Malls, Mayhem, and Murderbots: Celebrating ‘Chopping Mall’ and the Horrors of Retail

On this day in 1986, a gang of sassy teens snuck into the Park Plaza Mall for a night of partying, hook-ups, and maybe a little light property damage. Unfortunately for them, the mall’s new security system wasn’t just state-of-the-art, it was armed, dangerous, and very eager to enforce after-hours rules with deadly precision.

Welcome to Chopping Mall, the gloriously schlocky sci-fi slasher that gave us killer robots, exploding heads, and the absolute blueprint for shopping mall carnage in horror cinema.

Directed by Jim Wynorski and produced by Roger Corman’s wife Julie Corman (yes, that Corman), Chopping Mall took a simple premise – teens locked in a mall with killer security droids – and ran full-tilt into cult-movie gold. With laser-eyed ‘Protectors’ going haywire thanks to a freak lightning storm, the film delivers a perfect cocktail of ‘80s neon, gore, and robot death-ray madness.

But what’s endured just as strongly as the mayhem is the cast—particularly two genre icons who’ve never stepped away from the horror spotlight. Kelli Maroney (as final girl Alison Parks) and Barbara Crampton (as Suzie Lynn, doomed but feisty) anchor the chaos with charm, scream-queen gravitas, and enough hairspray to outlast the apocalypse. Maroney, already beloved for her turn as Samantha in Night of the Comet (more on that later), brings vulnerability and steel to her role, while Crampton – who’s gone on to become one of modern horror’s most active champions, both in front of and behind the camera – delivers the kind of confident, crowd-pleasing performance that defines cult classics.

The rest of the ensemble is no slouch either. Tony O’Dell (Head of the Class), Russell Todd, Karrie Emerson, and John Terlesky round out the group of mall-stuck twenty-somethings, making questionable choices and getting creatively offed one-by-one. And let’s not forget Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov, reprising their Eating Raoul characters in a surreal little cameo that connects the Corman Cinematic Universe in ways the MCU could only dream of.

In honour of Chopping Mall’s anniversary, here are five other horror films that prove the mall (or the shopping experience more broadly) is one of the most unexpectedly terrifying backdrops in genre history.

Dawn of the Dead (1978)

We can’t talk mall horror without kneeling at the gore-soaked altar of George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. Set almost entirely inside the Monroeville Mall, this zombie epic doesn’t just use the shopping center as a location—it weaponizes it. Romero turns the mall into a fortress, a prison, and most famously, a symbol of rampant consumerism.

Our survivors hole up among escalators and mannequins while the undead shuffle past JCPenneys, echoing with Muzak and moans. What makes Dawn timeless is how smartly it blends satire with splatter. It’s both horrifying and weirdly hypnotic – watching zombies ride the escalators in slow, brainless loops feels like a bleak joke we’re still living through today.

Night of the Comet (1984)

Before she was running from death robots, Kelli Maroney was fending off comet zombies in Night of the Comet, a pastel-soaked post-apocalypse that remains one of the coolest, weirdest sci-fi horror hybrids of the 1980s.

When a comet passes Earth, almost everyone is turned to dust or reanimated as something… less than alive. Left behind? A pair of Valley Girl survivors, including Maroney’s cheerfully trigger-happy Samantha, who take refuge in… where else? The mall.

It’s there that the film embraces its pop-culture playground setting, with the girls treating the abandoned retail paradise like their own personal fortress-slash-dressing room. That is, until the creeps show up. A cult favorite for good reason, Night of the Comet walks a gorgeous line between tongue-in-cheek comedy and stylish genre thrills.

The Initiation (1984)

One of the more underrated ‘80s slashers, The Initiation stars Daphne Zuniga (The Fly II, Spaceballs) in her film debut as a sorority pledge whose hazing ritual includes an overnight lock-in at a massive Dallas department store.

It’s all fun and fake IDs until someone starts picking off her fellow pledges with a crossbow. The mall setting here is used cleverly, from eerily empty showrooms to bizarre underground tunnels (because sure, your local Macy’s has a secret lair beneath it).

The Initiation combines dreamy surrealism, slasher tropes, and a surprisingly twisty final act, cementing its place as a must-watch for fans of retail-based horror.

Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge (1989)

If the title alone doesn’t sell you, the movie certainly will. Phantom of the Mall reimagines Phantom of the Opera with a ripped, revenge-hungry teenager haunting a new shopping mall built over his old house.

Eric, presumed dead in a fire, now lives in the mall’s secret passageways, watching from security monitors and murdering greedy developers, corrupt cops, and nosy teens.

It’s gloriously over-the-top, packed with mallcore fashion, synth-heavy scoring, and even a villainous turn from Morgan Fairchild. And yes, it’s dumb as bricks, but that’s part of the charm. It’s the kind of ‘80s horror film that feels like it was edited on a VHS tape that also contains mall commercials and skateboarding montages.

Slaxx (2020)

Fast-forwarding to something a little more modern (and a lot more unhinged), Slaxx is a satire-horror-comedy hybrid about a pair of killer jeans. That’s not a typo. A cursed pair of ethically sourced skinny jeans slaughters the employees of a fast-fashion store one by one, and somehow it works.

What Slaxx lacks in subtlety, it makes up for in righteous fury. Beneath the blood and denim lies a scathing critique of consumerism, performative progressivism, and the exploitative nature of global fashion.

It’s also laugh-out-loud funny and creatively gory, what more do you want from a film that includes a deadly dance floor and pants that can stalk their prey?

That’s our round-up of shopping mall carnage—from laser-eyed death droids to vengeful teenage phantoms, retail has never looked so lethal. Got a favorite we missed? Maybe a deep-cut mall horror gem hiding in the back of the video store? Let us know – and don’t forget to swing back around next year when we inevitably find an excuse to talk about Chopping Mall all over again. It will be the 40th anniversary after all!