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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. My name is Rob Lamb.

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Speaker 3: And I'm Joe McCormick. And oh boy, we got a

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Speaker 3: treat for you this week. Rob, your pick was Chopping Mall.

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Speaker 2: That's right, because we're in the midst of the holiday

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Speaker 2: shopping season here in America, so it just absolutely made

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Speaker 2: sense to watch Chopping Mall. Shopping Mall is not a

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Speaker 2: holiday horror movie or a holiday movie at all, but

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Speaker 2: it concerns the shopping mall, you know, the original cathedrals

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Speaker 2: of consumerism, giant interior spaces where you could eat, shop,

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Speaker 2: hang out when permitted by security, and of course, during

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Speaker 2: the holidays, meet Santa Claus himself or some representative of

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Speaker 2: Santa Claus within this giant, enclosed space.

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Speaker 3: Now, when I was a teenager, there was a brief

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Speaker 3: time when I actually did hang out at the shopping mall,

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Speaker 3: just like in the movies, because it's very convenient when

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Speaker 3: you're like fourteen, you don't have your own car. You

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Speaker 3: want to hang out with your friends at a place

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Speaker 3: where you're not like at somebody's house with their parents,

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Speaker 3: but you don't really have anywhere else to go. You

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Speaker 3: can get dropped off at the mall and hang out there.

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Speaker 3: But right at the time that I was like getting

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Speaker 3: into a groove of hangouts at the mall, our local

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Speaker 3: mall I think banned unaccompanied miners because some of us

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Speaker 3: were getting into trouble.

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Speaker 2: Apparently, Yeah, yeah, that was That was frequently the issue,

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Speaker 2: wasn't it. I don't remember. I don't think I ever

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Speaker 2: went to the mall frequently enough to run a foul

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Speaker 2: of security. But I remember it being an ideal destination

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Speaker 2: as like a junior high kid and as a teenager

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Speaker 2: a bit, you know, because you go there, you got

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Speaker 2: the food, you got the arcade, You've got the you know,

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Speaker 2: the Spencer's gift stores and the like the rock band

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Speaker 2: T shirt store. You know, it feels like you're you're

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Speaker 2: entering into a wider world of adult responsibility and possibilities

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Speaker 2: when you go into the mall.

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Speaker 3: And extreme alienation and religious significance.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So yes. Chopping Mall is a nineteen eighty six film,

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Speaker 2: and just the fact that it came out in eighty

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Speaker 2: six is pretty amazing, because nineteen eighty six is an

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Speaker 2: amazing year for genre cinema, but the genre that I

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Speaker 2: am yeah, oh yeah, that's try You came out in

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Speaker 2: eighty six, so you and this movie are basically siblings.

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Speaker 2: Of course. The other big horror movie that's filmed in

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Speaker 2: the mall is George Romero's Dawn of the Dead, which

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Speaker 2: is I guess you could say, you know. Donn of

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Speaker 2: the Dead is more of a intentional satire of consumerism

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Speaker 2: and the American use of malls, where characters end up

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Speaker 2: going there during a zombie apocalypse and encountering all of

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Speaker 2: these zombified humans that are just sort of wandering about

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Speaker 2: the mall. Chopping Mall is a little lighter on the satire,

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Speaker 2: but is is still a heck of a lot of fun.

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Speaker 3: Well, I say, no, Chopping Mall is heavy on the satire,

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Speaker 3: but the tone of the satire is lighter. Yes, it's

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Speaker 3: like when when when Dona the I mean, I love

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Speaker 3: Donna the Dead, but but when it decides to say something,

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Speaker 3: it's going to like sort of grab you by the

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Speaker 3: collar and say something at you. It's it's very heavy handed.

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Speaker 3: Chopping Mall has a I mean, let's let's be clear,

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Speaker 3: Chopping Mall is is just sleezy eighty slasher trash, but

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Speaker 3: it's a kind of transcendent sleezy eighty slasher trash because

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Speaker 3: it has a real spirit of fun and it's like

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Speaker 3: sour cream and onion flavored. It's just really spunky.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's when it has something to say about malls

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Speaker 2: and consumers and it's it's it's more of a snicker

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Speaker 2: as opposed to a loud proclamation to your point. And uh,

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Speaker 2: and I will say, well, you could argue that there's

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Speaker 2: some sleezy aspects to the plot. A lot of the

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Speaker 2: sleazier aspects feel like like they're thirteen year old sleezy

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Speaker 2: as opposed to like, you know, thirty year old sleezy.

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Speaker 3: I guess they're not night killer sleazy. Yeah, you're not

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Speaker 3: going to the real dark side.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's radied r, but you know it's

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Speaker 2: not gonna haunt your memories or anything.

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Speaker 3: Well, I guess we get into weird territory because I realized,

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Speaker 3: like I just assumed from the beginning that the listeners

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Speaker 3: would always realize the movies we're talking about on Weird

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Speaker 3: House are almost never for kids. But we did recently

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Speaker 3: talk about an Ewok adventure, so there may be some

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Speaker 3: mixed signals going on now unless we say otherwise, the

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Speaker 3: movies we talk about on Weird House Cinema are not

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Speaker 3: for children.

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Speaker 2: Correct, So I think the first place to start with

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Speaker 2: this one is just is to talk about the title

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Speaker 2: of the picture and the posters that came out the

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Speaker 2: VHS cover art as well promoting this film, because it's excellent,

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Speaker 2: but it's also really misleading. Like I remember seeing the

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Speaker 2: poster or box art when I was a kid, and

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Speaker 2: it says shopping mall, and depending on the copy, it's

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Speaker 2: either in like blood font or like dripping chrome font,

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Speaker 2: and in either case, the centerpiece is a red paper

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Speaker 2: shopping bag that is torn and to varying degrees, loaded

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Speaker 2: with body parts like somebody's just chop some people up

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Speaker 2: put them in a shopping bag, and then there is

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Speaker 2: some sort of monstrous hand holding the bag. On one

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Speaker 2: poster it looks pretty much like like a big medieval gauntlet,

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Speaker 2: and on the other poster it looks like a slightly

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Speaker 2: cybernetic goblin hand.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so what these bags definitely have in common is

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Speaker 3: the contents, which are body parts ahead the title chopping mall,

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Speaker 3: but the hand. The difference in the hand is fascinating

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Speaker 3: and confusing and strange. What were they trying to say

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Speaker 3: about this film that in one version it's the Rollerball glove,

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Speaker 3: and then the other one it is a robot monster.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. The robot monster hand too, looks a whole lot

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Speaker 2: like the disembodied hand from the poster for the American

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Speaker 2: Haunted House movie House that came out the year before,

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Speaker 2: which is of course a very signature poster as well.

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Speaker 2: This disembodied hand, I think putting a key in a

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Speaker 2: door lock.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. But the rollerball glove is interesting too.

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Speaker 3: It's got like the studs and the razors on the knuckles.

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Speaker 3: I don't know if you've ever seen the I must

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Speaker 3: confess I've actually never seen the James Kahn movie Rollerball,

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Speaker 3: but I'm to understand it's about some kind of dystopian

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Speaker 3: future death sport that where the characters wear these leather

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Speaker 3: gloves that have metal studs on all the knuckles.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and the poster vhs RT for Rollerball prominently features

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Speaker 2: that spiked fist of James Khan.

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Speaker 3: So which came out first Rollerball or Chopping mall O

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Speaker 3: Rollerball for sure?

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Speaker 2: Oh okay, yeah, so I think one of the things

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Speaker 2: that explains all of this is the fact that this

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Speaker 2: movie chopping mall the Corman camp because this is ultimately

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Speaker 2: a Roger Corman production. I think Julie Corman, his wife,

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Speaker 2: is actually the producer, but it's a Corman property. They

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Speaker 2: tried to put it out with the name Kilbots, prominently

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Speaker 2: featuring one of the killer robots that's in the film

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Speaker 2: on the poster, and apparently it didn't do as well.

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Speaker 2: So Corman did a trick that he had done previously,

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Speaker 2: and that is take the film, repackage it, give it

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Speaker 2: a new title, new poster, arc put it out again,

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Speaker 2: and strike gold.

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Speaker 3: It's a whole new thing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. They'd done something similar with the nineteen seventy nine

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Speaker 2: film Screamers, which was an American release of the Italian

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Speaker 2: film Island of the Fishmen, and they put it out

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Speaker 2: as something Weights in the Dark. Didn't work, so they

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Speaker 2: took it back and Corman actually got this guy, Jim

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Speaker 2: wy Norski to produce some new opening footage for it.

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Speaker 2: They gave it a new title, Screamers, and then it

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Speaker 2: did pretty well.

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Speaker 3: This is the one about the people who shipwreck on

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Speaker 3: an island and there's like a mad scientist there who

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Speaker 3: has created human fish hybrids.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's fabulous and I would love to back

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Speaker 2: and discuss it in a future episode, but I bring

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Speaker 2: it up here. Is just an example of the kind

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Speaker 2: of stuff that the Corman camp would do to figure

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Speaker 2: out just a sweet spot for promoting a film, and

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Speaker 2: in this case that what they seem to get was, well,

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Speaker 2: the audience isn't really interested in a killer robot movie

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Speaker 2: with this kind of like old fashioned, clunky robot, but

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Speaker 2: if we sell it as a slasher picture, then we

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Speaker 2: got them.

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Speaker 3: I mean, it's a huge difference. The poster for Chopping Mall.

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Speaker 3: I see that and I'm like, oh, I'm in the

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Speaker 3: poster for Killbots. I don't know. It looks like I've

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Speaker 3: seen this before and I had not.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember seeing the box or the post art

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Speaker 2: for Chopping Mall as a kid and being too afraid

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Speaker 2: to look at the back of the box. But in

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Speaker 2: my mind I knew that it had to be a

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Speaker 2: film about a crazy guy in a big metal glove

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Speaker 2: who kills people in a shopping mall. Like that was

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Speaker 2: the whole plot I've formed in my head, And that's

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Speaker 2: pretty far from the truth. Yeah, this is a killer

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Speaker 2: robot movie.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you would have imagined this was like a slasher

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Speaker 3: movie that involved I don't know, weapons lifted from KB

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Speaker 3: Toys or something. Yeah, or what was the oh Man?

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Speaker 3: The was it Camelot? The mall music store? Yeah, and

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Speaker 3: the I remember everything there was always really expensive, Like

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Speaker 3: the CDs were twenty two dollars and I was like,

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Speaker 3: how can you buy that?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that was an age when when trying out new

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Speaker 2: music it was a totally different scenario. Like today, you

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Speaker 2: try out multiple albums per day if you want via

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Speaker 2: you know, pretty much any paid subscription or even not

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Speaker 2: paying just going on YouTube and stuff. But back then,

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Speaker 2: it was like, all right, I'm going to drop twenty

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Speaker 2: bucks on this new album. I don't know what it's

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Speaker 2: going to be, like, I haven't heard it. It might

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Speaker 2: be terrible, I might have I'm just going to listen

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Speaker 2: to it over and over again, though, and it at

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Speaker 2: least forced myself to like one song because this is

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Speaker 2: what I'm listening to this month, right.

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Speaker 3: I mean, it was a very different time because of

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Speaker 3: the monetary and time investment involved in discovering new music.

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Speaker 3: It seems like once you found something, you really liked

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Speaker 3: it was more special. Yeah, maybe that's just idealizing the past.

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Speaker 2: No, no, but you know, this is all really getting it.

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Speaker 2: I think one of the key things about Chopping Mall

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Speaker 2: that's so lovable is that Chopping Mall is an historic document,

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Speaker 2: you know, Like so much of my appreciation of the

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Speaker 2: film is the fact that, yeah, they filmed it in

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Speaker 2: a real mall, an enormous mall. I'm all with three floors,

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Speaker 2: and you see all these authentic stores in the background,

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Speaker 2: and it just it feels like some sort of a

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Speaker 2: testament to this this lost or fading tradition of American commercialism.

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Speaker 3: It also very much reminds me of the mall in

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Speaker 3: which scenes are shot in the movie Commando, and I

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Speaker 3: wonder if it is literally the same mall that they used.

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Speaker 2: To Well, let's go ahead and hit the elevator pitch

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Speaker 2: for this one.

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Speaker 3: Okay, give it to me, Okay.

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Speaker 2: Part Plaza Mall has just updated its security system with

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Speaker 2: state of the art lockdown systems and three kill bots.

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Speaker 2: I don't think they call them killbots, but they're protectors,

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Speaker 2: protectors to patrol throughout the mall. So obviously this is

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Speaker 2: a perfect time for several couples several teen couples to

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Speaker 2: have a lockdown party inside one of the stores, inside

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Speaker 2: of a furniture store. What could possibly go wrong?

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Speaker 3: It's great, It's like, I mean, one of the funny

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Speaker 3: things is the presumption and actually I can believe this

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Speaker 3: thinking about it now, that the party teens would not

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Speaker 3: be made aware of the fact that there are lethal

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Speaker 3: robots rolling around in the mall at night, even though

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Speaker 3: they work there. It's just like the need to know basis,

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Speaker 3: you work here, but you don't need to know.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they didn't put out a mimo or anything.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, should we hit some trailer audio?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, let's listen to some of this fabulous trailer.

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Speaker 3: They broke into the mall or the wildest all night

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Speaker 3: party of their lives.

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Speaker 1: And technique.

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Speaker 2: But you're never alone.

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Speaker 3: In the chumping.

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Speaker 2: What's that robots?

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Speaker 3: Jumping hall? We're shopping costs you an arm and a leg?

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Speaker 2: All right?

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Speaker 3: Where'd this thing come from?

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Speaker 2: All right? Well, we mentioned the director and writer already,

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Speaker 2: and that is jim Y Norski, who again was part

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Speaker 2: of the Roger Corman camp there. He was born in

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Speaker 2: nineteen fifty, still alive today as of this recording, and

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Speaker 2: is just a career b cinema guy. This was only

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Speaker 2: his second film. It was a follow up to nineteen

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Speaker 2: eighty four's Lost Empire, which apparently was a fantasy film.

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Speaker 2: I have not seen it, but I did read that

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Speaker 2: Jim later said that Roger Corman hated the movie, but

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Speaker 2: he thought that he quote put the camera in some

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Speaker 2: interesting places and the girls were pretty, so that was

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Speaker 2: enough to get him sort of pull him into the

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Speaker 2: orbit of Roger Korman. But I did notice that Alan

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Speaker 2: Howarth did the music for it and has Angus Scrim

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Speaker 2: in it, So how bad could it possibly be?

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Speaker 3: Wait? Was Angus scrim in this movie?

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Speaker 2: He is? Yes, yeah, yeah, I'll go ahead and point out.

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Speaker 2: Angus scrim the tall Man of the Phantasm movies has

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Speaker 2: a very brief cameo. It's not even a cameo because

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Speaker 2: he's not He's under an assumed name and you never

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Speaker 2: see his face. But he's an individual who stands up

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Speaker 2: and asks a question at the Kilbot press conference in

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Speaker 2: the early stage of the movie.

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Speaker 3: Oh okay, that was him.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, but yeah, unless you're looking for it,

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Speaker 2: you'll totally miss it. So anyway, yeah, Jim Wainorski, here

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Speaker 2: he goes on from this film to direct Death Stalker two.

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Speaker 2: He directed The Return Swamp Thing. He has one hundred

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Speaker 2: and four director credits on IMDb, including a fair amount

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Speaker 2: of exploitation films, some late night Cinemax style films thrown

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Speaker 2: in there, but also family films, some kind of cringey

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Speaker 2: looking parody films from recent years, but just a lot

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Speaker 2: of stuff all over the map, Yeah, all over the map. Like,

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Speaker 2: some of it looks very interesting, some of it you

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Speaker 2: want to skip on. But but yeah, he's had quite

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Speaker 2: a career.

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Speaker 3: It's hard to believe that this was made by the

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Speaker 3: same person who made Death Stalker two, because Death Stalker

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Speaker 3: two is just a sand sandwich. It's just awful. Then

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Speaker 3: this is, I mean, comparatively, this movie is I mean again,

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Speaker 3: it is trash, but it's very it's pretty like light

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Speaker 3: fun trash.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah it is. It's it's more fast food, you know.

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Speaker 2: And and it also this is something worth pointing out.

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Speaker 2: It knows it's fast food, but in a way that

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Speaker 2: oddly works. It's very rare to find that in a

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Speaker 2: film today. You know, so many self aware b movies

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Speaker 2: are just difficult to tolerate. But this and somehow it

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Speaker 2: would it walks that line and does a good job

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Speaker 2: with it.

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Speaker 3: We were just talking about this recently off mic about

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Speaker 3: how there are so few intentionally bad, successfully funny movies

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Speaker 3: and TV shows, and now you know, obviously we're doing

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Speaker 3: this show, so we clearly love bad movies. But but like,

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Speaker 3: it's hard to think of people who do it on

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Speaker 3: purpose and it works. We thought of Garth Marenghi's Dark

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Speaker 3: Place bad on purpose, very funny. This movie, I think

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Speaker 3: fits that category, but it's really quite rare. Most of

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Speaker 3: the time, it just hurts.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And one of the things that I was saying

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Speaker 2: about Garth Marenghi's Dark Place is that, well, it works

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Speaker 2: because it has this kind of dry sensibility. But Chopping

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Speaker 2: Mall does not have a dry sensibility. So you know,

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Speaker 2: my reasoning there doesn't really apply to this film.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I wonder all.

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Speaker 2: Right, So, as we mentioned Chopping Mall concerns, I think

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Speaker 2: four different couples, and they are difficult to keep track

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Speaker 2: of until they start dying because they all basically look alike.

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Speaker 2: As I was discussing the film with my wife last night,

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Speaker 2: I think this film's idea of diversity is casting one

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Speaker 2: non blonde female in the whole picture, so it's easy

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Speaker 2: to lose track of who's who. We're not going to

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Speaker 2: mention all of the teen players here, but we'll mention

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Speaker 2: a few of them. Top billing goes to Kelly Moroney.

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Speaker 2: She was also the star of Night of the Comment

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Speaker 2: in eighty four.

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Speaker 3: Oh, that's another great one. We shall come back to that.

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Speaker 2: The real standout team is Mike, the beefy one, the

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Speaker 2: gum Shower, and he's played by John Terleski. Very memorable

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Speaker 2: part of this film. But he's one of these guys

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Speaker 2: that goes on to have quite a career. Well, first

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Speaker 2: of all, he goes on to play the death Stalker

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Speaker 2: in Death Stalker two, but he went on to act

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Speaker 2: in a bunch of stuff and directed quite a bit,

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Speaker 2: including just a ton of steady mainstream TV work in

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Speaker 2: recent years, sixpisodes of the Blacklist, twenty six episodes of Castle,

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Speaker 2: and then in two thousand and five, he wrote and

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Speaker 2: directed a movie about.

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Speaker 3: Cerberus from Greek mythology.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean I haven't seen it. I've only

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Speaker 2: seen the trailer. I can't imagine. It's too versed in

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Speaker 2: Greek mythology, but it exists.

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Speaker 3: I mean, this guy is an amazing specimen. So we're

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Speaker 3: gonna talk. I guess once we get into the full

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Speaker 3: plot breakdown, I'll mention some of the main teens. But

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Speaker 3: this guy is just a peak specimen of the like

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Speaker 3: eighties jock Bully character, and he's so good. He's just

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Speaker 3: a can of Dentte Moore. He's this knuckleneck guy with

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Speaker 3: the smirks. It's fabulous.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, he's shirtless most of the film. It's wonderful, or

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Speaker 2: most of the film during which he's alive. Because obviously

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Speaker 2: he's the character that's introduced. You're like, oh, this guy's

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Speaker 2: this guy's biding it. This guy's getting killed by a

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Speaker 2: robot for sure.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Now, the film also features the legendary Barbara Crampton as Susie,

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Speaker 2: one of the the teens were discussing here. Now. She's

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Speaker 2: a true screen queen and genre staple, especially in Stuart

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Speaker 2: Gordon films. She got her start in Brian de Palmer's

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Speaker 2: Body Double, but then she went on to act in Reanimator,

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Speaker 2: from Beyond, Puppet Master, Transfers to Robot Wars, Castle Freaks,

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Speaker 2: Space Truckers. Yeah, she's been in a ton of stuff.

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Speaker 3: Oh, that's Robot Wars. But I thought for a second

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Speaker 3: you were talking about Robot Jocks, which is I think

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Speaker 3: also a Stuart Gordon movie.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, robot Jocks is really Good's that's one that's kind

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Speaker 2: of in my short list to scout out to see

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Speaker 2: if that's one we need to discuss here.

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Speaker 3: Oh oh it's coming.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, another cult icon that's in this film, though

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Speaker 2: very briefly, is Mary warrenov plays. She plays a character

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Speaker 2: that we're told is Mary Bland alongside Paul Bland played

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Speaker 2: by Paul Bartell. I'll get to in just a second

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Speaker 2: there at present only briefly in the film, at that

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Speaker 2: Kilbot press conference that it occurs.

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Speaker 3: Early on in the film.

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Speaker 2: Now, she's very interesting. She started out as a Warhol

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Speaker 2: superstar in the eighties, one of Andy Warhol's followers and

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Speaker 2: celebrity people. But then she acted in a ton of

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Speaker 2: B movies, especially Corman films. She did a lot of

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Speaker 2: TV and stage work, and she's one of these people

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Speaker 2: that I always smile when she shows up in a

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Speaker 2: film because she's always an absolute delight. And the cool

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Speaker 2: thing is you often find her alongside this guy Paul Bartell,

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Speaker 2: who again is playing the bearded gentleman setting next to her.

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Speaker 2: And this is interesting because he's most famous for writing

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Speaker 2: and directing the horror comedy Eating Rahul in nineteen eighty two,

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Speaker 2: about a pair of restaurant tours who turned to murder.

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Speaker 2: And he plays Paul Bland in that, and Mary plays

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Speaker 2: Mary Bland in that. So in Chopping Mall, they are

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Speaker 2: reprising these.

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Speaker 3: Roles the core cinematic universe.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, And so there you know, it's all just

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Speaker 2: a big wink to this other movie now and within

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Speaker 2: the Corman universe. Bartel also directed Corman's Death Race two thousand,

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Speaker 2: among a slew of other films.

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Speaker 3: Oh that's interesting, another bad one. Man. We are just

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Speaker 3: rattling off the list of rabbit holes to go down today.

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Speaker 3: I should mention before we move on from Mary, warnoff

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Speaker 3: that she is also fantastic in a more recent horror movie,

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Speaker 3: The actually quite scary and extremely disturbing, extremely good House

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Speaker 3: of the Devil, directed by Ty West.

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Speaker 2: Oh cool. I haven't seen that yet, but if she's

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Speaker 2: in it, I'm interested.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, she's great. And it's also got Tom Noonan in it,

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Speaker 3: who's oh creepy as he always is. But I don't

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Speaker 3: know I don't want to write it off as just like, well,

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Speaker 3: those are his character traits. I mean, tom Noonan is

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Speaker 3: a great actor, but also just like eh.

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Speaker 2: He plays a great, great creep for sure. Yeah, all right,

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Speaker 2: I mean there's just some again, like you said, so

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Speaker 2: many rabbit holes in the cast of this film, because

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Speaker 2: it also has Dick Miller. Oh.

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Speaker 3: Dick Miller is also a classic Corman player, going all

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Speaker 3: the way back.

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Speaker 2: He was.

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Speaker 3: He starred in some sixties Coorman movies, Not of This Earth.

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Speaker 3: He's got a great small role in that. He's just wonderful.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of you will probably remember him from

402
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Speaker 2: Grimlins Grimlins two. He was in the Howling piranha little Shop,

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Speaker 2: the Little Shop of Ours, Night of the Creeps, and

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Speaker 2: then one of the scenes that I really love him in. Again,

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Speaker 2: he's often in the little small parts and things, but

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Speaker 2: he was in the Terminator. He was the gun shop clerk.

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Speaker 2: Do you remember that scene, Joe, of course.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, one of these weapons is ideal for home defense.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's that great. In exchange for the terminators rattling

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Speaker 2: off this list of weapons and he says saves plasma

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Speaker 2: rifle and the forty watt rage and Miller says, Hey,

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Speaker 2: just what you see pal right, it's great.

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Speaker 3: I have to think that maybe there's a little bit

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Speaker 3: of subtle political commentary in that scene. Was this mur

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Speaker 3: robot from the future is just listing this giant catalog

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Speaker 3: of weapons that he needs to murder people with, and

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Speaker 3: the guy's like, yeah, defend your home.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So Dick Miller plays you know, I guess you

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Speaker 2: know he had headed a type. He plays his kind

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Speaker 2: of snappy every man, you know, and that's what he

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Speaker 2: plays in this He's a janitor who dares to stand

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Speaker 2: up to the killer robot and gets electrocuted for it.

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Speaker 3: Oh man, the cameos just don't stop. Though. There is

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Speaker 3: another amazing character actor in this movie, Garrett Graham, who's

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Speaker 3: in He's in this movie for like two minutes. He

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Speaker 3: just plays like a guy in a lab coat who

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Speaker 3: gets murdered. But I love Garrett Graham, and this is

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Speaker 3: main I mean, I love everything I've seen him in. Well,

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Speaker 3: I don't know if I love all the movies, but

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Speaker 3: always love him. Yeah, And he is absolutely one of

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Speaker 3: the highlights of the Phantom of the Paradise, a great

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Speaker 3: Brian De Palma movie, where he plays the the I

433
00:22:55,359 --> 00:22:58,200
Speaker 3: don't even know how to describe him. This like Frankenstein

434
00:22:58,359 --> 00:22:59,800
Speaker 3: rock star named Beef.

435
00:23:02,520 --> 00:23:06,119
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think that's accurate. He has these eyes,

436
00:23:06,200 --> 00:23:10,119
Speaker 2: these very expressive, kind of like bugged out eyes some people.

437
00:23:10,320 --> 00:23:13,520
Speaker 2: Some people may recognize him as Bud the Chud from

438
00:23:13,760 --> 00:23:15,080
Speaker 2: Chud to Bud the Chud.

439
00:23:16,440 --> 00:23:19,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, but there's the titular Budd the Judge.

440
00:23:19,359 --> 00:23:22,959
Speaker 2: He is he is. I really loved him in the

441
00:23:23,000 --> 00:23:26,359
Speaker 2: movie Terror Vision, which also came out in eighty six

442
00:23:26,600 --> 00:23:30,200
Speaker 2: and also had Mary Warrenov in it. That's a film

443
00:23:30,240 --> 00:23:32,800
Speaker 2: I absolutely adore, and we may have to come back

444
00:23:32,840 --> 00:23:33,719
Speaker 2: to that one in the future.

445
00:23:33,960 --> 00:23:37,680
Speaker 3: This movie is like a trawler nets just sucking in

446
00:23:37,800 --> 00:23:41,520
Speaker 3: like every great weird character actor and Corman player.

447
00:23:41,880 --> 00:23:45,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, now we already mentioned Angus scrim Barely shows up

448
00:23:45,440 --> 00:23:49,639
Speaker 2: apparently was credited as Lawrence Guy on this one. And

449
00:23:49,680 --> 00:23:52,600
Speaker 2: then oh and then as a cameo, Julie Corman, the producer,

450
00:23:53,400 --> 00:23:56,440
Speaker 2: shows up as a mall shopper with a baby. Again.

451
00:23:57,240 --> 00:24:00,280
Speaker 2: Corman is Roger Corman's wife. And as far as other

452
00:24:00,359 --> 00:24:02,840
Speaker 2: folks involved in the film, I mean, I didn't follow

453
00:24:02,880 --> 00:24:05,280
Speaker 2: every rabbit hole, but I did notice that Carol Clements

454
00:24:05,400 --> 00:24:08,879
Speaker 2: was the art director who also worked on the nineteen

455
00:24:08,920 --> 00:24:12,520
Speaker 2: eighty six film Vamp, an excellent vampire film starring Grace

456
00:24:12,600 --> 00:24:16,399
Speaker 2: Jones and Billy Drago, which also has kind of a

457
00:24:16,440 --> 00:24:17,480
Speaker 2: snazzy look to it.

458
00:24:17,840 --> 00:24:19,679
Speaker 3: Oh wait a second, is that the one about like

459
00:24:19,720 --> 00:24:22,720
Speaker 3: the college kids who go to the vampire town that's

460
00:24:22,760 --> 00:24:24,760
Speaker 3: got all the very expressionist sets.

461
00:24:25,119 --> 00:24:28,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Grace Jones is like this vampire dancer. Okay,

462
00:24:29,280 --> 00:24:32,359
Speaker 2: and it has a great cast of b players as well,

463
00:24:33,000 --> 00:24:35,960
Speaker 2: but it also has like a definite style, at least

464
00:24:35,960 --> 00:24:36,800
Speaker 2: in some of the scenes.

465
00:24:37,080 --> 00:24:39,280
Speaker 3: It's been a long time, but I remember really liking

466
00:24:39,320 --> 00:24:49,200
Speaker 3: that one. Yeah, okay, well is it time to get

467
00:24:49,240 --> 00:24:51,919
Speaker 3: into the full plot breakdown? I mean to the extent

468
00:24:51,960 --> 00:24:52,720
Speaker 3: that this movie has.

469
00:24:52,720 --> 00:24:55,000
Speaker 2: One yeah, yeah, this one. This is a This is

470
00:24:55,800 --> 00:24:58,879
Speaker 2: a movie that knows once it has your attention, it

471
00:24:58,960 --> 00:25:01,960
Speaker 2: needs to keep going. I think the version I watched anyway,

472
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:04,600
Speaker 2: is like seventy seven minutes, so there's only so much

473
00:25:04,640 --> 00:25:06,399
Speaker 2: plot here, but it's all well done.

474
00:25:06,600 --> 00:25:09,199
Speaker 3: I always respect that. Actually, and in a movie that

475
00:25:09,320 --> 00:25:11,639
Speaker 3: knows its trash and is like, look, we're going to

476
00:25:11,720 --> 00:25:13,359
Speaker 3: get to the point. It's going to be really short.

477
00:25:13,400 --> 00:25:15,399
Speaker 3: I've said this a million times now about Attack of

478
00:25:15,440 --> 00:25:18,040
Speaker 3: the crab Monsters. It's like a sixty two minute movie.

479
00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:20,040
Speaker 3: I mean, how can you beat it? It's just amazing.

480
00:25:20,520 --> 00:25:23,440
Speaker 3: Why drag it out for another twenty minutes? Yeah, and

481
00:25:24,080 --> 00:25:26,480
Speaker 3: I would say that Chopping Mall is of the same philosophy.

482
00:25:26,520 --> 00:25:29,360
Speaker 3: It's something like seventy seven minutes long including the credits.

483
00:25:29,880 --> 00:25:32,320
Speaker 3: But so what happens at the very beginning. We begin

484
00:25:32,400 --> 00:25:34,879
Speaker 3: with the scene of a robbery. You've got one of

485
00:25:34,880 --> 00:25:39,200
Speaker 3: these eighties movie punks. He's this sallow leather jacket punk

486
00:25:39,560 --> 00:25:43,320
Speaker 3: who breaks the glass of a jewelry store and snatches

487
00:25:43,320 --> 00:25:46,040
Speaker 3: a bunch of precious jewels out of the window in

488
00:25:46,040 --> 00:25:50,160
Speaker 3: an otherwise apparently just deserted mall. And so you think

489
00:25:50,200 --> 00:25:52,160
Speaker 3: he's going to get away with the jewels, but then

490
00:25:52,840 --> 00:25:56,359
Speaker 3: there's a robot. He is pursued by a robot who

491
00:25:56,720 --> 00:25:58,920
Speaker 3: I was wondering how you were going to describe the

492
00:25:58,960 --> 00:26:02,639
Speaker 3: look of the kill bots in this movie. My feeling

493
00:26:02,720 --> 00:26:05,520
Speaker 3: was that they look like Alpha five from The Power

494
00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:09,680
Speaker 3: Rangers on the head portion but with tank treads.

495
00:26:10,280 --> 00:26:13,639
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, they're kind of like you have to kind

496
00:26:13,680 --> 00:26:16,680
Speaker 2: of define it by referencing other robots. There's a little

497
00:26:16,680 --> 00:26:18,600
Speaker 2: bit of Johnny five in there. There's a little bit

498
00:26:18,640 --> 00:26:23,119
Speaker 2: of Dayek in there. I'm not sure what else to

499
00:26:23,160 --> 00:26:26,560
Speaker 2: compare it. Definitely that Power Rangers bot you mentioned. He

500
00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:28,680
Speaker 2: does have a head like that, kind of a big

501
00:26:29,240 --> 00:26:30,359
Speaker 2: flying saucer head.

502
00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:33,359
Speaker 3: The Dalak point is a good one. Alpha five dalk

503
00:26:33,400 --> 00:26:36,199
Speaker 3: I would say, yeah, that's pretty much perfect. So the

504
00:26:36,240 --> 00:26:40,280
Speaker 3: Alpha five Dalek is is running after the robber, rolling

505
00:26:40,280 --> 00:26:43,000
Speaker 3: after the robber, and the robbers starts shooting at it

506
00:26:43,040 --> 00:26:45,760
Speaker 3: with his revolver. Surely I can stop this metal robot

507
00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:50,000
Speaker 3: with with this little gun. Somebody out there needs to

508
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:54,160
Speaker 3: make a feature length documentary film that is just about

509
00:26:54,320 --> 00:26:57,280
Speaker 3: the shot where some meat head in a movie is

510
00:26:57,320 --> 00:27:00,119
Speaker 3: shooting a gun at a killer robot and they see

511
00:27:00,160 --> 00:27:03,240
Speaker 3: the puny bullets bouncing off and doing nassing, and then

512
00:27:03,280 --> 00:27:06,720
Speaker 3: they go w and the terror comes over their face

513
00:27:06,760 --> 00:27:09,040
Speaker 3: and then they either drop the gun or throw the gun.

514
00:27:09,760 --> 00:27:12,440
Speaker 3: Alpha five does not react to these gunshots at all.

515
00:27:12,520 --> 00:27:16,360
Speaker 3: It does not even give you an AIII. He tases

516
00:27:16,400 --> 00:27:19,159
Speaker 3: the crook and then we get a the end title,

517
00:27:19,240 --> 00:27:22,159
Speaker 3: which was a very nice little gag. But then it

518
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:24,800
Speaker 3: turns out this is a film within a film, and

519
00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:28,120
Speaker 3: we're getting a demonstration of the latest in cutting edge

520
00:27:28,119 --> 00:27:33,280
Speaker 3: security technology, the Protector one oh one series robots, and

521
00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:35,960
Speaker 3: of course, as you mentioned, then we pull back we

522
00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:40,160
Speaker 3: see an audience there observing this film. Hype Man's about

523
00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:42,440
Speaker 3: to show up, and we see paulp. Bartel and Mary

524
00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:45,040
Speaker 3: Warren of and the audience wearing their name tags, so

525
00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:47,920
Speaker 3: we know that they're actually playing the same characters they

526
00:27:47,920 --> 00:27:51,040
Speaker 3: were in the other movies we've already seen. And I

527
00:27:51,080 --> 00:27:52,760
Speaker 3: love what we get. This guy who runs up, who's

528
00:27:52,800 --> 00:27:57,000
Speaker 3: this like Royce McCutcheon type hype man, you know, bring

529
00:27:57,040 --> 00:28:00,000
Speaker 3: me some of that moon money, and he assures us

530
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:03,240
Speaker 3: that the Protectors do not kill. But Paul Bartel is

531
00:28:03,320 --> 00:28:06,200
Speaker 3: not buying it. He's like, I don't know, he looked

532
00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:10,400
Speaker 3: pretty dead to me. But Royce McCutcheon assures the audience

533
00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:13,800
Speaker 3: that the punk is merely neutralized until he can be

534
00:28:13,920 --> 00:28:18,200
Speaker 3: located by law enforcement. And then he does this survey

535
00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:20,640
Speaker 3: of all their weapons, which is great. He talks about

536
00:28:20,680 --> 00:28:25,119
Speaker 3: how they've got sleep darts and they have lasers positioned

537
00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:27,920
Speaker 3: here that can cut through any sort of debris, which

538
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:30,040
Speaker 3: sounds very useful in a security robot.

539
00:28:30,320 --> 00:28:32,159
Speaker 2: Yeah, like what kind of debris are they supposed to

540
00:28:32,160 --> 00:28:33,800
Speaker 2: be cutting through in the mall. And as for the

541
00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:36,520
Speaker 2: sleep darts, that sounds good, but I can't remember do

542
00:28:36,560 --> 00:28:38,720
Speaker 2: we see any sleep darts deployed in this film.

543
00:28:39,040 --> 00:28:42,040
Speaker 3: I don't remember any sleep darts. I remember the robots.

544
00:28:42,040 --> 00:28:44,600
Speaker 3: So they use their little pincer things to like slash

545
00:28:44,600 --> 00:28:47,960
Speaker 3: people's necks, and they use their lasers to blow up

546
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:48,680
Speaker 3: people's heads.

547
00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:51,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, they use those lasers.

548
00:28:51,800 --> 00:28:54,480
Speaker 3: And they're like Imperial storm troopers, like they can't aim

549
00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:56,040
Speaker 3: at all, but.

550
00:28:56,040 --> 00:28:58,920
Speaker 2: They get coverage. They get coverage with the spray.

551
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:01,520
Speaker 3: That's right, they're laying down suppressing fire.

552
00:29:03,560 --> 00:29:07,680
Speaker 2: I have to say the killbots here, they look pretty good,

553
00:29:07,760 --> 00:29:09,840
Speaker 2: you know. I mean you look at the overall design

554
00:29:10,120 --> 00:29:14,200
Speaker 2: and it's what doesn't look thrown together. You know, it's

555
00:29:14,240 --> 00:29:18,280
Speaker 2: not humanoid at all. It has like four arms that

556
00:29:18,320 --> 00:29:19,880
Speaker 2: are very much like the arms of some sort of

557
00:29:19,880 --> 00:29:24,400
Speaker 2: like a lunar probe or something. So it's a bit

558
00:29:24,480 --> 00:29:27,040
Speaker 2: shocking if you go into it expecting that metal claw,

559
00:29:27,160 --> 00:29:30,720
Speaker 2: metal hand from the poster or the box art. But

560
00:29:31,120 --> 00:29:32,640
Speaker 2: I think the end result looks pretty good.

561
00:29:32,880 --> 00:29:38,320
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I mean they're lovable deubery killer robots. Yeah,

562
00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:41,640
Speaker 3: and so oh yeah, and we get this one of

563
00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:43,600
Speaker 3: the things I wanted to flag that we already talked

564
00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:46,560
Speaker 3: about this a bit, is that they're called protectors, because

565
00:29:46,600 --> 00:29:49,320
Speaker 3: that just seems like that is actually, I think, pretty

566
00:29:49,360 --> 00:29:54,120
Speaker 3: perfect satire in a very contained little capsule, because they

567
00:29:54,120 --> 00:29:57,280
Speaker 3: don't seem to be designed for protecting anything that's alive.

568
00:29:57,360 --> 00:29:59,240
Speaker 3: I don't know, maybe the pets in the pet store,

569
00:29:59,560 --> 00:30:03,280
Speaker 3: but the goal appears to be to quote neutralize shoplifters,

570
00:30:04,160 --> 00:30:07,240
Speaker 3: and yet they're called protectors. So I think the branding

571
00:30:07,320 --> 00:30:09,000
Speaker 3: satire is very on point.

572
00:30:09,280 --> 00:30:14,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, like they they want to protect merchandise from perceived thieves,

573
00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:18,000
Speaker 2: even if it means absolutely destroying a store to do it,

574
00:30:18,640 --> 00:30:21,080
Speaker 2: cutting through it with those lasers, rolling through it like

575
00:30:21,160 --> 00:30:22,680
Speaker 2: a tank, whatever, it takes.

576
00:30:23,200 --> 00:30:26,560
Speaker 3: Warning warning, like they see a guy in a mohawk

577
00:30:26,760 --> 00:30:29,520
Speaker 3: just walking by the pet store and their eyes glow red.

578
00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:32,640
Speaker 3: But one of the other things I really like in

579
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:36,040
Speaker 3: this hype speech is that we get McCutcheon starts laying

580
00:30:36,080 --> 00:30:39,719
Speaker 3: out like Chekhov's rules. So he says there are steel

581
00:30:39,760 --> 00:30:42,440
Speaker 3: security doors that lock the mall at night so that

582
00:30:42,480 --> 00:30:44,760
Speaker 3: no one can get in. Of course, the implication is

583
00:30:45,040 --> 00:30:49,960
Speaker 3: or out. You also get the the you get to

584
00:30:49,960 --> 00:30:52,800
Speaker 3: get a divulged that the robots protect the mall itself

585
00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:56,200
Speaker 3: but cannot enter the individual stores, which holds up for

586
00:30:56,240 --> 00:30:59,200
Speaker 3: a bit in the movie. But you can guess this

587
00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:01,800
Speaker 3: will lead to at least a temporary game of mal

588
00:31:01,920 --> 00:31:04,560
Speaker 3: is Lava where you have to hop from store to store.

589
00:31:05,040 --> 00:31:07,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is is again kind of reminiscent of Donna

590
00:31:07,320 --> 00:31:09,600
Speaker 2: the Dad, where there was this idea of like getting

591
00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:11,080
Speaker 2: from one store to the next, and if the store

592
00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:12,680
Speaker 2: was locked out, the zombies couldn't get in.

593
00:31:13,080 --> 00:31:16,320
Speaker 3: Yeah. And then also they will supposedly not harm anyone

594
00:31:16,320 --> 00:31:18,360
Speaker 3: who has a security badge. So I will say it

595
00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:20,520
Speaker 3: sets up both of these rules, and they hold for

596
00:31:20,600 --> 00:31:22,800
Speaker 3: about a third of the movie, and then do not.

597
00:31:23,080 --> 00:31:26,120
Speaker 2: Hold right, and there's yeah, there's not. Well, there is

598
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:28,280
Speaker 2: one reason for why it doesn't work, but there's not

599
00:31:28,280 --> 00:31:30,200
Speaker 2: not a lot of time is given to really explaining

600
00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:31,160
Speaker 2: what went wrong here.

601
00:31:31,200 --> 00:31:32,600
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, we got to get to that. But then,

602
00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:36,200
Speaker 3: of course Royce McCutcheon tells us, trust me, absolutely nothing

603
00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:39,640
Speaker 3: can go wrong. Then we cut to an opening credit

604
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:43,480
Speaker 3: sequence that is dynamite, So you got this synth sequence

605
00:31:43,560 --> 00:31:47,720
Speaker 3: or terminator music, and just vignettes from the galleria. We

606
00:31:48,200 --> 00:31:51,760
Speaker 3: witness this lady navigating a crowded food court full of

607
00:31:51,840 --> 00:31:54,600
Speaker 3: rude people pushing around, and she's got a tray full

608
00:31:54,640 --> 00:31:59,440
Speaker 3: of meatball subs and these gallon sized Coca Cola cups. Yeah,

609
00:31:59,480 --> 00:32:02,240
Speaker 3: and then go to an arcade in which adult men

610
00:32:02,320 --> 00:32:04,440
Speaker 3: are shoving children out of the way for a turn

611
00:32:04,480 --> 00:32:07,880
Speaker 3: at the Defender cabinet. There are a bunch of beauty

612
00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:11,920
Speaker 3: pageant contestants in bikinis just going up and down the escalators.

613
00:32:12,560 --> 00:32:15,400
Speaker 3: We see a makeout sash happening on one of the

614
00:32:15,440 --> 00:32:19,200
Speaker 3: benches down on the lower level that seems actually kind

615
00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:22,600
Speaker 3: of sweet, and then it's, I don't know, the whole

616
00:32:22,600 --> 00:32:23,680
Speaker 3: thing's very glorious.

617
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:28,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is like the dream of Mall America presented

618
00:32:28,200 --> 00:32:31,800
Speaker 2: to you, like the idea, the ideal mall experience.

619
00:32:32,240 --> 00:32:34,520
Speaker 3: But eventually, of course we're going to meet some youths

620
00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:37,200
Speaker 3: who work in the mall, and I think these are

621
00:32:37,240 --> 00:32:41,320
Speaker 3: basically our main character is as you alluded to earlier,

622
00:32:41,600 --> 00:32:44,440
Speaker 3: it really is not even worth trying to distinguish them

623
00:32:44,440 --> 00:32:47,640
Speaker 3: all that much, and they're just like they're teens who

624
00:32:47,680 --> 00:32:49,160
Speaker 3: are up to no good. There are a couple of

625
00:32:49,160 --> 00:32:51,680
Speaker 3: girls who work in a pizza parlor. There are some

626
00:32:51,800 --> 00:32:54,920
Speaker 3: bad boys who work in a furniture store, or maybe

627
00:32:54,960 --> 00:32:56,600
Speaker 3: it's a department store. I don't know. It's just got

628
00:32:56,640 --> 00:32:59,240
Speaker 3: a lot of stuff in it, but mainly furniture. In

629
00:32:59,280 --> 00:33:02,080
Speaker 3: the furniture are planning a party. They are going to

630
00:33:02,120 --> 00:33:04,600
Speaker 3: get some beer and then they're gonna get up to

631
00:33:04,680 --> 00:33:07,360
Speaker 3: no good in the store after hours. And there's a

632
00:33:07,360 --> 00:33:11,320
Speaker 3: great scene where one of the main three guys you

633
00:33:11,360 --> 00:33:13,920
Speaker 3: meet at first is like, you've got your low confidence nerd,

634
00:33:14,400 --> 00:33:17,760
Speaker 3: and then you've got this preppy izod chipmunk guy who

635
00:33:17,800 --> 00:33:20,840
Speaker 3: looks like he's gonna go pledge Delta house. And then

636
00:33:20,960 --> 00:33:24,760
Speaker 3: you've got the knuckleneck jock bully, the terleski guy who

637
00:33:24,800 --> 00:33:28,360
Speaker 3: is just exquisite. And there's a great part where they're

638
00:33:28,400 --> 00:33:31,920
Speaker 3: trying to talk the nerd into partying, and eventually they

639
00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:35,080
Speaker 3: win him over and he's like, okay, okay, let's party.

640
00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:39,880
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I mean, basically, true to form, you know

641
00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:43,440
Speaker 2: that the nerdiest guy and the nerdiest girl are going

642
00:33:43,520 --> 00:33:46,440
Speaker 2: to be the ones that survive. And really this is

643
00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:51,600
Speaker 2: cemented when as the party progresses, everybody else is making

644
00:33:51,640 --> 00:33:55,080
Speaker 2: out and whatnot, but these two are settled in on

645
00:33:55,160 --> 00:33:58,520
Speaker 2: a couch in the furniture store and what are they

646
00:33:58,560 --> 00:33:59,360
Speaker 2: watching on the TV?

647
00:33:59,760 --> 00:34:02,200
Speaker 3: Oh? Man, it's Attack of the Crab Monsters. This was

648
00:34:02,240 --> 00:34:06,040
Speaker 3: one of my favorite moments in the movie. Wait, what

649
00:34:06,040 --> 00:34:07,440
Speaker 3: did you think about this when you saw it?

650
00:34:07,720 --> 00:34:10,200
Speaker 2: I loved it. I was like, yep, I mean part

651
00:34:10,239 --> 00:34:11,920
Speaker 2: of it, I think is knowing that it's your one

652
00:34:11,920 --> 00:34:14,879
Speaker 2: of your favorite films and yeah, and also that it's

653
00:34:14,920 --> 00:34:18,239
Speaker 2: just there's something about this being a Corman production, and

654
00:34:18,320 --> 00:34:21,520
Speaker 2: like the worship of Corman cinema within the film feels Yeah,

655
00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:22,320
Speaker 2: it feels perfect.

656
00:34:22,800 --> 00:34:25,160
Speaker 3: Yeah. So they're watching Attack of the Crab Monster is

657
00:34:25,160 --> 00:34:29,600
Speaker 3: a late fifties Corman classic drive in movie classic. I

658
00:34:29,600 --> 00:34:31,960
Speaker 3: think I mentioned it already earlier on. It's like sixty

659
00:34:32,040 --> 00:34:35,600
Speaker 3: minutes long. It's about giant psychic crabs that are created

660
00:34:35,640 --> 00:34:38,640
Speaker 3: by atomic radiation. And they're not just watching the movie,

661
00:34:38,680 --> 00:34:41,520
Speaker 3: they're also watching the best scene in the movie, which

662
00:34:41,560 --> 00:34:43,680
Speaker 3: is the part right at the end after the heroes

663
00:34:43,760 --> 00:34:47,200
Speaker 3: blow off one of the crab's giant claws. The psychic

664
00:34:47,280 --> 00:34:50,520
Speaker 3: crab taunts them by saying, so you have wounded me

665
00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:54,000
Speaker 3: very well. I will grow a new claw, but will

666
00:34:54,040 --> 00:34:57,080
Speaker 3: you grow new lives when I have taken yours from you?

667
00:34:58,640 --> 00:35:01,800
Speaker 3: That my friends is Corn and screenwriter Charles B. Griffith

668
00:35:01,920 --> 00:35:05,920
Speaker 3: at his finest. And I don't know, it's hard to

669
00:35:05,960 --> 00:35:08,480
Speaker 3: explain exactly why I love it so much, But I

670
00:35:08,480 --> 00:35:11,040
Speaker 3: think also Charles B. Griffith, if he had wanted to,

671
00:35:11,440 --> 00:35:14,160
Speaker 3: could have written an amazing shopping mall killbot movie.

672
00:35:14,440 --> 00:35:15,600
Speaker 2: Yeah.

673
00:35:15,680 --> 00:35:17,720
Speaker 3: Oh, but I guess we should comment on what exactly

674
00:35:17,760 --> 00:35:20,040
Speaker 3: the inciting incident of the plot is. So we've got

675
00:35:20,040 --> 00:35:22,120
Speaker 3: teens up to no good. They're getting into trouble in

676
00:35:22,160 --> 00:35:25,560
Speaker 3: the furniture store, and then lightning strikes the mall.

677
00:35:25,640 --> 00:35:27,960
Speaker 2: Literally, this is the same thing that happened last week.

678
00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:30,920
Speaker 3: And yes, exactly the coast in the machine, the exact

679
00:35:30,960 --> 00:35:34,880
Speaker 3: same plot device. There's a lightning storm, there's a power surge,

680
00:35:35,080 --> 00:35:37,960
Speaker 3: and then machines go nuts and start killing people. And

681
00:35:37,960 --> 00:35:41,040
Speaker 3: that's exactly what happens here. Lightning strikes the mall. We

682
00:35:41,040 --> 00:35:42,719
Speaker 3: didn't plan it this way, did we. I think it

683
00:35:42,840 --> 00:35:44,000
Speaker 3: just total lightning.

684
00:35:44,040 --> 00:35:45,440
Speaker 2: It somehow struck twice.

685
00:35:45,760 --> 00:35:50,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so lightning strikes the protectors start killing. They

686
00:35:52,080 --> 00:35:54,960
Speaker 3: start with the mall security technician who is examining a

687
00:35:54,960 --> 00:35:58,400
Speaker 3: Playboy magazine so intensely that he does not notice that

688
00:35:58,440 --> 00:36:01,239
Speaker 3: the bots have started going biserve and you know they've

689
00:36:01,280 --> 00:36:04,440
Speaker 3: gone into kill mode and so they stab him with

690
00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:07,799
Speaker 3: their pincers. At some point around here, we also meet

691
00:36:07,840 --> 00:36:10,000
Speaker 3: a nice couple who are having car trouble and they're

692
00:36:10,040 --> 00:36:13,200
Speaker 3: going to end up at the party later. But they're

693
00:36:13,200 --> 00:36:16,160
Speaker 3: not Mall employees. I guess that doesn't really matter. That's

694
00:36:16,280 --> 00:36:19,239
Speaker 3: just yeah, But at this point, you've got basically all

695
00:36:19,280 --> 00:36:21,000
Speaker 3: your pieces on the board. You've got a bunch of

696
00:36:21,040 --> 00:36:24,480
Speaker 3: rowdy youths they're up to after hours misbehavior. You've got

697
00:36:24,480 --> 00:36:27,960
Speaker 3: security robots gone berserk, and the plot is pretty simple

698
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:30,839
Speaker 3: after that, like you can imagine exactly what happens. It's

699
00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:34,680
Speaker 3: your standard slasher trash in basic content, but as I said,

700
00:36:34,760 --> 00:36:38,000
Speaker 3: this really does transcend most other slasher trash of its

701
00:36:38,120 --> 00:36:41,480
Speaker 3: kind just by having a superior sense of humor and

702
00:36:41,520 --> 00:36:44,920
Speaker 3: self awareness. And I think I described it already as

703
00:36:44,920 --> 00:36:47,520
Speaker 3: sour cream and onion flavored. It might even be salt

704
00:36:47,560 --> 00:36:48,560
Speaker 3: and vinegar. I don't know.

705
00:36:50,800 --> 00:36:52,919
Speaker 2: But to your point, like, basically what's going to happen

706
00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:55,440
Speaker 2: is you're gonna have kill after kill, with the kill

707
00:36:55,480 --> 00:36:59,520
Speaker 2: circle ever closing around our main characters, and then they're

708
00:36:59,520 --> 00:37:01,440
Speaker 2: gonna have to back right.

709
00:37:01,520 --> 00:37:05,600
Speaker 3: U though the main characters are kind of resourceful in

710
00:37:05,640 --> 00:37:08,040
Speaker 3: this movie compared to the I mean, in a lot

711
00:37:08,080 --> 00:37:10,520
Speaker 3: of slasher movies, the kids are just kind of bumbling

712
00:37:10,560 --> 00:37:14,040
Speaker 3: around and then they're like, oh what, oh, it's Jason Lack.

713
00:37:14,800 --> 00:37:17,800
Speaker 3: But in this movie, they're they're proactive. They set traps,

714
00:37:17,840 --> 00:37:20,480
Speaker 3: they try to do clever things to defeat the robots,

715
00:37:20,480 --> 00:37:21,720
Speaker 3: and they sometimes succeed.

716
00:37:22,320 --> 00:37:24,319
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, for instance, that one of the first

717
00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:27,160
Speaker 2: things they do is they go to the gun store

718
00:37:27,520 --> 00:37:28,719
Speaker 2: in the mall and.

719
00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:32,800
Speaker 3: They just called it's called Pecan Pause and it's a

720
00:37:32,840 --> 00:37:34,440
Speaker 3: wall to wall firearms.

721
00:37:35,160 --> 00:37:37,600
Speaker 2: That's well, that's that's that's actually kind of clever pecking pods.

722
00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:41,880
Speaker 2: But but yeah, they they just they really arm themselves

723
00:37:42,040 --> 00:37:44,680
Speaker 2: and and set out like, yeah, we're gonna wage war

724
00:37:44,800 --> 00:37:47,800
Speaker 2: against these uh, against these robots.

725
00:37:48,640 --> 00:37:51,520
Speaker 3: One detail I like is that after the furniture boys

726
00:37:51,560 --> 00:37:54,680
Speaker 3: collect their guns, you can see they've also put some

727
00:37:54,760 --> 00:37:58,560
Speaker 3: kind of putty into their outer ear canals. And I

728
00:37:58,560 --> 00:38:00,959
Speaker 3: don't know if that's actually advisable in this scenario, because

729
00:38:00,960 --> 00:38:02,719
Speaker 3: it might make it easier for a killbot to sort

730
00:38:02,719 --> 00:38:05,560
Speaker 3: of roll up on you from behind. But it's interesting.

731
00:38:05,600 --> 00:38:07,680
Speaker 3: This is one of the only movies I've ever seen

732
00:38:07,719 --> 00:38:11,720
Speaker 3: where characters are preparing to use firearms and they decide

733
00:38:11,760 --> 00:38:13,160
Speaker 3: to go for ear protection.

734
00:38:13,719 --> 00:38:16,719
Speaker 2: It's interesting. It's pretty much the only example of responsible

735
00:38:16,719 --> 00:38:19,920
Speaker 2: firearm use. Only well, I take that back, it's the

736
00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:24,239
Speaker 2: only thing responsible even remotely related to a firearm that

737
00:38:24,320 --> 00:38:27,040
Speaker 2: happens in this movie. But it is notable.

738
00:38:27,320 --> 00:38:29,319
Speaker 3: I don't know why that details in there, but I

739
00:38:29,360 --> 00:38:33,840
Speaker 3: really appreciated it. But yeah, what are some other highlights

740
00:38:33,880 --> 00:38:36,640
Speaker 3: once the carnage starts. Well, obviously there is the Dick

741
00:38:36,680 --> 00:38:39,560
Speaker 3: Miller scene. So we mentioned earlier this actor who's been

742
00:38:39,560 --> 00:38:43,960
Speaker 3: in Corman movie since the sixties. Dick Miller plays a

743
00:38:44,080 --> 00:38:46,640
Speaker 3: janitor in this movie. He's just got one scene, but

744
00:38:46,880 --> 00:38:51,240
Speaker 3: he's pretty great. He's an ornery, disgruntled janitor who's cleaning

745
00:38:51,320 --> 00:38:53,120
Speaker 3: up I don't know what it is. It's like vomit

746
00:38:53,239 --> 00:38:57,040
Speaker 3: or something, and the robot rolls up on him and

747
00:38:57,160 --> 00:39:00,160
Speaker 3: he gets he gets fresh with the robot and the

748
00:39:00,239 --> 00:39:01,800
Speaker 3: robot electrocutes him.

749
00:39:02,040 --> 00:39:03,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the robot kind of picked a fight

750
00:39:03,719 --> 00:39:06,480
Speaker 2: with him. It like knocks over a bucket. It's a

751
00:39:06,520 --> 00:39:10,800
Speaker 2: weird scene. Yeah. So yeah, that's one of the early kills.

752
00:39:10,880 --> 00:39:13,960
Speaker 2: Just to get things rolling and of course, throughout this,

753
00:39:14,080 --> 00:39:16,920
Speaker 2: we're still in the mall, and one of my favorite

754
00:39:16,920 --> 00:39:19,280
Speaker 2: things is just trying to read the names of stores

755
00:39:19,320 --> 00:39:24,240
Speaker 2: in the background, one of which is House of Almonds.

756
00:39:25,080 --> 00:39:26,920
Speaker 2: Like the first time you see you're not sure. You're like,

757
00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:29,120
Speaker 2: is that House of Almonds? And then you see it

758
00:39:29,160 --> 00:39:32,360
Speaker 2: several times more and you're like, yes, there's there. Apparently

759
00:39:32,480 --> 00:39:35,480
Speaker 2: was a store called House of Almonds. I tried to

760
00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:39,040
Speaker 2: find some hard details about it. I couldn't, but I

761
00:39:39,120 --> 00:39:41,480
Speaker 2: guess this was a real store. I guess they only

762
00:39:41,520 --> 00:39:45,800
Speaker 2: sold almonds and almond derivative products and like almond based

763
00:39:45,840 --> 00:39:47,200
Speaker 2: candies or something.

764
00:39:47,360 --> 00:39:49,400
Speaker 3: That's kind of store where you get cyanide poisoning.

765
00:39:49,760 --> 00:39:50,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess.

766
00:39:51,560 --> 00:39:56,080
Speaker 3: No, Wait, so they're used to That's just hard to imagine.

767
00:39:56,120 --> 00:39:59,640
Speaker 3: That's too specific to be a real business model, you'd think.

768
00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:01,680
Speaker 2: But I mean, like I say, I wasn't able to

769
00:40:01,680 --> 00:40:04,479
Speaker 2: find any hard details about this. Perhaps listeners can write

770
00:40:04,520 --> 00:40:07,040
Speaker 2: in about this, did you ever work at a House

771
00:40:07,080 --> 00:40:09,120
Speaker 2: of Almonds? Did you own House of Almonds?

772
00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:11,400
Speaker 3: But tell us about the fall of the House of Almonds.

773
00:40:12,280 --> 00:40:15,200
Speaker 2: I did see some photos online of what looked like

774
00:40:15,239 --> 00:40:18,240
Speaker 2: the interiors and in one case exterior of a store

775
00:40:18,560 --> 00:40:21,239
Speaker 2: with the name House of Almonds, and it looks like

776
00:40:21,320 --> 00:40:24,480
Speaker 2: it was like almond candies and stuff. So I don't know.

777
00:40:25,040 --> 00:40:26,239
Speaker 2: I mean, it sounds nuts but.

778
00:40:30,600 --> 00:40:33,120
Speaker 3: So unintentional or okay, I don't know.

779
00:40:33,160 --> 00:40:37,839
Speaker 2: It's it seems appropriate given given shopping mall. Again, this

780
00:40:37,920 --> 00:40:40,200
Speaker 2: is where where shopping will cost you an arm and

781
00:40:40,200 --> 00:40:50,640
Speaker 2: a leg. Remember right again, I'd say I mentioned earlier

782
00:40:50,719 --> 00:40:53,040
Speaker 2: that the mall in this case, and I forget where

783
00:40:53,040 --> 00:40:55,480
Speaker 2: they actually filmed. This is an actual mall obviously, but

784
00:40:56,000 --> 00:40:59,840
Speaker 2: it's three stories of mall and it has some gorgeous

785
00:41:00,760 --> 00:41:04,279
Speaker 2: and some walkways, so of course it has some some

786
00:41:04,360 --> 00:41:07,680
Speaker 2: stunts where people fall and do these big, big, enormous

787
00:41:07,719 --> 00:41:09,479
Speaker 2: falls through the center of the mall.

788
00:41:09,960 --> 00:41:12,319
Speaker 3: Yeah. Eyad boy at one point gets knocked over the

789
00:41:12,360 --> 00:41:15,600
Speaker 3: railing and goes splatt you know three floors below. That's

790
00:41:15,600 --> 00:41:16,080
Speaker 3: pretty good.

791
00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:19,280
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And I think I read that the director

792
00:41:19,560 --> 00:41:22,799
Speaker 2: Jim he like test drove one of the stunts, like

793
00:41:23,040 --> 00:41:25,800
Speaker 2: to prove that it was safe or something, and I

794
00:41:25,840 --> 00:41:27,719
Speaker 2: think he ended up like breaking a rib in it.

795
00:41:27,800 --> 00:41:33,480
Speaker 2: So oh, but the stunts look good, uh, and they

796
00:41:33,520 --> 00:41:36,440
Speaker 2: make good use of the space, apparently they This is

797
00:41:36,440 --> 00:41:37,840
Speaker 2: one of those films where yeh. They filmed it in

798
00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:40,640
Speaker 2: the actual mall at night when nobody else was there.

799
00:41:41,000 --> 00:41:43,320
Speaker 2: And yeah, they're firing off guns, they're setting portions of

800
00:41:43,360 --> 00:41:46,959
Speaker 2: the floor on fire. They're using and lean a couple

801
00:41:46,960 --> 00:41:49,759
Speaker 2: of cases at least they're using I guess phony storefronts

802
00:41:49,800 --> 00:41:52,960
Speaker 2: turned into fake stores and then driving robots through them.

803
00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:54,280
Speaker 2: It's it's pretty great.

804
00:41:54,400 --> 00:41:56,680
Speaker 3: Well, I wish we'd figured out before we started recording.

805
00:41:56,680 --> 00:41:58,680
Speaker 3: But we should look up after this which mall it

806
00:41:58,840 --> 00:42:02,480
Speaker 3: was and figure out if it's the same mall as Commando,

807
00:42:02,600 --> 00:42:05,040
Speaker 3: because if so, I definitely want to receive the Eagle

808
00:42:05,080 --> 00:42:06,040
Speaker 3: Eye Prize for the week.

809
00:42:06,400 --> 00:42:08,200
Speaker 2: Well, I can tell you now, Joe thinks of the

810
00:42:08,200 --> 00:42:10,600
Speaker 2: power of the Internet. It was filmed at Sherman Oaks

811
00:42:10,640 --> 00:42:13,080
Speaker 2: Galleria in Los Angeles, California.

812
00:42:13,440 --> 00:42:17,160
Speaker 3: Wait a second, and it was used in multiple films.

813
00:42:17,200 --> 00:42:19,400
Speaker 2: So night of the comment Commando.

814
00:42:19,280 --> 00:42:23,279
Speaker 3: Command Yes, yes, yes, what do I win? What do

815
00:42:23,400 --> 00:42:25,279
Speaker 3: I win? Tell them Barbara.

816
00:42:27,560 --> 00:42:29,719
Speaker 2: Well, you get to learn that it was also where

817
00:42:29,719 --> 00:42:34,360
Speaker 2: they spill filmed Innerspace parts of Innerspace Fast Times at

818
00:42:34,400 --> 00:42:38,160
Speaker 2: Ridgemont High multiple films. So apparently it's just an easy

819
00:42:38,160 --> 00:42:40,240
Speaker 2: place to film Back in the day.

820
00:42:40,400 --> 00:42:43,239
Speaker 3: I had such a strong feeling. Man, I feel vindicated.

821
00:42:43,280 --> 00:42:45,120
Speaker 3: I'm going to be this is going to be coursing

822
00:42:45,160 --> 00:42:46,640
Speaker 3: through my veins rest of the day.

823
00:42:47,160 --> 00:42:48,520
Speaker 2: Let's see what else do they do to make use

824
00:42:48,560 --> 00:42:51,120
Speaker 2: of the space. There's use of the elevator. They make

825
00:42:51,160 --> 00:42:55,799
Speaker 2: an elaborate robot trap using the elevator. They have kilbots

826
00:42:55,880 --> 00:42:57,840
Speaker 2: using the escalators.

827
00:42:57,920 --> 00:42:58,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's great.

828
00:42:59,160 --> 00:43:01,440
Speaker 2: Which is a great scene because you know from earlier,

829
00:43:01,480 --> 00:43:03,879
Speaker 2: you know about the size of the robot's torso there's

830
00:43:03,880 --> 00:43:06,759
Speaker 2: no way that that thing's fitting on an escalator. But

831
00:43:07,280 --> 00:43:09,680
Speaker 2: through the magic of cinema, it manages.

832
00:43:09,960 --> 00:43:13,160
Speaker 3: M hmm. There's one part after they blow up one

833
00:43:13,160 --> 00:43:15,719
Speaker 3: of the robots in an elevator trap, which which is

834
00:43:15,760 --> 00:43:18,480
Speaker 3: a great sequence, I thought. And they're they're laying low

835
00:43:18,520 --> 00:43:20,480
Speaker 3: in a hideout. I think maybe they've gone back to

836
00:43:20,760 --> 00:43:23,399
Speaker 3: I don't know, the pizza parlor or something, and they're

837
00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:27,239
Speaker 3: sitting around drinking diet coke and it looks like one

838
00:43:27,280 --> 00:43:30,120
Speaker 3: of them is drinking Tabasco sauce, just because there are

839
00:43:30,200 --> 00:43:33,160
Speaker 3: drink cans and bottles on the table and then right

840
00:43:33,200 --> 00:43:35,480
Speaker 3: among them is a bottle of Tabasco sauce. That was

841
00:43:35,520 --> 00:43:36,120
Speaker 3: funny to me.

842
00:43:38,040 --> 00:43:40,759
Speaker 2: Let's say so yeah, basically, they regroup, they put the

843
00:43:40,800 --> 00:43:44,520
Speaker 2: fight to the robots, they set robot traps, and just

844
00:43:44,560 --> 00:43:46,640
Speaker 2: when you're thinking that all of the shooting at robots

845
00:43:46,719 --> 00:43:49,600
Speaker 2: is going absolutely nowhere, one of them does manage to

846
00:43:49,719 --> 00:43:53,640
Speaker 2: disable the killer lasers on one of the killbots with

847
00:43:53,840 --> 00:43:56,880
Speaker 2: their gun, So you have to give them credit for that.

848
00:43:58,320 --> 00:44:00,640
Speaker 2: Did we mention that there's a great headed explosion in

849
00:44:00,680 --> 00:44:03,400
Speaker 2: this one of the female victims of her head explodes

850
00:44:03,400 --> 00:44:04,520
Speaker 2: when she's shot with the laser.

851
00:44:04,680 --> 00:44:09,120
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Terleski's girlfriend here. Her head explodes when she

852
00:44:09,120 --> 00:44:10,120
Speaker 3: gets shot with a laser.

853
00:44:10,560 --> 00:44:13,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is It's good. It's not too grizzly. It's

854
00:44:13,760 --> 00:44:17,360
Speaker 2: not like Scanner's level head burst. It's well.

855
00:44:17,400 --> 00:44:19,600
Speaker 3: Also, at the in the end credits, when they're like

856
00:44:19,640 --> 00:44:22,160
Speaker 3: showing all the actors goofing around and then showing the

857
00:44:22,480 --> 00:44:25,239
Speaker 3: actor's name and the character they play, the clip they

858
00:44:25,239 --> 00:44:27,120
Speaker 3: pick for everybody else is just kind of like, hey,

859
00:44:27,160 --> 00:44:29,560
Speaker 3: what's up hanging out on set? But the clip they

860
00:44:29,600 --> 00:44:34,240
Speaker 3: show for her is her head exploding. There is another

861
00:44:34,280 --> 00:44:38,040
Speaker 3: thing that I really enjoyed, which is that toward the

862
00:44:38,200 --> 00:44:41,240
Speaker 3: end we get down to our final girl of the movie,

863
00:44:41,280 --> 00:44:44,000
Speaker 3: who is the nice girl from early on who worked

864
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:46,640
Speaker 3: at the pizza parlor, the one who was watching attack

865
00:44:46,680 --> 00:44:49,480
Speaker 3: at the Crab Monsters with the nerdy boy. But it

866
00:44:49,480 --> 00:44:51,799
Speaker 3: turns out she's a very good shot. She explains that

867
00:44:51,840 --> 00:44:54,239
Speaker 3: her dad was a marine and she's in fact a

868
00:44:54,280 --> 00:44:58,319
Speaker 3: real Annie Oakley with that revolver, and so she's been

869
00:44:58,360 --> 00:45:00,520
Speaker 3: running around shooting at the robot. At one point, she

870
00:45:00,560 --> 00:45:04,759
Speaker 3: gets chased into a pet store and just snakes and

871
00:45:04,840 --> 00:45:09,000
Speaker 3: tarantulas are spilled all over her while she's trying to hide.

872
00:45:09,080 --> 00:45:11,279
Speaker 3: It's a little implausible, but I like it.

873
00:45:11,880 --> 00:45:14,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, it feels kind of perfect. I was thinking about

874
00:45:14,600 --> 00:45:16,319
Speaker 2: this earlier. When I think back on some of the

875
00:45:16,360 --> 00:45:18,279
Speaker 2: kids who like to hang out in the mall, I

876
00:45:18,280 --> 00:45:20,279
Speaker 2: feel like, yeah, these are the kids that would have

877
00:45:20,280 --> 00:45:22,880
Speaker 2: wanted to own snakes and tarantula. So it makes sense,

878
00:45:22,920 --> 00:45:25,359
Speaker 2: you know, hang out of the metal store, buy your

879
00:45:25,960 --> 00:45:29,279
Speaker 2: metal t shirts, and then go over and buy a tarantula.

880
00:45:29,800 --> 00:45:34,600
Speaker 3: Right. I just bought a twenty four dollars copy of

881
00:45:34,640 --> 00:45:38,560
Speaker 3: The Fragile by nine inch Nails and Camelot Music, and

882
00:45:39,480 --> 00:45:41,880
Speaker 3: now it's time to go get some food for my tarantula.

883
00:45:42,320 --> 00:45:46,480
Speaker 2: Yes, so ultimately they're able to overcome the robots. They

884
00:45:46,480 --> 00:45:48,239
Speaker 2: blow up the last of the robots. So there is

885
00:45:48,280 --> 00:45:50,839
Speaker 2: a stinger at the end where a robot comes up

886
00:45:51,160 --> 00:45:53,880
Speaker 2: and says have a nice day or something to that effect,

887
00:45:54,440 --> 00:45:58,120
Speaker 2: which I guess keeps the dream alive. And for my part,

888
00:45:58,160 --> 00:46:00,680
Speaker 2: I can't help but wonder what could have been. You know,

889
00:46:00,680 --> 00:46:02,719
Speaker 2: if they'd made a sequel to this, there's so many

890
00:46:02,719 --> 00:46:04,719
Speaker 2: directions they could have gone in. They could have gone

891
00:46:04,760 --> 00:46:06,840
Speaker 2: in a Christmas direction. Wouldn't that have been perfect to

892
00:46:06,920 --> 00:46:12,080
Speaker 2: have a holiday chopping mall picture where it's I don't know,

893
00:46:12,120 --> 00:46:13,879
Speaker 2: maybe it's the same mall, maybe it's a different mall,

894
00:46:13,920 --> 00:46:16,000
Speaker 2: but you have the kill bots. Maybe you have a

895
00:46:16,120 --> 00:46:19,080
Speaker 2: killer robot. Santa got a Santa hat? Yes, yeah, it

896
00:46:19,160 --> 00:46:20,719
Speaker 2: put a sand hat on it. There's so much you

897
00:46:20,760 --> 00:46:21,080
Speaker 2: could do.

898
00:46:21,760 --> 00:46:22,960
Speaker 3: I totally agree.

899
00:46:23,480 --> 00:46:27,040
Speaker 2: Crossover with Donna the Dead perhaps where you have zombies

900
00:46:27,080 --> 00:46:27,920
Speaker 2: and kill bots.

901
00:46:28,080 --> 00:46:30,120
Speaker 3: I don't know, but you can pit them against each other.

902
00:46:30,480 --> 00:46:32,040
Speaker 3: That's smart. That's a good idea.

903
00:46:32,560 --> 00:46:34,880
Speaker 2: But I mean, sadly it never came to be. This

904
00:46:35,360 --> 00:46:38,719
Speaker 2: is the chopping mall we have, and it works well.

905
00:46:38,760 --> 00:46:42,040
Speaker 2: It's a very enjoyable, brisk seventy seven minutes.

906
00:46:42,880 --> 00:46:45,040
Speaker 3: You know, there is nothing about this film that's really

907
00:46:45,040 --> 00:46:47,680
Speaker 3: all that deep or thoughtful, but I would still say,

908
00:46:47,680 --> 00:46:50,160
Speaker 3: even at a very shallow level, it makes a pretty

909
00:46:50,160 --> 00:46:53,040
Speaker 3: compelling case against autonomous lethal robots.

910
00:46:53,600 --> 00:46:54,520
Speaker 2: Yeah.

911
00:46:54,719 --> 00:46:57,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, I sort of so highlighting some of the inherent

912
00:46:58,040 --> 00:47:02,080
Speaker 3: dangers there. You don't really wants something that I don't

913
00:47:02,120 --> 00:47:05,440
Speaker 3: know has lethal capabilities and could malfunction, and there's not

914
00:47:05,600 --> 00:47:08,240
Speaker 3: like a human operator in the middle to take responsibility

915
00:47:08,239 --> 00:47:08,879
Speaker 3: for what it does.

916
00:47:09,480 --> 00:47:11,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, though there is early on. I mean, certainly that

917
00:47:11,880 --> 00:47:14,800
Speaker 2: guy reading the Playboy and with the half eaten doughnut,

918
00:47:15,800 --> 00:47:17,319
Speaker 2: you know, he is the what they I think they

919
00:47:17,400 --> 00:47:19,719
Speaker 2: still referred to as the man in the loop on

920
00:47:19,760 --> 00:47:21,799
Speaker 2: a semi apanomous system. You know, he's the one that's

921
00:47:21,840 --> 00:47:24,520
Speaker 2: supposed to be keeping track, you know, checking in at

922
00:47:24,640 --> 00:47:26,799
Speaker 2: least every thirty minutes to see if the bots have

923
00:47:26,960 --> 00:47:31,680
Speaker 2: killed anybody. But then, of course all that gets thrown

924
00:47:31,719 --> 00:47:33,960
Speaker 2: out the window when the bots get all juiced up

925
00:47:33,960 --> 00:47:35,120
Speaker 2: on lightning and take him out.

926
00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:39,360
Speaker 3: I mean, I can't honestly say my feelings about autonomous

927
00:47:39,400 --> 00:47:42,440
Speaker 3: lethal robots have really changed due to this movie, but

928
00:47:42,800 --> 00:47:45,120
Speaker 3: I'm vibing with it basically.

929
00:47:45,840 --> 00:47:49,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I said, I feel like the strongest thing

930
00:47:50,040 --> 00:47:53,040
Speaker 2: the things that resonate about this movie are mostly nostalgic,

931
00:47:53,719 --> 00:47:57,040
Speaker 2: making one think about the mall and what the place

932
00:47:57,080 --> 00:48:02,080
Speaker 2: that the mall had in the American experience of the time,

933
00:48:02,120 --> 00:48:04,600
Speaker 2: certainly in the eighties and nineties, and I guess there's

934
00:48:04,640 --> 00:48:06,880
Speaker 2: less of it today. But though there are malls still around,

935
00:48:06,960 --> 00:48:10,160
Speaker 2: people still go to them, or at least they did

936
00:48:10,280 --> 00:48:14,800
Speaker 2: so they yeah, I mean they still sometimes film movies

937
00:48:14,840 --> 00:48:18,719
Speaker 2: and TV shows in them, so they exist, and they're

938
00:48:18,719 --> 00:48:23,359
Speaker 2: really just begging for there to be another chopping mall

939
00:48:23,440 --> 00:48:26,239
Speaker 2: movie filmed there. I think the sky is the limit.

940
00:48:26,760 --> 00:48:29,680
Speaker 3: Okay, if the moist air of the real life galleria

941
00:48:29,800 --> 00:48:33,680
Speaker 3: evaporates and forms a mist, that is vapor wave. But

942
00:48:33,800 --> 00:48:37,160
Speaker 3: then that mist condenses on a window pane and rolls

943
00:48:37,239 --> 00:48:40,279
Speaker 3: down and makes a puddle on the window sill, that

944
00:48:40,719 --> 00:48:43,120
Speaker 3: newly liquidized water is chopping mall.

945
00:48:45,960 --> 00:48:49,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's it's a good one. And let's see

946
00:48:49,360 --> 00:48:50,960
Speaker 2: if you want to check this one out for yourself.

947
00:48:51,160 --> 00:48:53,279
Speaker 2: This is one of those you can find pretty much

948
00:48:53,280 --> 00:48:57,239
Speaker 2: anywhere you get your your digital media these days. I

949
00:48:57,280 --> 00:48:59,440
Speaker 2: watched it on Amazon Prime. In fact, I watch it

950
00:48:59,520 --> 00:49:03,959
Speaker 2: on Amazon Prime with a handful of listeners to the show.

951
00:49:04,040 --> 00:49:07,200
Speaker 2: So if you were on that particular viewing. Thanks. Maybe

952
00:49:07,239 --> 00:49:08,760
Speaker 2: we'll try and do one of those again in the future.

953
00:49:08,880 --> 00:49:12,279
Speaker 2: Was pretty fun. But there's also a Blu ray of

954
00:49:12,320 --> 00:49:15,719
Speaker 2: this one, I believe from Vestron Video, and I've not

955
00:49:15,960 --> 00:49:18,000
Speaker 2: tried it out for myself, but it's really packed. It

956
00:49:18,040 --> 00:49:20,880
Speaker 2: has like three different audio commentaries on it and a

957
00:49:20,880 --> 00:49:23,240
Speaker 2: ton of extra features. So if you want to really

958
00:49:23,280 --> 00:49:25,799
Speaker 2: go in deep on shopping mall, well that's what you

959
00:49:25,800 --> 00:49:27,000
Speaker 2: got to put on your Christmas list.

960
00:49:27,400 --> 00:49:29,759
Speaker 3: Oh that's interesting just looking it up. I would have

961
00:49:29,840 --> 00:49:32,839
Speaker 3: assumed that Scream Factory would get their hands on this,

962
00:49:33,120 --> 00:49:34,920
Speaker 3: but it looks like not.

963
00:49:35,760 --> 00:49:39,440
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, as long as we're talking about where to

964
00:49:39,480 --> 00:49:43,520
Speaker 2: get movies and also things like shopping malls that you

965
00:49:43,920 --> 00:49:46,040
Speaker 2: may not encounter as much anymore, we should we should

966
00:49:46,040 --> 00:49:49,240
Speaker 2: take another moment to talk about video rental stores because

967
00:49:49,280 --> 00:49:51,960
Speaker 2: on the show before we have mentioned we have plugged

968
00:49:52,200 --> 00:49:55,919
Speaker 2: Atlanta's only video rental store, video Drome, and I would

969
00:49:56,000 --> 00:49:59,000
Speaker 2: like to do so again because not only for any

970
00:49:59,040 --> 00:50:01,800
Speaker 2: of our Atlanta listeners who want to actually rent a

971
00:50:01,880 --> 00:50:05,600
Speaker 2: DVD or a Blu ray of a film and under

972
00:50:05,640 --> 00:50:08,960
Speaker 2: certain circumstances, actually walk the halls, the hallowed halls of

973
00:50:09,040 --> 00:50:11,319
Speaker 2: video Drum. I want to also point out that if

974
00:50:11,360 --> 00:50:15,240
Speaker 2: you are not an Atlanta area human, you can still

975
00:50:15,400 --> 00:50:19,320
Speaker 2: check out their merch store, which is at videodrome dot tv.

976
00:50:19,800 --> 00:50:24,759
Speaker 2: Their main website is videodromeatl dot com, but videodrome dot

977
00:50:24,840 --> 00:50:26,320
Speaker 2: tv is a place where you can get like a

978
00:50:26,360 --> 00:50:30,280
Speaker 2: shirt with their logo on it, stuff like that, stickers, patches.

979
00:50:30,680 --> 00:50:31,399
Speaker 2: It's pretty fun.

980
00:50:31,719 --> 00:50:33,960
Speaker 3: Videodrome is like a store that would be in the

981
00:50:33,960 --> 00:50:35,399
Speaker 3: background in Chopping Mall.

982
00:50:35,960 --> 00:50:38,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I would think so, you know, and you

983
00:50:38,480 --> 00:50:40,120
Speaker 2: do feel like you're kind of going back in time

984
00:50:40,160 --> 00:50:43,719
Speaker 2: when you go to Videodrome. I hope to go there

985
00:50:43,760 --> 00:50:47,040
Speaker 2: again soon, in part because some of the movies we

986
00:50:47,120 --> 00:50:49,520
Speaker 2: discussed in Weird Howse Cinema like that's where we have

987
00:50:49,560 --> 00:50:52,320
Speaker 2: to go to find them. Not everything can be obtained

988
00:50:52,360 --> 00:50:55,200
Speaker 2: online and digital streaming form these days, and it's nice

989
00:50:55,280 --> 00:50:58,399
Speaker 2: to have that physical experience of the store. All right,

990
00:50:58,440 --> 00:51:01,080
Speaker 2: we're gonna go ahead and close out on Shopping Mall

991
00:51:01,160 --> 00:51:03,880
Speaker 2: here today, but obviously we would love to hear from everybody.

992
00:51:04,520 --> 00:51:07,040
Speaker 2: What did you think about shopping Mall? Did you watch

993
00:51:07,080 --> 00:51:09,200
Speaker 2: Chopping Mall back in the day. Do you have memories

994
00:51:09,239 --> 00:51:15,080
Speaker 2: of roaming the various malls during your younger years. We'd

995
00:51:15,120 --> 00:51:18,080
Speaker 2: love to hear from everybody on that. Just a reminder

996
00:51:18,080 --> 00:51:21,480
Speaker 2: that Weird House Cinema publishes every Friday in the Stuff

997
00:51:21,480 --> 00:51:24,400
Speaker 2: to Blow Your Mind. Feed Core episodes of Stuff to

998
00:51:24,400 --> 00:51:27,480
Speaker 2: Blow Your Mind continue to publish on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

999
00:51:27,520 --> 00:51:31,000
Speaker 2: Those are our core science and culture episodes, but Friday,

1000
00:51:31,040 --> 00:51:35,480
Speaker 2: Weirdhouse Cinema is our chance to unwind and get into

1001
00:51:35,520 --> 00:51:38,319
Speaker 2: a weird film instead Huge things.

1002
00:51:38,360 --> 00:51:41,600
Speaker 3: As always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.

1003
00:51:41,880 --> 00:51:43,359
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

1004
00:51:43,360 --> 00:51:45,920
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1005
00:51:45,920 --> 00:51:48,040
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

1006
00:51:48,160 --> 00:51:51,160
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

1007
00:51:51,160 --> 00:51:59,480
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

1008
00:52:00,120 --> 00:52:02,880
Speaker 1: To Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For more

1009
00:52:02,920 --> 00:52:06,719
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

1010
00:52:06,719 --> 00:52:08,440
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