Chopping Mall - The clue is in the title

Think about it: you're considering watching a film called `Chopping Mall.' Are you seriously expecting a great, original plot with fantastic character development and Oscar-winning special effects?  I hope not.  If you are then you really shouldn't watch this.  This is truly terrible.  And I loved it.

It's about a mall (surprise, surprise) where the owners employ robots to guard it at night.  These robots look like a cross between a Cylon from 'Battlestar Gallactica' and something out of `Silent Running.' Anyway, just when they're commissioned, they only get struck by a freak lightning storm, turning them from honourable guardians of the night to psychotic killers (always the way, huh?).  I guess it's kind of the reverse of what happened to 'Johnny 5' in 'Short Circuit!'

If this isn't bad enough then a bunch of kids hang back after work to indulge in pre-marital sex.  You can probably guess they don't live to regret their kinky, decadent decision.  You have every cliché here going - characters who you can tell exactly how and when they'll die - then getting killed in the exact way, kids having sex and then getting killed, kids drinking alcohol - then getting killed, spouting cheesy dialogue and then getting killed.  Yes, there's a lot of killing going on here!  For the first half an hour the film is pretty dull, not even worthy of a cult classic.  However, at about the half hour mark, a woman gets her head blown to bits (classic!) and it all picks up from there.  What you have is one daft chase after the next with robots who clearly need shooting lessons and kids who suddenly become Rambos when they raid a gun store.

The kids all look totally 'eighties' with their big hair and bad clothes.  Now, if you know your horror movies, you'll be able to tell who's going to make it out of this one alive.  And, 'Chopping Mall' offers no surprises there.  However, I felt that a couple of the more 'expendable' characters were actually better suited to being the leads (and therefore surviving) than the boring ones that you're supposed to root for.

Anyway, itt's stupid.  It's awful.  It's a terrible film.  And, if you know and appreciate that, you may love it as much as I do.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that