs. The kryptonite of killbots.
Everyone looks at Allison. She's like my dad's Marine what do you want me to say? And they're like I don't know, but that sounds like another movie I would like to see, based on half uttered phrases in this movie that allude to something more interesting outside the frame.
The team goes back to the restaurant where Allison and the late smoldering Susie were, where Susie used to work, and Greg is drinking another beer, trying to forget the smell of his one true love melting into that carpet. And then Rick and Linda they're at a table contemplating life and Linda says according to my calculations, provided we survive the night, we're going to be in hack to this place for the next 85 years.
Does Linda think they're going to have to pay for all the damage they've done?
What a dummy Rick says well, we're going to have to raise our rates and all of this makes no sense. Like the mall is on the hook to you.
Right.
Like you are the one who is about to get a really sweet payday. Like, if you can survive the killbots, you are never going to work another day in your life.
Greg, who's a little drunk. He's like why did you leave the air vents? You're safe there. And Allison's like whoa, whoa, whoa. Gregorino, this was Susie's idea to leave. Plus, she kept filling up the air vents with her post sex farts. She told me that she holds them in when you do do it and she lets them out afterwards and they're rancid. She once told me her sex farts made her throw up.
It smelled like eggs, but not real eggs like those egg products that some people use. That's what it smelled like only rotten.
I know what they smell like. She thought she was hiding under the covers, but I can always smell it.
And also it was her dumb idea to come out of the vids of the first place. Greg, we would be in the parking lot and away from here with the police on the way, if it weren't for Susie freaking out dummy because of you, greg 30 times in.
Hey guys, wait a minute. The master computer is on the third level. If we shut that down, it'll shut down the killbots, according to the screenplay. And then Greg, he's all licked up and he's like a computer. Let's go crash the fucker worth pointing out.
They only think there's one killbot left because they're not aware that the second one has gotten up yet.
I'm glad you brought that up, because that doesn't matter, doesn't? It's not like they kill the next one. They're like shoot, we're safe. And then another one shows up, just two more show up, and they're like well, how about this? They don't know that there are three total, maybe there's, maybe there's 25.
Yeah, well, maybe because, chad, they saw the colored lasers, they were like, okay, they bought three because that's the three package, right, and also I saw Dick Miller with a murder boner. So it's definitely the three killbot package.
So the four remaining characters? Is it four or five? What do we have?
It was Greg Ferdy Allison and then Linda and Rick. Yeah, it is five, you're right.
They take off running through the mall and the killbots give chase. The team goes and hides in a women's clothing store that has a metal door that comes down like it's some Czech cashing place in a questionable neighborhood. And then the killbots start using their Superman laser beams to cut through the metal. And then our final characters they're inside arguing over whether or not they should split up, which they probably shouldn't.
But then they all immediately apologize and say you know what, guys, it's been a stressful day, with all the drinking and exhibition, is sex, and now the killbots. Plus, we saw one of our friends set on fire and another friend bounced off the ground. Oh wait, was Greg still alive? No, greg gets knocked off the ledge by a killbot and he got off the ground. That's right. So Greg's gone and he leaves the movie pretty quick, as noted by the fact that I just forgot that it happened.
So Kelly gets hit in the arm also by a laser before they bring the shuttered out. Yeah, you're right.
Are they wondering where Mike and Leslie are at all? Are they just assuming that they're dead? They saw Leslie's head explode, but they don't know where Mike is.
I guess they assume that Mike died in the first place, or maybe they just don't care for Mike very much.
I could see that Mike is a real douchebag.
Maybe he's alive, maybe he ain't. Regardless, not our problem.
The killbots cut through the door of the women's clothing shop and before they fully enter, allison says if the killbots want target practice, let's give them some targets. And she nods her head over to some mannequins. We cut to a bunch of mannequins that have been set up as decoys, while the fellas are just firing their guns at the killbots as cover, and the killbots apparently cannot discern between mannequin and man.
And apparently their laser beams bounce off mirrors because one of the blue lasers ricochets back and shoots one of the killbots, making it go all higgledy piggledy. And then the killbots start spinning around and firing laser beams all over the place. And one of these shots hits Linda. Down goes Linda Mike is she dead or alive, who knows? And then Rick's like Linda, my wife and business partner, who wears sexy lingerie, you bastard.
And then he jumps on this tiny little service cart and goes at like top speed of seven miles per hour and crashes into the killbot and it explodes. So Rick and Linda are now dead.
But Rick at least died destroying one of the killbots, so that's not nothing.
It's like that scene in Austin Powers when he's going to get run over by that slow moving cart.
Now only Nerdy, ferdy and Allison are left. Yeah, we're down to the final two. And he's like it's time to find that computer. Let's split up. It's Allison's idea to split up because I think that she's worried that murder boners are contagious, and so they wander around and Allison gets spooked by some hardware that falls out of the ceiling, and then there's a comically full closet of duct hoses and scrap metal that she opens up. Then, finally, a killbot sneaks up on her and she screams.
And then Ferdy comes running and he shoots it in the face and it starts moaning about like laser malfunction, my eye got shot, I'm going to kill you, bitches. And then Ferdy, out of bullets, now throws the gun at him like he used to see in those classic. Superman movies. Ferdy throws a fire extinguisher at it too, and it catches it just throws it right back at him and knocks over Ferdy.
Ferdy catches it like clunk. I'm like, is Ferdy dead by getting knocked over by?
a fire extinguisher, he's out for the count, at least for a while.
Allison sees this and she runs off because she's our last girl in the movie.
She bus into a pet store where she hides under some puppy bitch, like one of those bitches where you sit to hold puppies and kiddies and whatnot that you might buy, and the killbot is looking for her. But she has pulled like some dog food bags in front of her. And it's being real sneaky.
Imagine reading this screenplay like you're going to make this. Oh yeah, you have backing. You have financial backing to make this movie.
Uh huh All right After she's hidden behind all these dog food bags, the killbot comes in and just starts bumping into aquariums, knocking over aquariums filled with like spiders and snakes.
It's real simple and doomed. We all saw that movie last year. We know how this goes.
That's exactly what I was going to say. It is Kate Capschol.
Yeah, and of course they're crawling all over Allison snakes and spiders and whatnot until the shot when she gets out from under the shelf, and then they're just fake rubber spiders that fall off in hilarious fashion Also hilarious in this moment, if you ask me, the fact that when she gets out, the killbot leaves with this like real kind of sound you know cause the vacuum cleaner function is turned on. Sure, did you notice the name of the pet shop? I did not. It's Rogers little shop of pets.
Oh sure, I think the hat to Mr Corman and his directing of little shop of horrors, the old black and white one, that's a good movie, it's okay.
And you know that's also Dick Miller as well. I think he's in there somewhere, I'm sure. And Jack Nicholson? That's a bar bet you can win. Is Jack Nicholson in little shop of horrors? Yes, he is. It's not a great movie. It's interesting to watch. It's a fascinating cinematic tidbit. It's not a movie you're going to watch for entertainment.
So Allison runs off and the remaining killbot I think there's just one left comes after and Allison decides to seek safety by hanging herself off of the railing three stories high in the air. I kind of thought Allison was the smart one. This is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen in a movie.
Well, she can't hang on forever, chad, no. And it's up slipping and crashing into, like this big parasol that's been set up. And while she's hobbling on the floor crawling away, the killbot is heading downstairs like haha, got you now Right. And then she finds the flare in her boobs.
Oh yeah, what's this thing jamming me in the chest? For my three story fall Right and then she just head first.
Chad goes into this paint store.
Uh huh.
The glass just head down, charges it like a bull.
Well, she pulls her shirt over her head so that she can protect herself as she uses her skull to smash through this thing.
The hardest part of her body. She starts just spreading paint and paint thinner and stuff all over the place and the killbot follows her in and she has done an end around and slips outside and says have a nice day, like all the killbot say.
Right, right.
And then just tosses the flare inside and everything in the world explodes.
It's like a action hero walk away shot. I mean the storefront just blows open and so she's limping away.
And then you just hear, hey, and it's Ferdy, he's alive, and he's like hey, nice shot. And then they run into each other's arms and nice shot.
She didn't shoot anything. She threw a lens flare into the paint store. Also, ferdy is holding a full toilet paper roll that's soaked in blood. I hope it's blood, I hope it's his blood, it's something he just found in the toilet stall like hmm, yeah, let's take this for a little bit later, late night fun. But yeah, they see each other, they rush and they hug and then fade out the end.
Yep, there is some pretty good shot. The shot of them hugging. It's kind of a crane shot inside the mall and it's one of the better shots of the movie.
Hunter Buck says that that was from a guy holding the camera with his hands while his buddy held him off the railing wise legs.
Probably so. We pad out the runtime with some sitcom style action shots of the primary cast, like turning to camera. Hey, you caught me in the locker room again.
It's like the closing credits of police Academy, Like they're all just like turning around smiling at the camera.
What are we doing here? They're into the movie, but Chad, all things being equal, yes, this movie. It comes in under 90 minutes.
It's the shortest movie we've ever reviewed on this podcast Without in credits. It is at 72 minutes. It goes by in a flash.
There's a pretty good head explosion. Mm-hmm. The fire effects are pretty good.
It's silly, it's dumb, it's free on YouTube and at least when I watched it, they left in all of the nakedness and all of the swearing. So get while the getting's good.
You can watch this on any number of streaming services. If you want to pay a buck or two for it, you can do it that way or just watch it for free, like I did. It's on Plex and Pluto and all those like free streaming apps and stuff like that, so you can find a decent copy of this to watch just about anywhere and it's a pretty fun movie. It's not great.
But it's, it's an okay time and it's a great party movie where if you have this on in the background and you're having a couple of beers with some friends and you're hanging out kind of bullshitting and you can just perk up like, oh my God, look, it's her head just exploded. Why are they all fucking in the same room? I don't know. This is all silly and weird.
It's got that kind of vibe where it's a fun excuse to hang out and goof on a movie a little bit and it's short enough that it doesn't wear out. It's welcome. It gets to the killbots in plenty of haste so you're not sitting around waiting for the movie to get started because there's just not enough runtime to dick around. I think it's not a great movie by any stretch, but kind of a good time for a B80s horror techno thriller.
It is what it is and it ain't nothing more. Yeah, I want to say that for the big finale of this season, we are doing something but we have never done in the history of Pixxx movies. We are going to review a movie that, at the time of its recording, will be in theaters.
Oh, that sounds difficult.
Well, it's also going to premiere on a streaming service. We don't have to go see it in a theater. Oh, that's much easier. Right, I am speaking of the video game turned cinematic event five nights at Freddy's, a movie inspired by the popular pizza chain entertainment franchises of the 1980s, including Chuck E Cheese and show biz pizza.
I like at least two of those things.
Have you played five nights at Freddy's?
A little bit. I played the first game a little bit, yes.
I watched a full YouTube explanation of the five nights at Freddy's canon with my son and you talk about fanfiction. That is just off the charts. It's totally bonkers. I don't know how much the movie is going to get into that or what else, but my son and people of his age like young teenagers. I think this movie which no shockers. Coming from Bloom House, I think there's only three companies that make movies anymore. It's like Bloom House, disney and Paramount and a 24. That's it.
Those are the people making movies anymore. Right now in Bloom House got their hooks into this one and they're making a movie and people are excited.
I'm mildly interested to see what they make of this Again. I didn't watch your fancy lore video, but I know what I've seen of five nights at Freddy's and it seems a little thin in the way of story. Oh, there's a lot going on. Oh, is there really?
There's a whole backstory. There's a feud between two different pizzerias and kids start getting killed by robots. It's a real something as far as I kind of try to remember.
Should I watch this Should?
I bone up on the no, no, no, no.
All right, look, I'll get it fresh. In the words of one of our great newsmen Fuck it, I'll do it live, and I'm excited to watch this premiere just before Halloween and I'm sure it'll be great, I'm sure it'll be one of the best horror movies I've ever seen.
It will be the second Bloom House movie that we review this season and, to really get you excited, it also has a PG-13 rating. Oh yeah, so none of the blood none of the good stuff is going to be in it.
Oh boy, that doesn't sound great.
No, it doesn't Not at all All right. So anyway, as always, like great review, you can reach out to us at PixSixMovies at gmail.com gmailcom and we're here in there, or whatever else. Bo any final thoughts you have on shopping mall AKA Killbots of the movie? Get me out of this vent. Yeah, I'll get you out of the vent. Let me ask you a question. You know I'm milkable. He's like right escalated. Well, she liked it right. We're going. Sweet cheeks. Come back here.