SPEAKER_02 0:04

Also, she had a bow, which is clearly the best weapon, and a pterodactyl, the only one that could fly. I'm done.

SPEAKER_03 0:13

Greetings and salutations, and welcome to Hacker Slash. If you're joining us again, welcome back. It's good to have you around. If this is your first time listening, welcome to the party. We are a horror movie review podcast dedicated to telling you whether a movie is a hack. A total joke? A waste of time? Or a slash.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Totally killer, pun intended.

SPEAKER_03 0:32

My name is Chris, and I'm your friendly neighborhood slasher enthusiast. This week I'm joined by the Superfly Space Guy Mac. Hola, Mo Chachos. The Gore Lover Alexis. Hey everyone. The cowardly creeper Ryan. Hiya. And the Scream Queen Paris.

SPEAKER_02 0:45

Hey sweets.

SPEAKER_03 0:46

We have another 80s movie for you this week, but this time featuring the legendary Barbara Crampton. But before we get there, we had to make a pit stop and our follow-up.

SPEAKER_02 0:55

A pit stop, I like that. Okay, so let's follow up on some things. As you guys may or may not recall, we recently reviewed a film called 13 Ghosts. Um, I believe we all hacked it except Alexis, is that right?

SPEAKER_05 1:08

Yes, and I have plenty of people that are gonna back me up, I believe. Real quick, Mac, have you seen 13 Ghosts?

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Yeah, I was absent on this episode, and I have seen 13 Ghosts, and I would have given it a slash for its entertainment value.

SPEAKER_03 1:21

Thank you. Have you seen it recently though?

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Have I seen it well defined recently. Have I seen it this year now?

SPEAKER_03 1:27

In the past 10 years.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Yeah, in a lot of how old am I? In the past 10 years, yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:31

I mean, like you didn't just see it when it came out, like you've actually repeated your viewing.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

I did not see it in theaters. I saw it later, I think on demand.

SPEAKER_03 1:41

I don't know who you are anymore, but I'm sorry. Paris, continue.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

It's okay. Chris, Ryan, the three of us are actually in the minority on this one because we asked our followers on Twitter what they thought, and 67% of them gave it a slash. So we're with the lonely 33% that thought that movie was trash.

SPEAKER_06 1:57

I'm gonna stand with the same notion that Chris just said, which is have they seen it recently?

SPEAKER_02 2:02

I support that.

SPEAKER_06 2:02

Like ever. Because if you just asked if I thought it was good, I would have said yes. Well, it was your pick. I exactly. And then I watched it and regretted that.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

Now we did also ask another, in my opinion, more pressing question, uh, which was inspired by that film. And the question was, are ghosts real? Now I know myself and Alexis are team ghosts. Ryan, you don't believe, right?

SPEAKER_06 2:25

I think our followers are smart and also know that there are no ghosts.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

Chris?

SPEAKER_03 2:29

I am a I don't believe in ghosts, but I am open to the idea that they may be a thing, smart girl.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

And Mac. Only the OG, the Holy Ghost. That's all I'm saying.

SPEAKER_03 2:39

What a good Catholic boy.

SPEAKER_02 2:41

Well, the results were actually pretty split on this one, but 55% of our fans said that ghosts are indeed real, and they do believe, and then 45% of our fans said no. Now we do have a little spooky experience shared by one of our friends of the pod Narima, and she said, I saw the ghost of my friend's dead parent open the bedroom door when I slept over at her house. And that's just one experience. And then, you know, we asked a little further, because that's that's a real humdinger. She said, So I spent the night at her house, and when I woke up the next morning through blurry vision, I saw a woman open the bedroom door and check on us. I assumed it was her sister or grandma, but it was her dead parent.

SPEAKER_03 3:20

Yeah, she thought it was another relative, but it turns out everyone else was at church.

SPEAKER_05 3:26

That's creepy. That sounds like some Beatles use stuff. Remember when they were like in the closet and they open and they just close the closet because no one saw 'em.

SPEAKER_02 3:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 3:33

I just want to clarify: if you don't believe in ghosts, you can't you can't see them. Coming from the person who can't scare you.

SPEAKER_02 3:41

Ryan unsubscribed from the ghost mailing list.

SPEAKER_06 3:44

Exactly. I don't need those discounts no more. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

She replied stop to uh ghost facts. That's our follow-up.

SPEAKER_03 3:52

Well, that was both spooky and thrilling. Thank you, Narima, for sharing that experience. Uh, I still don't know that I'm uh on Team Ghost. However, I am still open. So if you've had a ghost story, please let me know. I'd love to hear it. Now, let's talk about the movie for this week. This week we went with a comedy and we dug around and we found a film that's now streaming on both Shudder and Amazon Prime. Now, this movie explores the mayhem that ensues when a few mall employees stay late to party after hours, and the robots on patrol take their jobs a little bit too seriously. This week we're talking about the 80s B movie Chopping Mall. Now, had anyone heard of or seen this movie before?

SPEAKER_01 4:33

No, but I saw the remake starring real humans observe and report.

SPEAKER_05 4:36

Is that kind of fun? Uh You're a jokester. Yeah. I feel like I've really I've definitely heard of the name. Um, but when I watched this, I was like, this is uh yeah. But the name sounds familiar.

SPEAKER_06 4:52

Y'all know I ain't seen this movie. I never even heard of it.

SPEAKER_02 4:55

I actually have seen this movie before.

SPEAKER_06 4:58

How or why?

SPEAKER_02 4:59

No, I'm fucking lying. No one's seen this movie.

SPEAKER_06 5:02

Literally, I don't think anyone's ever seen it.

SPEAKER_02 5:04

It was just made up like last week, so Chris could make us review it.

SPEAKER_03 5:08

No, actually, this is another one of those 80s movies that I didn't pick.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Hey.

SPEAKER_03 5:13

Is it possible? Alexis keeps finding random stuff.

SPEAKER_05 5:16

It reminded me of like, you know, going to the mall pre-quarantine in the summer. Like, that's a I you know how I am about my theme movies.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

I do love a mall.

SPEAKER_05 5:25

Yeah, a mall during the summertime. That's like my like childhood. Like, at least coming here. I'd be like, all right, what can I do? Because it's so like hot outside besides going to the beach, it would be the mall in the movies.

SPEAKER_06 5:36

Here's my question: could it be possible to make a movie that seems like it's from the 80s, release it, but there's no release events, no publishing or anything like that, right? It just shows up on like Shutter and Netflix, and you're like, oh, it's from 1985. Could that be this? Is it possible that that's what this is and it didn't actually come out in 1980?

SPEAKER_02 5:55

I love that as like a viral campaign.

SPEAKER_06 5:57

Dude, this is a thing that could happen because nobody what are people gonna say? No, no, no, I was alive, I watched every movie that year. I know this didn't come out.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

And there'll be like the Mandela effect. People will be like, I definitely saw this in the 80s. Exactly.

SPEAKER_06 6:09

We could do something.

SPEAKER_03 6:10

Here's the problem with that. I was riding in uh in my brother's car with them, we're talking about the podcast, and he asked me what movie we have come up. I said Tropping Mall. He's like, good luck with that shit. I watched that when I was a kid, and he then proceeded to tell me everything that happened in the movie. And I was like, Oh wow, you really have seen this. It left a mark though, he remembered. I mean, yeah, he remembers. He has like the biggest horror collection I've ever seen. Like he's enabling my uh my cult my habit of my neck of horror figures, and he also has like every horror movie known to man. So I mean, he he would be the librarian. I feel like if it left a mark, it would be a mark like a bruise.

SPEAKER_05 6:47

Like a bad mark.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

A laser burn.

SPEAKER_05 6:50

We need to get your brother on here. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Can we call him Brojas though?

SPEAKER_03 6:53

You could. You know, that was my nickname in the Navy, Brojas. Nice.

SPEAKER_02 6:57

That's cute.

SPEAKER_03 6:58

So my brother had seen this movie before, but I hadn't. At least I don't remember it. It's maybe something that he watched when uh I was around as a wee one, but I remember hearing plenty of it. Um, nothing in terms of spoilers, so I wasn't exactly sure exactly like what happened, you know, the way that Mitsumar was like ruined for me. But I knew it was a comedy and I knew it was a cult classic. Those are the only two things I I knew. Now, when I was watching it, I I had some feelings, you know, like I felt hopeful, knowing that this was gonna be a comedy, knowing that your boy uh who was in Friday the 13th, part two, he is his name is Russell Todd. He played Scott in Friday the 13th, part two. Knowing that he was in this Barbara Crampton, I was really encouraged. And then as the movie went on, I just felt more and more unamused, which confused me a little bit since it's a comedy. But how about you guys? How did you feel while you were watching it?

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Can I say I was thoroughly entertained by this movie? There was so much laughter to be had at its ridiculousness, and I had I just had a f I had a fun time watching it. It was me, my girlfriend, and her friend, and we're watching this thing, just going back and forth, making fun of it, but at the same time just like enjoying the silly antics.

SPEAKER_06 8:13

See, to me, it was like I I mean, I don't know. I had no idea that going into it it was a comedy or trying to be a comedy or anything like that. Um, and I was like, cool, we're going into this real trash 80s movie. I'm gonna have some fun with it. And I tried, and it was like it was trying to be a trash 80s movie, so I couldn't even make fun of it, like with a good conscience, because I felt like it was it that's what it wanted me to do, which takes away the fun of it. Um I felt like I was watching an 80s movie. That's all I can say.

SPEAKER_05 8:47

I definitely had, I think I had the highest expectations of this movie because I thought it was completely something different. And then I read what it Yes, and then what I read what it was about and I was like, Oh, I don't want to watch this, but now I have to. So But I did, but I I think yeah, it tried hard on the comedy, and I feel like that's when I'm like, wait, are they trying to be serious or they're trying to be funny? So I really thought this movie was not I did not know this was a comedy at all.

SPEAKER_06 9:17

I mean, okay, can I ask what what makes it a comedy? Like, is it is it intended to be that way, or is that how it's been received? It is intended to be a comedy.

SPEAKER_02 9:28

See, I also didn't know this was a comedy. I thought it was just a bad 80s horror movie and it was funny as a result of that. But that being said, my boyfriend and I laughed so hard watching this. And I guess I wasn't as perceptive as you, Ryan, because I didn't pick up on like the fact that they were trying to be funny. In my mind, I was like, oh, they're really trying to make a horror movie right now, and they're failing in so many ways, but it it was entertaining to watch. It had so many little details. Yeah, but like Alexis, I thought this movie was gonna be something completely different. I thought it was gonna be like, I don't know, I just imagined like my 80s girls going on like a shopping spree and then like some sort of killer like stabbing them, and then like saw like robots, and I was like, What? Why?

SPEAKER_05 10:09

Exactly. My thoughts. I was like, this is gonna be the greatest slasher ever in a mall.

SPEAKER_02 10:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:15

So two high points in this movie for me, and that's all I'm gonna give it. Russell Todd has Rick, and uh I even I as a lesbian can admit that man is very aesthetically pleasing, but the other was the 80s synth. I love that uh the sound, like the song that you have leading into the movie as Alexa snarls and rolls her eyes with venom. So killer clowns. Yes, no, that's exactly my cup of tea. I love that. But here's the thing you talk about those expect expectations, what we think it's gonna be about. There wasn't a damn whiff of chopping in this movie, and that disappointed me to no end. It's like these are robots. They there was the ability to have them have little attachments to do chopping, and there was no chopping.

SPEAKER_06 10:58

Chopping Mall is such a good horror movie title, and it's it truly was lost here. Very misleading.

SPEAKER_02 11:04

So much potential.

SPEAKER_06 11:05

They could have called it shopping mall. That would have been more appropriate.

SPEAKER_03 11:09

But shopping mall is so good to be let down from. I also wanted to point out that the tagline says it's where shopping cost you an arm and a leg, but really this movie is more like where working cost you an arm and a leg or living. Because there's not a single customer in this movie as like the main plot takes place.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Ah, the plight of horny retail workers.

SPEAKER_03 11:30

How about you guys? What uh what disappointed you as you went along?

SPEAKER_05 11:34

It literally was it was that I feel like for the 80s it was just like a great place to do something like really cool and coming out with all these different slashers, and you could have this like different one, and I think that was just disappointing, as I didn't want a robot at all. Or if you did, not these. No, I really want one that looks like a human.

SPEAKER_06 11:55

Yeah, yeah. It's like it's like such an 80s prop in this movie. The robots are definitely like the the disappointing part, which sucks. Their lasers are super cool, and and the other random, there's lots of different effects and things and things that I will give this movie props for, but the robots are definitely the disappointment, I think.

SPEAKER_03 12:15

The robots were actually the third unnamed high point for me because I thought they were adorable as hell. They were so efficient. What?

SPEAKER_01 12:23

I love those robots, they were so much fun. Efficient?

SPEAKER_03 12:25

Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Who said that?

SPEAKER_06 12:27

They're out there doing their thing. I liked when they were zooming and they zoomed in on the legs and it was like real fast, and then they zoomed out and it was actually real slow. It was a great, great time.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

I don't know if anything particularly disappointed me. I didn't really have any sort of proper expectation. When I read the description, I was like, this is going to be so bad that if I get any enjoyment out of it, uh like it's it's saved. And I I I gotta say, like, nothing really let me down. There was some great horror movie, like stereotypical characters that we got to see in the in the film. There was these amazing robots that were so cheese tastic, and I love them for everything that they are and the tools that they had to work with.

SPEAKER_03 13:11

Says the android.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Well, we're two different species, robots and androids. We're more like humans.

SPEAKER_03 13:17

I'm an iPhone, feel more like cousins, really.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

Yeah, I don't I don't I don't know that I was I'm kind of disappointed that I wasn't disappointed. Like I was expecting it to be pretty horrible based on just the description alone. I didn't even, you know, didn't think anything about it. And I I'll you know what? I could I'll pick one thing. I don't want to give too many spoilers away, but the trailer features a piece of gore that didn't end up in the in the final cut. And and I'm kind of bummed about that.

SPEAKER_05 13:40

And we'll talk about that maybe during didn't even watch the trailer, even though there was a trailer.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

Yeah, you have to. Well, don't watch it before the movie. Watch the movie, then watch the trailer. That's how I like to do it. Oh and kind of compare the two. But yeah, there's just like a little piece of gore. We'll talk about this in the second half that I was like looking forward to that like totally didn't make it in the movie. I'll I'll say that's my disappointment, because everything else, not disappointing for me.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

I was surprised by um how they managed to fit in a topless locker room scene, even though this took place exclusively inside of a mall. Uh I've worked at many different malls and none of them had a locker room in which you would fully disrobe. So that was surprising.

SPEAKER_05 14:19

You didn't see the locker room in Elf? Oh, that's actually a great point.

SPEAKER_02 14:22

I have never seen Elf.

SPEAKER_05 14:24

Oh. Well, you need to see one because there is a locker room in there.

SPEAKER_02 14:27

Are Zoe De Chanel's tits in that movie?

SPEAKER_05 14:29

Uh no, no, it's like a kid's movie.

SPEAKER_06 14:33

With Wolf Errol. So there is a locker room, but it's also a movie where elves are real. So it's like excellent point, Ryan. So I actually wrote a list. Um, since you bring up the locker room, I feel like this is a good time to say it. Um, a list of all the super 80s films things that they mushed all into one here. Um locker room is one of them. It's like uh lots of spaceship vibes, right? From like the little control room thing. They have a mall, they have robots, they have uh random fashions, high school kids, a party, and lasers all in one movie. It's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

I can't wait to get into some details that wouldn't spoil anything. Because I have a list of things that I thought were just absolutely astounding to see man in this in this in this film. Just I mean, there's a kid, he gets into an elevator, he's holding ice cream, the elevator unloads, ice cream's all over him. Just like hilarious, just like a small little thing that they don't focus on in this huge, like fast-moving segment at the beginning of the movie.

SPEAKER_05 15:34

I totally noticed. I was like, what's the point in this? Oh, it's the point I really didn't see that.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

And there's there's a ton of other small details that I wanna just like random things I caught that I don't want to mention because you have to enjoy them for the first time. But like that's what truly made it funny to me is like they just had these like little one-liners or these like little like visual jokes all within like the first like five minutes of this film that were hilarious.

SPEAKER_06 15:55

I think there's two ways those things could be perceived either funny, so like you spend the movie laughing, or you spend the movie going, what?

SPEAKER_03 16:03

Because that's what I did. I will say just about the only like truly relatable thing that happened in the opening of that movie for me was how freaking stressful food courts and malls are. Dude, so true. I don't miss food courts. No, for sure. So the the most recent mall I work at, uh there's it's like a ghost town. There's no activity whatsoever, except for maybe a long line at the one good place. However, the last mall, when you were meeting most of you, that place was jam-packed like every day. And it's like so hard to navigate.

SPEAKER_02 16:37

But also it gives me like high school cafeteria vibes, which I don't hate. I love like a good mall food court, to be honest.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

This mall 100% reminded me of Starcourt, and I love it for doing that. You guys have seen Stranger Things?

SPEAKER_03 16:50

Yes. Oh yeah. I didn't know that was specific. It also reminds me of um how I met your mother with Robin and singing Let's Go to the Mall.

SPEAKER_02 16:59

Oh yes, very that.

SPEAKER_05 17:00

Can I ask you guys something? Sure.

SPEAKER_03 17:02

Of course.

SPEAKER_05 17:03

Are there like I've never like worked at a mall, so like are there like back alleys between the stores? Oh yeah. You mean murder hallways? Yes. Yeah. If you want to go, I'll take you sometime. Um good.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

So the mall, the mall that we um frequently visit uh or are compelled to do so, um, they're not too bad. They're like mostly okay. Uh there's another mall in the area where the back alleys are legit murder hallways and completely unfinished and very scary. And you like wouldn't feel comfortable walking down them alone. I can tell you that right now. Because I can imagine you like taking one step into the hallway and going, Nope, I'm going the long way.

SPEAKER_05 17:40

I'll go around the whole damn mall.

SPEAKER_02 17:42

I feel like it's mandatory that they're unfinished.

SPEAKER_03 17:46

That's sad. Like creepy and half painted. The spookier the better. Now, that that mall we had to frequently visit. I started working there when they were doing a lot of construction on it, and they had like torn down a major department store and it looked like a like asbestos city. That was spooky. And then you go down some of the service halls, and they're like the wheelchairs that are for customers who need wheelchairs, but like they're kind of just like all not neatly organized, and it just looks like why is this one single wheelchair here knocked over? It's just it's just weird. Why is it bloody? Why is there a knife in it? It's so weird.

SPEAKER_05 18:20

Oh, that's terrifying.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Malls are super duper creepy, especially early in the morning or late at night.

SPEAKER_05 18:26

That's what I'm saying. This movie had very I mean, depends. It wasn't going for that the route I thought it was, but it could have gone that way. I would like to see a movie like that. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 18:34

Yeah. I would I would not mind this movie being remade with murder hallways. Keep the robots, give me the murder hallways. Um, I have one last major disappointment. I think this is where kind of where like the the biggest place where I grapple, because there are some good things about this movie. Like I feel like the pacing is a strength, etc. Uh a lot of the performances, even, you know, when you look past the characters they're supposed to be, I think the quality of the performances are good. But for being a comedy, I did not laugh a single time. And I'm pretty generous at 80 slashers. Like I will, like, it's really easy to make me laugh, especially if I'm watching it with someone else. But there are some jokes in here and some notes of dialogue that you can tell are intended to be a laugh, kind of like Ryan, you were saying, like, you can tell when they're trying to be funny. But they didn't land well for me. And most of it just comes across as misogynistic. You can throw so much of that out of the window for being par for the course for an 80 slasher. I try to look at it as the way it comes across in Slumber Party Massacre, right? Pointing out the misogyny and sexism to the point where it's like acknowledging how screwed up the patriarchal undertones are on so many more horror movies. But this one, it I was just still really disappointed at the end because when I looked up so even some of the history the director has, I was even more disappointed. Um, looking at some decisions and some other stuff that he's done. I don't know if you guys are familiar with the guy who made this movie. We'll talk about it maybe after fact or fiction, but it just this movie reeks of guys who just want to touch women and ogle women, and it doesn't really give much else beyond that.

SPEAKER_06 20:07

Oh, you mean the boobs that we saw full on four times were were not an accident?

SPEAKER_03 20:13

No, but even that that wasn't even what what bothered me. It was the first thing that bothered me and stood out to me as like odd for an 80 slasher was a piece of dialogue when two characters are in bed together. We'll talk about that in the second half. But I will say this never have I seen a movie with killer robots in a mall. I would say there's some fair amount of what you could be generously describe as originality of this movie. What about you guys? I mean it's original, but like at what cost? I agree.

SPEAKER_01 20:43

I I thought it was original enough to uh to be entertaining for me.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

Yeah, this is original. Robots in a mall, and they're killing people. I've never seen it before.

SPEAKER_06 20:52

Except for like Terminator 2. Yeah. But like the story's not original. It's high school kids going to a party or for some reason partying and get then getting chased by people.

SPEAKER_03 21:01

Also, these circumstances that lead to these robots being evil totally happens in short circuit anyway, so just say not only does how these robots become evil happen in short circuit, it even happens in one of the Friday the 13th movies to bring Jason back to life. That's how unoriginal that element is.

SPEAKER_04 21:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:23

So despite that, how did you guys feel about the ending?

SPEAKER_02 21:27

That's how I feel. It happened. And then there was one part, there was like I guess like the tiniest smidgen of a a reveal at the end. And I was like, huh. And we'll talk about that after. You guys, it wasn't really a reveal. It was it was nothing.

SPEAKER_06 21:45

Um I knew who would make it to the end as soon as the movie started, as soon as we were introduced to the characters. And uh that's exactly what happened. That's pretty much how I feel about the end. Not particularly challenging to figure out. Yeah, I'm not a genius.

SPEAKER_01 21:59

I And enjoyed it all the way through. So I don't think it was a particularly fantastic ending, but I didn't see anything so wrong with it that I hated it.

SPEAKER_06 22:06

Mac loved this movie.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

We'll we'll talk about it.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

Even though this movie was, you know, not the easiest to take seriously. Was there any part of it that you guys found to be even remotely scary?

SPEAKER_06 22:17

Not at all. I don't think this is a horror movie at all.

SPEAKER_05 22:20

I'm just uh this movie is speechless. I keep acting like there were no ro robots in this movie and it was a killer. So it would have been way scary. It could have been way scarier, but not the way it was set up, no, not at all.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

How about the utter disregard for the lives and safety of all of the retail employees in the small where these killer robots are unleashed to patrol and provide security? But it seems like the employees haven't been really informed of what happens when they are let loose.

SPEAKER_05 22:53

Hey man, they saw the video. Yeah, they gave um what's up. Give them your badge. Malls don't care.

SPEAKER_03 22:58

Allegedly. There just aren't enough uh safeguards. At least one, you know, one of the people knows what to do with their badge, two of the people know what to do with their badge. The robots didn't know what to do with the badge. I don't think getting struck by lightning is covered in the training manual for the employees to operate and troubleshoot the robots.

SPEAKER_02 23:17

I will be honest with you guys. There was a scene with uh snakes and spiders that did scare me. In just like the snakes and spiders kind of way.

SPEAKER_06 23:27

They were stuffed.

SPEAKER_02 23:28

No, there were some real ones. Yeah, some of them were real, and they were real close to someone's face, and I was just like, why? Stop now.

SPEAKER_03 23:35

Paris, have you seen the second Friday the 13th movie?

SPEAKER_02 23:38

Chris, you know the answer to that question.

SPEAKER_03 23:40

Okay. In a Friday the 13th movie, a girl is hiding under a bed and a rat comes near her, and then P comes out from under the bed, and you have to wonder, was it the rat or was it her?

SPEAKER_02 23:52

Yeah, who's P? See, rats like rats are fine, they're mammals, but like arachnids and reptiles in my face? No, thank you. But but there's they're tarantulas. Just imagine, just imagine an eight-legged cat.

SPEAKER_05 24:03

Ew, no.

SPEAKER_02 24:04

But can we talk about how in the 80s and 90s there was like that one specific tarantula that just got all of the Hollywood jobs and was in like everything that they needed a tarantula for? Is that is that a real thing? It has to be.

SPEAKER_03 24:15

Yeah, you don't know you don't know about Edward? How would you know the difference?

SPEAKER_02 24:19

It's always like that same tarantula doing that same thing where it like now slowly crawl on someone's face.

SPEAKER_06 24:25

I'm confident that they just look like the same species of spider.

SPEAKER_02 24:29

But they're all like trained actors.

SPEAKER_03 24:31

They just walk in. They did the same thing with snakes until they kill the s they killed the snake in the original Friday the 13th, and they're like, all the snakes had to like unionize, it became a complicated thing.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

How about tarantulas like can't handle loud sounds very well at all?

SPEAKER_06 24:45

They're little angels. They don't even bite you.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

Again, they're eight well, they can bite you in in if they're if they're scared. Not like to the point of like, you know, putting like venom inside you, but they can bite.

SPEAKER_06 24:56

But aren't they like not really dangerous? Right.

SPEAKER_02 24:58

But that's why this one tarantula that was trained got all the work because he wasn't biting anybody on set.

SPEAKER_03 25:03

You're really a pacifist, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Look, spiders are your friends, they eat all the bugs and crap that you complain about every summer. So you gotta treat them with respect, except for when a spiders in my clothing or my bed or near me, in which case they're the enemy.

SPEAKER_03 25:18

But in in in any other case, I will treat them with a respectful distance. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 25:24

So I will say this. I was unamused in this movie, and I do wonder if partially it's because I watched this completely alone. Um, and maybe it's just me being a crotchety old Capricorn. I'm just like unamused by this whole thing. Um, but I do have the urge, and I almost did, re-watch it again today just for kicks and giggles to see if like it's better the second time around. But what about you guys? Do you think you're gonna watch this again? No, definitely not.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

I'm not one to re-watch a lot of movies like this, but I will say, having watched it with somebody else, it's the type of movie you should watch with other people that makes it much more enjoyable.

SPEAKER_02 26:01

Absolutely, Chris. When you said that you didn't laugh once, I was like, you definitely must have watched this movie alone because watch this with any other person and talking about this movie is the fun part of this movie.

SPEAKER_03 26:12

Yes, I agree with that on so many films, but typically, even the it's so bad it's good movies, even then, I usually have a grand old time by myself. I'm the kind of person who will often just go to a movie theater alone because I have no problem watching a movie like alone and enjoying it and laughing at it, etc. This was just a very specific type of comedy that I could not really appreciate, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_06 26:39

Chris, just so you know, I watched it with someone and it was still unamusing. So that's not an issue. Um, however, I would I I would re-watch this movie if I was uh needing some like 80s design vibes. I will give the credit for that. But like as a scary movie, no, but like there's some things to see in this movie, you know, besides the boobs.

SPEAKER_02 27:00

As like a fashion time capsule.

SPEAKER_06 27:02

Yeah, and like a mall and like different there's a lot of different things that happen in this that were fun to watch, like fun to see visually.

SPEAKER_02 27:09

Yeah, my boyfriend and I played a game of like trying to identify as many stores in the mall as we could and like see like which ones we recognized and which ones are probably long dead by now.

SPEAKER_06 27:18

One of my favorite parts of this movie is the storefront that one of the girls works in, and they had a whole monopoly.

SPEAKER_02 27:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 27:24

It was so cool. So, like, if you're like a person that cares about old design styles, you could get something out of this movie for sure.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

It's kind of weird to look at an old 80s mall and think like how little has changed since then about retail merchandising.

SPEAKER_04 27:39

100%.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

Like malls today, so many of them look exactly like this with just newer clothing and shoes in them.

SPEAKER_06 27:46

I think it would be cool if there was a mall that actually looked exactly like the 80s and had never been updated to like the 90s or 2000s, because part of my beef with malls now is that they did get updated, but they're always like 10 or 20 years behind. Oh yeah. But if you had a mall that was like classic 80s with all of these things and like the little restaurant in there and like all the stores and just diff to keep it original, I think people would be obsessed with it now.

SPEAKER_03 28:12

There are some Taco Bells that are still not updated from their 90s vibe.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

But those look cool.

SPEAKER_05 28:17

When they're like in the Adobe house or whatever it is.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

Yeah, I think what really ruined like malls and restaurants and stuff was the late 90s and early 2000s when these things were still doing fairly well and they had the money to renovate. And that was like some of the worst possible design ever was like late 90s, early 2000s. So true.

SPEAKER_06 28:35

And then they have now they're just stuck with it forever.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

Yeah. Now we're just stuck in the horror of American contemporary design.

SPEAKER_06 28:42

Yeah, not retro. Not retro enough to be cool, but not uh new enough to be enjoyable.

SPEAKER_02 28:47

And I always like Tuscan adjacent for some reason.

SPEAKER_03 28:50

All right, folks. I have a feeling I know how this next section is gonna go, but let's go ahead and take care of some administrative business before we get there. Alexis, how many people died in this movie?

SPEAKER_05 28:59

Pretty high body count for this. Uh it's gonna be nine lives, nine. Considering there's only like ten people in the movie.

SPEAKER_06 29:06

That's pretty high.

SPEAKER_03 29:08

That's not a precise number. Yeah, the percentage would be a very interesting ratio here, but Ryan, we know that there are some animals in this movie. What is the animal report?

SPEAKER_06 29:17

Yeah, we're uh all clear, you know. Be careful. Watch at your own risk if you're stressed by spiders.

SPEAKER_03 29:24

All right, now let's go ahead and start getting into the next order of business. We're gonna start doing our rankings. Chopping ball. Was it a hack or a slash?

SPEAKER_05 29:32

It's so funny because I'm like reviewing my notes, and if I just go based off my notes, I should give this a slash because there's a lot of things I enjoyed about this movie. But I just think the expectation ruined it for me. I had this awesome expectation, great slasher. So many things you could do in a mall, like so many places you could hide. Also, who doesn't have dreams that, like, oh my god, what if the mall closed down and I got to stay in it? I know I definitely there were like two things I didn't like, the robots. And it's I was just getting this like comedy from Killer Clowns, and I wasn't just I was it was just like some disconnect for me there. So um, with that said, I'm still giving this a hack.

SPEAKER_06 30:16

Yes, yes, I knew that was coming. Also, I think your notes say nice things because you were looking for nice things to say about this movie. It said everything I didn't like. Yeah, you didn't write down things you didn't like.

SPEAKER_05 30:27

I'm not sure if it hurt me by reading what the movie was about because I was like, fuck.

SPEAKER_06 30:33

Yeah, when I saw 80s and robots, I kind of knew. I kind of knew this wasn't gonna be my cup of tea. This movie visually is a a very nice watch in my mind. I think I really value the like I was talking about, like the different 80s design aspects and stuff like that. There's a lot for me to get from it, but I'm a person that cares about that, and most people don't really. The story and I guess maybe what was intended to be comedy and whatever, it just didn't get me. I didn't, I wasn't amused enough to make this worth it. I think you could watch this movie and enjoy it for sure, but it's not a horror movie in my mind at all. For me, it's a hack. It's a waste of time. I'm very sad I had to watch this movie. But it is what it is sometimes, you know?

SPEAKER_02 31:20

So I have worked in several different malls in my life, and I spent most of high school like going to the mall at least twice a week because there was virtually nothing else to do in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Shout out to the Exton Mall, shout out to the King of Prussia mall. Um, and I just like love like the very specific culture and like microcosm that is a mall. I just like there's always like the people that work there that you see every day, and you're like, oh, I wonder what store they work at. Oh, they work at like the little little kiosk in the middle of the mall. Like, that's not as cool as my job at one of the main stores in the mall. And then there's like the food court of it all. Um, so this movie definitely delivered on that. And if there's one thing we know that I love in a horror movie, it's a stupid bitch, and this movie had several, several to choose from, several I related to very deeply. Um, but ultimately my boyfriend described it best. He said that this movie was blah-blah-blah bullshit, and that is exactly what it is. Um it in the first like five minutes, it managed to be racist and misogynistic, which I was like, okay, 80s movie, you're just coming in hard. Um it was funny, it was stupid, um, but ultimately it was truly a total joke and a waste of time, so it's a hack.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

Wow, okay. I'll I'll uh I'll stand alone. This movie was a slash. Boo. I found it to be highly entertaining. Uh mostly because of the shared experience while watching it, I think. The discussing it and making fun of it while watching it. The comedy I found in it was honestly not in the dialogue whatsoever. Except for the dialogue dialogue of the robots, perhaps. They they were they were hilarious. I think they were actually the funniest part of the movie. They had good timing, they were ridiculously slow in some cases, but you know, the the small things around the main characters I found to be funny. There's a little bit of stuff on the set that like was it looked like it had been like set up to be funny in like ways that you wouldn't catch unless you were looking for it or just like caught it with the corner of your eye. But I don't know, I I found the concept to be utterly ridiculous. I found most of the characters to be utterly ridiculous. But for some reason I found it entertaining and I think it deserves a slash.

SPEAKER_03 33:29

Alright, so one slash and three hacks so far. I was completely open to the experience of this movie. Reading the description, I'm here for it. That's totally fine. Um looking at the amount of nudity in this movie, again, it's something we see in 80s movies, but it's totally fine. You're totally here for it. I know Ryan's here for it. The performances in particular I really appreciated because if anything, this movie does well, it's take some really good talent and have them really authentically portray these characters like there's some like really nuanced things to each character that you can really kind of just feel and experience. But again, it was a comedy and I didn't laugh a single time. Not even at the movie. I I I I didn't laugh with it, I didn't laugh at it. It was just a flat line the whole time for me. The only time I kind of cracked a little smirk was thinking, oh, that's so cute, when one of the robots did something. And like, why would I think this robot is cute? I am open to revisiting this movie because I don't know if I was just having an off day or what. Like, because on paper I should like this, I know that. But this movie is a hack. It's not even a total joke, because total joke implies there's a level of humor there that it gets it. It is nothing. It's this one is is, I think, one of the few that I think was maybe a waste of time. So with that, we have four hacks, one slash. Usually for an 80s movie, I'm on the slash side. I'm so sorry to leave you standing alone, Mac, but there we have it. Again, you can find this movie on Shudder, you can find it on Amazon Prime. Give it a look, let us know what you think, and join us in the second half where we unpack all the misogyny this movie has to offer. We'll see you in a bit.

SPEAKER_00 35:16

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SPEAKER_03 36:21

A very deceiving title.

SPEAKER_05 36:38

For a movie named uh Chopping Mall, you would have thought there would be a lot of chopping, but uh there was not. It's definitely low. I mean, there was like one, I'm interested to see what Mac was talking about, but like the head exploding, that was like about it. I mean, you get like these like I guess it's hands. They do they have hands? Clamps.

SPEAKER_02 37:00

They're little claws.

SPEAKER_05 37:02

Claws like go into the person, like, oh, I guess they're dead. Also, a little disconnect for me because I thought when they were explaining the darts that they just fell asleep.

SPEAKER_01 37:13

They do.

SPEAKER_05 37:14

And then that's when they kill them.

SPEAKER_01 37:15

Yeah, that scene was hilarious to me. So they dart the dude to sleep, and then when we find him next, they slit his throat. Like, did they have to do that? No, they just took pleasure in it because they're killer robots.

SPEAKER_05 37:26

Killer robots, which I thought was pretty cool. It was like this floppy skin sort of thing. Yeah. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 37:32

I wish there was more. They also staged his body, a la the style of Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees.

SPEAKER_02 37:40

They definitely staged that body.

SPEAKER_06 37:42

And yet she still couldn't see it for five minutes. Yeah, and then tripped over it. The worst scene in my life.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

Look, not all of us have great night vision, okay? Just saying, not all of us do.

SPEAKER_06 37:54

Yeah, well, some of us shouldn't be actors either.

SPEAKER_02 37:58

Just like on that line of thought, I honestly, for the first time ever, I was like, was this actress a porn star that they got for this movie? That was the first time in my life I've ever really wondered that.

SPEAKER_06 38:08

Is that a part of factor fiction?

SPEAKER_02 38:10

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 38:11

Is it uh there are no porn stars mentioned in fact or fiction? Well, technically, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 38:17

So, Mac, what was this um trailer scene that you were talking about?

SPEAKER_01 38:20

So there's yeah, there's like a segment in the trailer where the robot like takes somebody's arm off, and then they you like get a shot of them on an upper level holding the arm like just in their little in their little claw, like dangling. Like totally didn't happen in the film.

SPEAKER_05 38:33

See, I feel like I appreciate this more if they had those sort of funny moments like that. I'd be like, haha, that's in like that's like corny but funny.

SPEAKER_06 38:42

Yeah, I think if the robots could have been more corny and therefore made it more funny. I know they tried sometimes with the thank you, have a nice day. But that was it was at that, but by the time they started doing that, I was just like, eh.

SPEAKER_03 38:55

Alexis, you mentioned killer clowns from outer space. See, those clowns were actually funny.

SPEAKER_05 39:01

Yeah, they actually were. Now I now I feel bad because I wish I would have gone back and I mean if I had to compare, you know, this is kind of like app it's not really apples to apples.

SPEAKER_03 39:10

No, this is apples to rotten bananas, honestly.

SPEAKER_06 39:16

That sounds like trying to pick a good thing out of two bad things, and I do not want to do that.

SPEAKER_02 39:20

I feel like this movie is a prime example of how you could have used like over-the-top ridiculous gore.

SPEAKER_05 39:26

Yes, and it'd be like interesting, yes.

SPEAKER_02 39:30

Yeah, and then it just like didn't deliver at all. Like when when the girl's head exploded, I was like, okay, this is the direction we need to keep this moving in, and then we just like backed off of it, and I was like, ugh, why?

SPEAKER_05 39:40

Yeah, it was really inconsistent. Why it gotta happen?

SPEAKER_06 39:43

I mean, we did get some some uh I guess not gore, but we got some, you know, a wide range of deaths. We got some electricity-based deaths, we got some fire-based deaths, laser-based death. Yeah, we got some uh throat sh clunt clinching something from these little claws, but then a mark that did not have anything to that corresponded with the grab. It was great.

SPEAKER_03 40:09

Literally every death in here has happened at some point in Star Wars. I believe that.

SPEAKER_01 40:14

I actually commented while watching this that they had the accuracy of stormtroopers with those laser guns.

SPEAKER_06 40:20

It was ridiculous.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

Oh, that was funny.

SPEAKER_06 40:22

Yeah, like I guess that shooting was supposed to be like comical shooting, but it it it was just I was just out of the movie at that point, so I didn't think it was funny the way the humans were shooting at all. Like the way they were like set up, like they were in Rambo. Um, and then the lasers were were clearly just in post going across the screen from from left to right with no landing point, like just fully left the screen. There should have been more destruction. There should have been so much destruction. Do lasers cause fire? What is the what what comes from lasers when they hit something? We don't know. Nothing, clearly.

SPEAKER_01 40:57

I mean, these aren't real lasers, just like the lasers in Star Wars, because if they were lasers, it would be a like a solid beam of light, if technically if you could even see it. So like Hoff brand? Hoff brand. Off brand.

SPEAKER_05 41:08

So it's like an off brand laser.

SPEAKER_01 41:11

Yeah, I guess. I mean, because they're like little bursts. So are they shooting plasma guns, maybe? No one knows because it doesn't make any sense. Well, laser guns have always kind of been shown like this on film.

SPEAKER_06 41:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:21

But it did it was a good shot when like they hit people and it like immediately just like quarterized. You know, the wound didn't just they just had like a little mark on them.

SPEAKER_06 41:29

I'm just saying I think the mall would have been burning down. This is going on for like a couple hours, you know. There's lots of shots ringing off. And I was struck.

SPEAKER_02 41:38

I was confused by like the logistics of the lasers because I think I feel I swear, early on, at one point, one of the lasers shoots one of the girls like right in the ass cheek and like nothing happens.

SPEAKER_03 41:49

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 41:49

And then like later somebody gets shot with a laser and it's like a devastating blow. And I'm like, what are these lasers doing?

SPEAKER_06 41:54

That's why this is a hack.

SPEAKER_01 41:57

But but the yeah, that like legitimately does happen and it's so ridiculous, which is why I loved it.

SPEAKER_05 42:02

But it wasn't like to me, it wasn't an intentional, like, oh, we're just going to these like they're gonna shower these people with lasers.

SPEAKER_01 42:09

And it doesn't have to be intentional to be funny.

SPEAKER_06 42:11

I think you need to smoke weed before you watch this movie to truly appreciate the ridiculous elements.

SPEAKER_01 42:17

Let's just go ahead and say that I didn't and I don't, and I still found it funny.

SPEAKER_06 42:20

Yeah, but you don't count for most people. He counts for Mac.

SPEAKER_03 42:24

So the lasers were a particular pain point for me. I dig lasers. I like lasers, I like Star Wars, that's fine. However, um the inconsistency in their damage. So you're right, like, you know, Parish said that at one point it's just like a little like hit in the butt. The next point it is a head exploding. And then later, a woman gets shot in her gut and just suddenly dies. Um, it didn't look like it was that bad of an impact. And then that drives her husband, who really could have made it, uh, just to drive very slowly into this thing where he just gets electrocuted. I don't understand these things, but may I just say my favorite death, aside from the head explosion, uh, was actually Greg when he went up the escalator, and then a robot, he's he's being all cocky, and then a robot finds him and uh just throws him over. I loved that. I thought his uppins had come.

SPEAKER_05 43:18

I definitely got uh Austin Powers vibes. Oh yeah. When he's on that thing, he's like back and forth. I was like, this thing's going like uh like it's like it's out of batteries or something. It's like going straight toward him.

SPEAKER_02 43:31

He got on that cart to move three feet.

SPEAKER_03 43:33

He also could have easily jumped off that cart and let the cart continue to cause the explosion.

SPEAKER_02 43:39

Can we also talk about with that scene that like there's a shot of one of the robots riding the escalator up, but the base of that robot was so wide that there's no possible way that it could have fit on an escalator step. And I'm just like, you didn't get upstairs. This is completely void.

SPEAKER_06 43:57

There's so many things in this movie where they were. Like, it's cool. It doesn't have to make sense. We just won't show it on camera. Yeah. And I actually had one specifically that stood out to me, and of course, now I can't think of what it was. If I can remember, there was something they moved the camera, and I was like, You people are really just moving the camera and I'm supposed to believe in this.

SPEAKER_01 44:17

These these robots were apparently hooked up though, because like there was like doors locked that opened up as soon as the robots came to them. But the people who had just walked up to them couldn't get into them.

SPEAKER_03 44:25

That's what happens when you're and your whole mall is controlled by a computer. It's like Smart House from Disney.

SPEAKER_01 44:30

Smart mall.

SPEAKER_06 44:30

So yeah, the janitor was my favorite death. And honestly, I'm pretty sure it's mostly because that is one scene that I thought was funny. Like the banter between him and uh the other janitors, and then he had what could only be described as mud in his bucket.

SPEAKER_03 44:45

Oh yeah. Dirtiest mop I've ever seen.

SPEAKER_06 44:48

Yeah. And I I don't understand what he was cleaning or what what was happening. Things were there was things going on that I didn't understand.

SPEAKER_03 44:55

The best I could come up with was that it was like a spilled milkshake or something, and that he was just trying to like swab it all up.

SPEAKER_06 45:01

You're probably right, but still not a great situation. But I think that was my my death that I liked the most because it I did enjoy that. That was maybe the only moment that I thought was like, oh, this is kind of funny. And um also they just they just basically drew lines all around him when he was being shocked. Like that was their their way to communicate that was like, hold on, let me get my iPad Pro and draw some lines with some some glow on it. And that's that's electrocution. So uh if I ever get electrocuted, I hope it looks like that.

SPEAKER_01 45:30

Why do all electrocution deaths look like people just wailing around and like you know, force lightning happening from Star Wars when in reality you just like seize up and then eventually fall down?

SPEAKER_03 45:42

Because in the 80s everything is dramatic. Yeah, why do you require such scientific shocking?

SPEAKER_02 45:48

Also, this movie had so much lightning, so I think they were just really happy with that.

SPEAKER_06 45:52

Also, as a side note, every scene that happened outside of this mall, what is happening? Because everything was in the mall, and then there's like a car scene.

SPEAKER_01 46:01

So they were coming to they were coming to the mall, that couple.

SPEAKER_06 46:04

I understand why they were going to the mall. I just don't understand why they're why why have one scene that's outside of the mall?

SPEAKER_05 46:10

Yeah, and it didn't it, I think it was to establish maybe something or give that those two characters, like, but it didn't like prog there was like no reason to no point. Yeah, because she's good at working on cars.

SPEAKER_03 46:22

Here's a reason for that. There is a trope where a woman who is tough, capable, and uh otherwise described as like being like butch will not survive the movie. That's it. Like, if a woman exists who can emasculate a man but is also not like someone that you can really be afraid for, Linda is a tough cookie and she knows what the hell she's doing. So that time was spent building up her character. So you see that like there are two capable people on both sides of the equation here, only for her to just die later.

SPEAKER_06 46:56

I mean, I feel like Allison is a pretty capable woman though, and she made it to the end. Semi. I think everyone is in this movie. It's robots.

SPEAKER_01 47:04

Well, the guys aren't because they seem like they're familiar with like handguns until they actually start firing them.

SPEAKER_03 47:11

It's like Rambo style, but not really. So here's here's the problem here. Ferdy says, or somebody asks Ferdy if he knows how to use a gun. He's like, Oh, don't worry, I've seen dirty hairy over 20 times. But the girl whose dad is a marine and can actually shoot a gun remains unarmed throughout the majority of the movie.

SPEAKER_06 47:33

Also, when I can't even remember who did it, when the gun gets thrown at the robot, I was just like, why is this happening? Why am I watching this movie? I don't want to do this. And I know that Mac was probably thinking this is a fun, uh very funny part of this movie, but I was not, I was not on board.

SPEAKER_01 47:52

I that I actually did not consider that one of the funny parts of the movie. Any any usage of the weapons by the humans in this movie was completely stupid. All the way it was so bad and I hated it.

SPEAKER_03 48:03

Weapons in the whole movie from everyone, and they kept doing it. Well, hold on, because that propane tank on top of the elevator, that was a great use.

SPEAKER_01 48:10

Yeah, any of the home alone style stuff, I'm totally down for. Because if you're locked in a in a place whether it's like Walmart or a mall or like a sporting goods store, you are in prime real estate when it comes to setting up traps.

SPEAKER_06 48:22

Bro, this mall had so many supplies, like cans of gas. That seems dramatic. I'm not sure what we need that for here.

SPEAKER_01 48:31

Because you need the gas to power the miniature like mall tractors that they're driving around.

SPEAKER_06 48:35

But it was like on sale. Oh, that's true. It was like like people were buying gas at the mall.

SPEAKER_02 48:40

It was also a sale on guns at that mall.

SPEAKER_03 48:43

This is a time before, you know, major Walmart super centers was a thing. So, you know, you gotta get one one-stop shop. That's why all the uh all the big all the big malls were putting the small guys out of business.

SPEAKER_06 48:54

Yeah, I'm just saying, you could have built a house from the supplies in this mall. It was ridiculous.

SPEAKER_05 49:00

I think uh the mall is visually my favorite thing about this. Yeah. I was looking at all the stores. I mean, it's just I I don't know, nothing fascinates me more than a mall. Maybe because I have never worked at one, so I'm like, oh my gosh, it's got these hallways and they all connect and you can go underground and you can do all these stuff, you know. Because you don't, it's it's like the movie theaters, like you see it's cleaned, and I worked at a movie theater, but those people are so behind the scenes that you're never like, okay, I know it got cleaned, I know they refill stuff, but how? Because I never actually see it. But yeah, I loved it visually, just like the whole setup of it. I think it was done great, and I love how they use this the whole air the whole mall, like every single store, you know, elevators, yeah, everything. I really like that.

SPEAKER_01 49:49

Malls are are so interesting because I feel like uh they're an entire city inside of one big building. It's kind of like you know, a ship being a city at sea. Like you can fit so many people in malls of this type that it's it's absolutely insane to imagine if you were in an apocalyptic situation, a mall, if it were well stocked and you know had stores still open it, would be an interesting place to survive, like we've seen obviously in other zombie movies.

SPEAKER_06 50:17

And just to be clear, this would be malls pre-Forever 21, because right now all you're getting is crab tops. That's true.

SPEAKER_01 50:23

Before fast fashion truly destroyed shopping malls.

SPEAKER_03 50:25

Guidsooks. Right? You have to find yourself a mall with the dick sporting goods, a mall with a uh FYE for entertainment, and a mall with a decent food court, none of this like random salad place bullshit. I know I think a mall that still has a full restaurant inside of it.

SPEAKER_01 50:44

Yeah. There was some great like little mall things happening inside this movie that I wrote down that were really fun. So, one, obviously the kid getting ice cream all over himself in an elevator, but the dude stealing a record in their shirt, just thrown in that vinyl. You can see the outline through the shirt was hilarious. The setup for the person dropping, it was a woman carrying like a bunch of coke and like some food on a tray.

SPEAKER_05 51:06

Oh, that was brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 51:07

And like you knew that it was gonna go down, and then like they like you know, they drew it out a little bit, made you wait for it. She was stressed out.

SPEAKER_06 51:14

Tell me if I'm wrong here. She dropped it or spilled it, and then like, but the whole table flipped over.

SPEAKER_02 51:19

Oh, she took out the whole table.

SPEAKER_01 51:20

It was just chaos. Um, how about the cook cleaning his like utensil on his shirt in between touching things?

SPEAKER_05 51:27

He was so gross. Oh, and he was smoking, which I guess you could do, but I was like, is he really cooking and smoking at the same time? Like, what the heck?

SPEAKER_02 51:36

And such a just a juxtaposition because the two girls working there were wearing Lacoste polos as part of their uniform.

SPEAKER_06 51:42

I know. I was like, oh, what a lacoste moment.

SPEAKER_02 51:45

Can we talk about the true horror that is the visual of walking around barefoot in a mall? Oh good point. I also like was that a carpeted mall? Because that's even more disgusting. Malls were were carpeted for a long time.

SPEAKER_06 51:58

Also, why were they so comfortable walking around this mall in very few clothes?

SPEAKER_01 52:02

I do not know.

SPEAKER_06 52:03

There was no shirt, no under no pants. They were really sure they were the only ones left.

SPEAKER_02 52:08

They apparently didn't have security cameras back then, but they did have a little cigarette machine inside the mall so that our girl could get her virgin slim.

SPEAKER_06 52:16

For me, the fashion in this movie is uh quite a thing to behold. At one point a character is wearing not one but two lace bodysuits underneath jeans, and you know they didn't have stretched jeans in the 80s, and um w one of the bodysuits at least was full shoulder to to toe or to ankle. And just the concept of that, it just it just blows me away.

SPEAKER_02 52:42

It was super cute.

SPEAKER_06 52:43

Also, she could pull them titties out.

SPEAKER_05 52:45

I never thought to put two like one on top of each other, like so the lace covers up the nips.

SPEAKER_06 52:50

I'm not I'm it's not a bad idea, like with human bodysuits in 2020, like regular ones.

SPEAKER_05 52:55

Yeah, because I I have a few of them, but like you could see too much, and I'm like, oh, these are for not out. Yeah, but I want to wear them out because I'm not wearing them in. Like double them up, just wear two of them.

SPEAKER_01 53:08

Yeah, people didn't really have compression wear the way that we do in 2020.

SPEAKER_06 53:11

Yeah, but a full lace bodysuit.

SPEAKER_02 53:14

Speaking of nips, though, there's a scene where like one like the one guy's making out with uh what's her face, the girl with the two bodysuits, and he's like, You smell like pepperonis, and she's like, Oh, if that's how you feel, and he's like, I like pepperonis, and she's like, in that case, and then takes her top off. Was that like a pepperoni nipples joke?

SPEAKER_03 53:32

No, yeah, you're giving it too much credit. See, here's the thing, ladies. If a man tells you you smell like pepperonis, he does not deserve for you to strip for him.

SPEAKER_01 53:40

While singing, yeah, we've been eating pizza. Well, they work in the pizza place, so no wonder.

SPEAKER_06 53:45

No woman is like, Oh, oh, I smell like pepperonis, but you like pepperonis? Oh, it's cool. Like that that's let me take my top off. No one ever.

SPEAKER_01 53:54

He's like, That's my fetish.

SPEAKER_06 53:55

I thought Allison was the prettiest ugly person I've ever seen in this movie. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 54:00

That was Miss Miss Cheese Minnesota as fuck, that girl. The moment she showed that wig and that face, I was like, This girl's from Minnesota, and she's gonna she's gonna win this whole movie, or whatever, she's gonna live.

SPEAKER_03 54:11

So you bring up the the pepperoni scene, and one of my major strikes against this movie came at that point. It was when Michael is in bed and he's doing things to his lady friend, and she's like, You know, I don't like that. And he says, You allowed it last week, didn't you? And that is the most disgusting, most disrespectful shit. And I was like, wow, okay, maybe they're just setting us up to really dislike him because he might die first. But that was just like the tip of the iceberg for the rest of the fucking misogyny in this movie and this director's history.

SPEAKER_06 54:48

But also, I I just gotta say this, she was also disgusting in the way that she treated him. So, like, there's something to be said on both sides there. They were trash on both sides.

SPEAKER_02 54:56

Yeah, when you put it like that, Chris, it definitely does sound like really shitty. But when that line happened, my boyfriend and I both laughed and then tried to figure out like what it was that they were talking about. Like, was he eating her ass? Like, what was she mad about this week that she wasn't mad about last week? What could it have been?

SPEAKER_06 55:11

Also, can any of you imagine being in bed in a mall furniture store where your other friends are in beds with their other people? Like, what a disgusting concept.

SPEAKER_02 55:25

Macy's orgies, no, like demo furniture.

SPEAKER_05 55:28

I might get TMI, but if he's on it, why is she sitting up? She was like sitting up at this point. I was like, it's weird. What the hell? I've never done that sitting up before. If I think what's going on under the covers is going on, but I've never sat up, it's bad. Like I'm like, eh, no.

SPEAKER_06 55:45

And like everybody nearby can like see and hear what's it's just so strange.

SPEAKER_02 55:50

They were all way too close.

SPEAKER_06 55:52

Yeah. Kids in high school are weird.

SPEAKER_05 55:53

I feel like I've been in a room and made out with people that were other like making out making out stuff. Yeah. Not beds, not like what was going on. Have you just never had the opportunity because there hasn't been that many beds in one room before?

SPEAKER_06 56:09

However, you know how sometimes you go to an Airbnb and they've clearly just put a bed anywhere, like one bed's like sticking out a closet, so they can count it as an extra bed. I have been in those situations, nobody ever wants to be in beds at the same time.

SPEAKER_02 56:23

In that same scene, though, was my favorite part of the movie, which was um our girl whose head got blown up, uh, and her guy, who I think was supposed to be the hot one, but I don't know, chewing gum as a personality trait is not hot to me. Dude. But when she was like, like her whole spiel, like talking to him, being like, Oh, I need a cigarette, like, go get me some cigarettes, and he's like, Oh, fine. And then she's like, When I'm happy, everybody's happy. I was like, You go, bitch, you tell him what's up. And then as he's leaving, she's like, Oh yeah, wait. And then she just like pulls out her tits again and she's like, hurry back. I was that to me was just like the peak of this movie because of how like cheesy, shitty, and nipple-oriented it all was.

SPEAKER_06 57:02

It was also one minute after she pushed him off because she needed a cigarette. And I'm just she was trash. I'd just like to stand by that point.

SPEAKER_02 57:10

Like needing a cigarette that badly. I was just like, oh girl, your teeth. Speaking of teeth, though, uh, Final Girl had a dead tooth. Am I the only one that noticed that?

SPEAKER_03 57:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 57:18

You two would be the only people that noticed.

SPEAKER_03 57:21

No, I said that he was the only one who noticed because I did not notice. What does that even mean?

SPEAKER_02 57:26

Oh, it was right behind her left canine. She had a dead tooth.

SPEAKER_06 57:31

What is that? What does that look like? What is that?

SPEAKER_02 57:33

It's like when it's like when it's like much darker than the rest of the teeth because it's like not being tended to. And that's another reason I knew she was from Minnesota.

SPEAKER_06 57:40

Why are you so observative?

SPEAKER_02 57:42

I don't know. There was not a lot to look at in this movie. We were bored and looking for ways to entertain ourselves.

SPEAKER_03 57:47

You know, when you said uh speaking about teeth, I really thought the direction you were gonna go in was talking about how Mike kept chewing that fucking gum like he was a cow.

SPEAKER_02 57:56

Yeah, that was like his entire character was like, I'm a guy that chews gum and is a douche.

SPEAKER_03 58:01

He also just reeked of like flagrant disrespect. Uh to walk up to his girlfriend while she's working and grab her, make out with her in the store her father owns. What are you doing, kid?

SPEAKER_01 58:15

Yeah, come on. You gotta win over the parents. That's like step one, dude.

SPEAKER_02 58:18

In a way, it kind of seemed like a fun idea. Like if somebody had access to a furniture store overnight at a mall, like maybe I'd go to party there in high school. But ultimately, if it's gonna end up in like a sex orgy on demo display furniture, I'll pass.

SPEAKER_06 58:33

Yeah, I was never the kind of person that was uh showing up to questionable furniture store parties.

SPEAKER_03 58:38

I do have a particular question in all the troubleshooting that these people did and all the hijinks that they got into trying to find ways to stop these robots. Why the hell did no one just think to dump water on them?

SPEAKER_02 58:51

My boyfriend said that. It's agree. He also suggested just throwing a sheet over them.

SPEAKER_06 58:56

That would have been great. They definitely wouldn't have been water resistant in 1985.

SPEAKER_03 59:00

Yeah, and even if like they claim they're water resistant, nothing's really waterproof.

SPEAKER_01 59:06

So true. They also at one point deflect the lasers with mirrors, apparently. Yeah. Happens very fast. Yeah, just make a shield out of mirrors that surrounds you and walk around with that if you had to.

SPEAKER_06 59:19

She's it three times, but none of us know because the mechanics of these robots don't make sense.

SPEAKER_03 59:23

Exactly. Let me tell you about the mechanic of this robot that did make sense that I did love. Uh, it was the little fucking clamping hands. I loved that shit. It was like these little crabs. There was a shot where the mall is closing down and you know shit's about to go down, and uh you just have the silhouette or the shadow being cast from the robot and his little hand clamps as the door's closing. I'm like, this that is the cinematography that I'm showing up to this movie for. I thought of them as like little finger snaps.

SPEAKER_06 59:52

Like let's go, guys. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:55

I also like the shot of the robots just like pushing themselves back up after they'd been knocked over. I was like, okay, robots these days are programmed to do that. So like good for them for at least thinking of that.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:04

But also, I love the fucking like knowing glance that they exchange right before like when they're behind the first security dude before he dies, or like, y'all ready for this shit? You just get it.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:16

And then the other guy, first of all, were they security guards or were they scientists? Because I was confused.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:21

They're like the the security guards in the sense that they were responsible for the security system, but also security guards weren't wouldn't have been smart enough in 1980, so they needed scientists.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:32

Okay. They were technicians. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:33

Also horn dogs.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:34

Yeah. Pulled out that like centerfold and it's just like tits, and he's like, Yeah, I'm gonna spend my night looking at this like I've never seen boobs before, before getting killed.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:44

Back before porn was free.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:45

That was a good kill, though. That arm just like punched right through and killed him.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:49

Yeah, anyone who either has sex or uh alludes to wanting to have sex just dies.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:56

Which is why our virgin Minnesota girl was our final girl.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:59

Yeah, thank you for being such a gentleman. They just did some heavy petting and making out. That's a good point. Arguably they did more than the second security guy and the janitor, but you know who's counting. There you go.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:10

Can I can I tell you guys a couple of the things that I found so interesting while watching this movie? Please so many small things. But so when we're being introduced to the robots during the presentation, and there was you know the couple sitting up front, you know, talking about everything. They had some great little lines, um, although one of them was quite offensive. Did they? Yeah, one of them was pretty darn horrible. What was that about? He said, like, the one in the middle has an ethnic quality, but I don't remember the adjective that he used. Did he say like he said something like negative about that? But he did he did make a copy a funny comment where he says, like, they remind me of my mother. It's the laser eyes. And that one I found to actually be an okay line to throw out there, even though he should have respect for his mother just saying. But there was a couple other things that I like. So at one point we get that um that that reference to another horror movie or horror movies or science fiction, however you want to think about it, um, from the total Chad getting the cigarettes where he says uh Clatu Barata Nikto. And total total reference that I love because it's you know a reference to the day the earth stood still, which is also a reference that they use in Evil Dead and you know Army of Darkness and all that kind of stuff, so that was kind of fun. But what's up with the robot blood? Why did they mention that when the robot was tipped over and then like nothing ever came of it?

SPEAKER_06 1:02:25

You're asking questions uh that we asked about the whole movie.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:28

I don't even remember the robot blood.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:30

I just presume that there isn't actually robot blood and they're just being dumbasses.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:35

Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:36

About like oil or something taking that and sticking it trickling out of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:40

I do love that the the fact that the robot aimed for the can of gasoline to light the girl on fire.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:45

I also love that the girl on fire turns into the stump man on fire. Very quickly.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:51

Before she was set on fire and she's just like lying there on the ground screaming and like not trying to get up at all.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:57

I want to see an 80s montage of terrible deaths like this of women on fire set to Alicia's keys girl was on fire.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:05

Oh I want this too now.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:07

Brilliant. This reminds me of something else that drove me nuts about this movie, which is a thing that I I feel like Alexis maybe will agree with because this always drives you crazy. The amount of noise, like the noise from these robots driving or riding or whatever you want to call it, it was so loud for so long. And every time I was like, I've had enough, they just kept going, and eventually it would end. It definitely was. And then her screaming, like specifically when she got caught on when she was getting caught on fire, she was screaming for so long, and I was like, I I literally don't want to hear any of this anymore. There was so much la too too many loud things for too long, you know. Like you have a certain threshold.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:49

This movie did not care in the background music, the techno, whatever. It was yeah, it was a lot. Don't disrespect the 80 synth. That music is a character. Not when it's I mean, mix it with I need like a remix.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:02

I need I don't need the bass to drop. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:05

It definitely felt like a video game though.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:07

Yeah, it was over the top, but I thought it was good.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:09

And also for like how loud the those robots were, they snuck up on people so many times without them knowing at all. So true.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:16

Oh, they were set to vibrate and they had their you know, they had the little noise toggle turned off.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:21

I was just thinking there's so many places you could hide in a mall. And like, if they don't see you in the store, they're not going into the store, dude. You're good.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:28

Yeah, they were totally fine hiding out inside that pizza place. And then, Chris, earlier you said that Linda was like capable, but she did have a really great line later on where they were like, they were kind of like Linda, calm down. And she's like, I'm sorry, I guess I'm not used to being chased around the mall in the middle of the night by killer robots.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:44

And I was like, that's funny, Linda. Such a great line. I wrote that one down too. Like, see, that that's a funny, that's a funny moment. You gotta give it credit.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:51

It's a funny moment, but it wasn't like laugh out loud, funny. That was like I type lol because I'm being nice, funny.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:58

Yeah, wow.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:59

So right, that is like the perfect explanation. Because I do that all the time. People are like, what's so funny? I'm like, I no idea.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:08

That's like all Chris types to me.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:09

Oh, is it? No, because when I do the ha ha, I'm actually saying, oh, that's like kind of what that is.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:15

Right, but there's plenty of lols in our chat.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:17

Oh, I'm gonna have to look. I promise I do think you're very funny. They're all from me.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:22

Wait, wait, has the cry laugh emoji replaced lol for you guys like it has for me?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:27

No, that's I use I use that with authenticity.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:30

Yeah, that's when you're truly laughing.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:31

Yeah, it's like usually I'm dying laughing.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:34

I probably am not laughing a lot unless I'm around other people. Even if I'm watching something that's funny, I'm really like I'm just straight faced.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:42

You need to watch these TikTok videos of the girl putting their purse in the backseat of the car and then hitting their significant other in the face on accident. And it's a freaking most hilarious thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:53

But if I were watching that alone, I would not laugh out loud.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:55

When I do, like crying laughing emoji, it's level level. Laughing for me is fucking watching what we do in the shadows, and I'm mad no one else has watched it yet. I'm I'm gonna start. Please go watch the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:07

Only season one, only season one. There, she said it.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:09

I'm gonna start after 13 Reasons Why when I get done with that. I don't even know what that is.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:14

I got 13 Reasons Why I'm not gonna watch that show.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:16

I laugh at Seinfeld. Does that count? Yes. That's all that I'm laughing out loud at.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:21

You guys are talking about a line that you wrote down. Um particularly that you enjoyed that line from Linda. But there was one line that I wrote down aside from the exchange between Michael and Lisa, and that was from Susie. When she was in the pizza place, and she says, That Orca Beach is here every night. I'm like, damn, you are vicious, and I kind of hope you die now because that was fucked up.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:44

Oh, I mean he was gross.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:46

He did look all greasy. He may have been gross. I don't like weight jokes though. Oh yeah, you don't have to do that.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:52

That's that's okay. I feel that.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:54

I don't like that. Seems like just cruel. Like, call him an asshole for being like waitress, more butter. But I just don't like when people like picket people for their weight. That really annoys the shit out of me. And that's like the sign of like a terrible person.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:08

That's also very 80s. I'm I'm with you there, and perhaps I take it a bit personally since I'm not a not a small man.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:15

We love you. You're a perfectly sized boy, Mac.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:19

I'm a real boy.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:20

So earlier I said there was like a microscopic like non-reveal at the end of the movie, and that was that the the nerdy guy with the khakis and the big bulge, the fact that he wasn't actually dead. Um because I we uh we were led to believe that she was the only one left, and then he just kind of like shows up and I was like, Oh, he didn't die.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:37

After bleeding from his head, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:39

Yeah, I was like, Oh, he didn't die. And then I thought he also didn't help. Yeah, he was kind of useless. So I was like, I would have killed him if I was her. I'd have been like, you know what? You just you just watched me go through all that. You there's no need you need to live. I'll tell the story of what happened, and the robots killed you, and I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:54

Was it extra lame that he was holding like toilet paper to his head wound?

SPEAKER_05 1:07:58

Mm-hmm. Especially in times like these.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:01

Yeah. You're like, yo, save that.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:04

Don't be using toilet paper like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:06

That didn't age well.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:07

Not at all. One thing that did stand out to me though is the fact that all the couples, the members of the couples, die back to back. So as soon as one of them goes, you don't get a death from another couple, you just get the person who was in that relationship dies next. Which I found disappointing.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:22

Yeah, I would say that too. I was just like, okay, like give me something a little bit less predictable.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:26

That's called codependence. Give me a movie where the robot like you know attacks and then like all the guys go to fight it, and all the guys are wiped out immediately. I want to see that movie.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:36

Yeah, fuck your patriarchy.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:38

Which they should have been.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:39

I mean, that could have been this movie if the girls had just stayed in the air vent like they were supposed to. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:44

It was hot as balls in that air vent.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:45

That was another scene with screaming where I was like about to turn it off.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:49

Okay. It may have been hot as balls in that air event, but I would like to point out that Allison and Linda both were fine because they had sensible length uh sleeves, and Susie couldn't bring herself to take off her top layer and just use that to cover up the Melbows. I have no sympathy for anyone who just complains about the current situation as if the other people aren't also in that same situation.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:13

They could have literally just stayed there for the whole night, just safe and happy. It would have been amazing.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:19

I thought they were boiling in there. Like I thought it was burning their skin.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:22

No, one bitch was being dramatic.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:24

That bitch was me.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:26

That's why you need to die in our scary movie.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:28

I know.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:29

The other thing that I found really weird was when she's finishing off that robot at the end, she says, Have a nice day. A and just has like this ridiculous echo.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:44

They just randomly added reverb. Yes. I specifically pointed that out and was like, why? Why is that happening now?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:52

I also like the six different shots of her opening a can of paint.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:55

Oh god, it felt like it was going on forever.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:57

Those are really did.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:59

Yeah, she had some good color choices.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:00

Well, my thing is paint doesn't come like that. So I was kind of pissed off. I've never seen paint like that. Yeah, it doesn't.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:06

It'd be in the 80s when there were only like five colors pink, blue, and green, basically. I was thinking, man, that's a lot of paint. She's just tossing gallons, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:15

Yeah, she has to create the perfect Scooby-Doo slip on a banana peel moment.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:20

And then she had like just a little bit of paint thinner or acetone or whatever the heck that was. And I was like, add more of that if that's combustible. Like, throw that down. Yeah, it should have been mostly paint thinner.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:29

No, she could not have added more because she can't explode that fucking mall. There are puppies in that mall.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:34

That's true. I am curious if they got them out.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:37

As soon as I saw that, oh, and thankfully only that one store exploded because the rest of it was structurally sound. Uh but if that fire had expanded and she did not go back for those puppies, I would have been fucking done with this movie and not have finished it.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:51

I actually thought when the robot went into the puppy store, we were gonna lose some pups.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:56

I did too. I was like, oh no, the animal report.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:58

Like, because you know, they're they're moving, they're alive. Not that we have any concept for what the robots pay attention to.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:05

They're looking for humanoid figures.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:07

Did they push over some small animals though? Because it seemed like they did. Maybe some like I mean, I know it was, I guess, just the tarantulus. The snake and yeah. Because it it looked like there was maybe a hamster that had, you know, fallen down.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:18

Now when she jumped up, there were for sure some spiders under her feet, but you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:23

I thought it was more like a coincidence, like they're so big and they went to turn around and just knock some shit over because they're careless.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:29

In that scene, though, it is worth mentioning that there's a shot where uh our girl is crawling out from her little spider snake hiding hole, uh, and there's a specifically cropped uh packaging that says I think cockatoo, but they cropped it right at cock, and it lingers on there for a solid 10 seconds. Definitely noticed that cock stark.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:48

Yeah, that is all you need to know about this movie, but hey, the last positive note I have is that in that pizza place, there's the Slumber Party Massacre movie poster, and that brought my little heart so much joy to see.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:01

I also wrote that the the robots kind of looked like the um you guys remember in the Power Rangers, that like gay robot that they had that was like a these were like a shitty version of that robot.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:13

Alpha Alpha.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:14

Yeah, that was his name.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:15

The one thing I remember about Power Rangers is I thought the pink Power Ranger was beautiful, and I remember wanting to be the red Power Ranger, and that's it. That's all I got from that.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:27

That's so funny, Chris, because I thought the Red Ranger was beautiful, and I wanted to be the Pink Ranger.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:32

Wow, we are just two sides of the same coin.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:34

That's how we knew we were gay. Also, she had a bow, which is clearly the best weapon, and a pterodactyl, the only one that could fly. I'm done.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:41

Mic drop.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:42

Well, that was a rousing little bit of trivia for Power Rangers, but let's go ahead and start learning about this movie in particular. Mac, what do you have for fact or fiction?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:52

Number one, the script for this film took longer to write than the movie took to film.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:56

Uh fact. Fiction. I feel like they took a long time.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:59

That has to be fiction. Actually, wait, I don't know, because it kind of felt like they filmed it all in one night because they only had the mall for a limited time. It really felt like that at some times. You might have a good point. So I'm switching mine.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:10

Yeah, so this this is fact. It took about four to five weeks to write the film, but twenty-two days to film it. And probably only took twenty-two days because they did have limited time to shoot in the mall. This film was originally titled Killbots, but was renamed Chopping Mall at the suggestion of a janitor when it didn't do well at the box office.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:30

Some part of that is false. So uh fiction.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:34

Yeah, I'm gonna go fiction, but can as a side note, can you rename movies once they're at the box office already? Is this a gaslight situation?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:42

I feel like maybe you can. Like the 80s, it was just like, oh, nobody liked this movie. Let's rename it and hopefully it gets some traction.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:49

And remarket everything.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:51

I told you maybe I'm gonna say um fact for the first half and fiction for the second half.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:58

So fiction.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:59

Doing a split. Well, the whole thing's a fact.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:01

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:02

Ah shit. They did have to re-release it with a new title. So I mean it it worked, it did better afterwards, so good for them. Imagine this is doing better because they deceived people into thinking it was a better movie. Let's talk about Kelly Moroni, Ryan's favorite actress in this film, uh, who played Allison. Her she performed most of her own stunt work.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:22

Uh go fact. Fiction.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:24

I'm gonna say fact because there's a lot of shots of her with like one leg up on the ground and just like tooch in that booty. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:30

Uh good call out. It's a fact. She did perform most of her own stunt work. Once again, let's talk about Kelly Moroney. Her character, Allison, was named after a playmate. A playmate is a Playboy model.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:42

Yep. Fact. Going for fact. Fact. I mean But also Alison is such a common name that kind of doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:49

Yeah, I feel like if it yeah, there's probably one named Allison, but I I'm gonna say fiction. She wasn't named after that.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:55

It's a fact. She was named after Alison Park's Playmate of the Year, 1966. Oh my god, that's a throwback.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:01

Even more cringy. God bless.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:03

I know it's very cringy. Yeah. And then let's talk about Linda, played by Carrie Emerson. She's continued to have an extensive career in horror B movies, if you will, starring in over 20 horror movies since Chopping Ball.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:15

I feel like I was looking at the cast and just saying where I've seen some of them, and that one there there was a lot. So I'm gonna say fact. Maybe not 20. I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:25

I'm gonna trust Alexis and say fact also. Because I have no idea.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:30

Yeah, I support that because I want it to be true.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:32

This one's fiction. So while you looked at several of the other actors in this film and they had some great horror careers, she actually stopped filming. Uh stopped acting.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:42

Tell me it wasn't her. I said, I mean, there's a lot of people in this movie. Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:46

This was Carrie Emerson's last feature film. Um, and then she did like one other TV piece after this and then was done in the late 80s. So pretty wild. And that's what I have for facts or fiction.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:56

Oh, how enlightening. What an educational time that was. Now, if I may, if I may bother you guys, can I can I tell you what really sunk this movie after I watched it?

SPEAKER_02 1:16:07

You looked up the director and he's a douchey perv. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:10

So we already talked a little bit about the titles that this man has, right? I'm gonna just run down a quick list for you. Cleavage Field, The Bear Wench Project, Paranockers Activity, The Hills Have Thighs, The Devil Wears Nada, House on Hooter Hill, The Breastford Wives, The Da Vinci Coed, Alabama Jones and the Busty Crusade, The Witches of Breastwick, and Busty Cops.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:33

Wait, these are incredible titles. I'll at least give them that.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:37

These are porn titles.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:39

Oh, they have to be.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:40

They are erotic parodies of films. I love this.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:44

That would probably be something I'd enjoy, I think, for some reason. I think that was probably funnier than this movie. You're probably right.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:51

Could be. Here's where I um I don't know. You look at so many things that are happening right now where people are realizing that you can be in a position of authority and maybe take an action that to you seems harmless and to others puts them in an extreme amount of pressure. In 1988, he was in a documentary and he admitted full hard, you know, full fully that uh he got into film for the money in the chicks and said breasts are the cheapest special effect in the business. So there's that. Uh then he also said Kelly Morone, who did most of her own sons, was cast because he, and this is a quote, I had seen Kelly in a couple things and I wanted to date her. So I figured the one way to make that happen was to put her in a movie. Now this role for Allison was already cast. And that actress got replaced because she didn't want didn't want to do anything sexual. And then he put Kelly Morone in that role.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:43

But also she didn't do anything sexual, did she?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:46

She was like chased as hell. They did cut out 15 minutes of this movie when they, you know, submitted it again under a new title.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:54

It just left a bad taste in my mouth, right? And I think that explains why I probably just didn't laugh very much at this movie. That's why I think the comedy was like it was a type of humor that just doesn't resonate with me. So yeah, that that was just it for me. Uh this guy left a pretty bad taste in my mouth, but I will give credit to whoever came up. If it even if it is him, those are some fucking hilarious erotic parody titles.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:17

He also looks truly like exactly what the person you think that made these types of movies would look like. It's not good.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:26

Oh, he played the voice of the um robots too, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:18:30

Now, to add another weird twist to this whole tale, he has also made children's films.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:35

Ew. I actually now hate this man so much, just googling him.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:39

So that's what it is, guys. Like this is um a really chaotic time in the world, but I think it's a time that does need to happen. Uh there are people who are in positions of power and they have people's careers in their hands, and when you use that power as an opportunity to start a relationship or get closer to someone else, it's unethical and it's toxic and it's abusive. That being said, Chopping Mall, directed by this man, gets four hacks in one slash. But I will say again, separating him and his character from this movie, a lot of incredible people worked on this movie. I'm more than willing to give it a second chance because again, still looking back on this on paper, there are so many things that I did enjoy. Um, and I will I'll say this again the pacing in this was just so consistent because once this movie starts, it doesn't stop. It was it was action or some kind of character development happening every step of the way. Um, so this is gonna be one when we do our end of year review, I'd be I'd be curious to see how I still feel about it at the end of this. But there we have it, folks. Uh Mac is alone tonight. He's the soul slash. I was there, don't worry.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:50

Chris has too.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:51

And let me reiterate that the comedy I found was mostly due to the robots themselves and the antics of the characters that were not even main characters. The dialogue was not even the comedy that I enjoyed.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:00

Oh, so you didn't you didn't enjoy the uh you allowed it last week?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:04

No, of course not. Like that whole scene, none of that was enjoyable. The enjoyable part was that when the robots started blowing people's heads up with lasers.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:11

Yeah, there is a lot to enjoy in this movie, so I definitely don't knock anyone for liking it. We'll see how I stand on it uh at the end of the year once I've had some time and space away from it. But keep in mind we want to know what you think about this movie. It is very popular, it is a cult classic, so there's bound to be so many of you. I mean, look at us, we all most of us disliked the 13 ghosts, and yet all of our fans think it's great. So, let us know. We want to know what you think. You can reach us so many different ways, starting with our website at hackerslash.com. And on our social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:45

You can also hit us up at the Hackerslash Hotline, especially if you're trapped in a mall and there's robots chasing you. Our number is 757-606-0128. You can text us, call us, leave us a voicemail, or an audio message.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:58

Or if you're a robot, unlike me, because I'm an Android, you can send an email to feedback at hackerslash.com.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:04

And if you've enjoyed listening to our podcast, consider becoming one of our patrons. Check out patreon.com slash hack or slash, where you can earn cool perks for as low as one dollar a month.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:13

For all you robots out there, we do not accept Bitcoin, and there is a capture process involved. But we will see you next week.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:20

Bye.