Chopping Mall

Chopping Mall was released in 1986 and directed by Jim Wynorski. Rather than simply retelling the plot, the film is worth revisiting for the characters, conflicts and ideas that give its story its identity.

Technology, Freedom and Corporate power emerge through what the characters face and the choices they make, giving the story more to explore beyond its immediate plot.

Suzie Lynn, Paul Bland and Walter Paisley do not begin the film seeing one another clearly, and watching those first impressions break down is a big part of why Chopping Mall still works.

Park Plaza Mall has just installed a state-of-the-art security system, including shutters across all exits and three high-tech robots programmed to disable and apprehend thieves using tasers and tranquilizer guns.

Once the mall closes for the night, the two couples begin to have sex, drink, and party inside the furniture store while Allison is set up to watch movies with Ferdy. From there, the film can concentrate less on explaining the setup and more on what happens between the people inside it.

Barbara Crampton plays Suzie Lynn. Allison Parks and Suzie Lynn, co-workers at a pizzeria in the mall, join up with Ferdy Meisel and Greg Wiliams (Suzie's boyfriend) along with their other friends, couples Rick and Linda Stanton, and Mike Brennan and Leslie Todd—for an after-hours party in a furniture store where Mike, Greg, and Ferdy work.

That relationship helps define Suzie Lynn beyond the immediate plot mechanics.

The women attempt to escape through an air vent, but Suzie panics and they exit the vent system into an automotive shop, arming themselves with gasoline and flares.

Chopping Mall has more on its mind than the basic setup suggests. our relationship with technology sits close to the centre of the film, but it is explored through the characters rather than treated like a lesson.

freedom matters just as much. The film keeps challenging the assumptions its characters make about one another, which is where much of its emotional weight comes from.

There is also plenty here about corporate power and loss. Those ideas overlap rather than sitting in separate boxes, which helps the movie feel like a story about people rather than a checklist of themes.

Chopping Mall could hardly be separated from the decade that produced it. Released in 1986, it carries the attitudes, style and filmmaking rhythms of the 1980s without needing to announce them.

It also sits comfortably within the era's action, horror and science fiction filmmaking, even if the movie itself is more interesting than any single genre label suggests.

That is part of why it still appears in conversations about 1980s movies and 1980s action movies. The film has become tied not only to its own story but to the wider memory of what 1980s movies felt like.

Watching Chopping Mall now means seeing both what has lasted and what unmistakably belongs to 1986.

What still works best is the human material. Ideas around our relationship with technology, freedom and corporate power have not stopped being relevant simply because the clothes, language and cultural references belong to another era.

Some moments inevitably land differently for a modern audience. Revisiting an older film properly means enjoying what still works without pretending every choice has aged equally well.

A large part of that staying power comes from the characters. Suzie Lynn, Paul Bland and Walter Paisley are still useful shorthand for the personalities and pressures the film explores.

Chopping Mall has lasted because people continue to recognise something in it. Nostalgia helps, but nostalgia alone does not keep a movie in the conversation for decades.