Chopping Mall (1986)

Producer/director Roger Corman is arguably the biggest name in the wide, varied landscape of cinematic schlock. His massive catalog, including 55 films he directed and at least 385 he produced, ranges from Little Shop of Horrors (1960) to Sharktopus (2010). Corman was also something of a cinematic kingmaker; James Cameron, Francis Ford Coppola, Jack Nicholson, Ron Howard, Sylvester Stallone, Martin Scorsese, and William Shatner are among those who paid their dues on Corman movies before moving on to bigger and better things. For this episode of Reel Deep Dive, Ryan and Cheryl take a look at Chopping Mall, the cheesy horror movie where a group of horny teens are trapped in a mall with three homicidal security robots. Thematic motifs in the ensuing discussion include the film's frequent indulgence in superfluous nudity, the reckless nature of the shoot, director Jim Wynorski's fixation on nubile young women (and how that contributed to his later career as a softcore porn director), the scattered structure of the script, and the movie's fondness for 80's blue lightning effects. The ultimate question however, is whether Ryan and Cheryl believe that Chopping Mall is "fun bad" or merely "bad bad".