Post by klep on Jul 19, 2021 13:12:51 GMT -6
MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 7/19: Chopping Mall
SCIENCE FICTION WEEK!
If there's a common thread throughout most Western science fiction, it's a certain pessimism about what technology will bring us. Time travel will create devastating paradoxes, medical research will create horrific plagues or zombies, alien contact will result in invasion, and yes, the robots will rise up against us. So it's unsurprising that our fear of technology would eventually merge with the slasher to give us Chopping Mall.
Chopping Mall, originally released as Killbots, follows a group of young people as they attempt to hold a party/orgy in the mall where most of them are employed. Little do they know a lightning strike has turned the mall's new robot security into robot murderers! Coming in at a fleet 77 minutes, the film doesn't spend much time engaging with its premise but gets right to the action.
A mall is a great setting for a slasher film. It provides an excuse for a wide variety of locations, hazards, obstacles, and opportunities. Once you've locked your victims inside it, they have plenty of opportunity for all kinds of shenanigans. Obviously sporting goods and hardware stores provide ample opportunities for arming the puny humans, but Chopping Mall also gets good mileage out of the creepy crawlies in a pet store and of course the furniture store where most of the crew get drunk and have sex (a caution to those of you considering purchasing a floor model).
For their part despite all the death and destruction they create, the bots are disconcertingly cute. They're entirely believable as the misguided child of R&D and marketing - diminutive and absurdly lethal. I mean really, why do they have lasers? Why are they bulletproof? You get the sense that their backstory involves a military contract that fell through with the way they methodically and ruthlessly hunt down the people in the mall. They even clean the scene of their first victim so the second doesn't stumble upon him!
Knowing what I know of software development, the idea that the lightning strike near the film's beginning substantially altered the bots' programming is far less likely than the idea that the blast merely disabled a module inhibiting lethal action - removing oversight revealed these agents of public safety to be ruthless killers. In other words Chopping Mall was trying to tell us ACAB. We should have listened.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 7/26: Baby Face
PRE-CODE WEEK!
For Pre-Code Week we'll be watching the film that most proximately led to the strict enforcement of the Hays Code with 1933's Baby Face, starring Barbara Stanwyck. Be sure to join us next week as we discuss a film sold on sex and sleaze which led to the end of treating sex with any kind of realism in Hollywood for decades. Baby Face is available on WatchTCM and for rent at the usual places.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 7/20: Summer of Soul
The podcast concludes its pairing on 1969 music festivals with this Questlove jawn (directed by Ahmir-Khalib Thompson) on the Harlem Cultural Festival. Come join our discussion on Wednesday of this film, available on Hulu.
SCIENCE FICTION WEEK!
If there's a common thread throughout most Western science fiction, it's a certain pessimism about what technology will bring us. Time travel will create devastating paradoxes, medical research will create horrific plagues or zombies, alien contact will result in invasion, and yes, the robots will rise up against us. So it's unsurprising that our fear of technology would eventually merge with the slasher to give us Chopping Mall.
Chopping Mall, originally released as Killbots, follows a group of young people as they attempt to hold a party/orgy in the mall where most of them are employed. Little do they know a lightning strike has turned the mall's new robot security into robot murderers! Coming in at a fleet 77 minutes, the film doesn't spend much time engaging with its premise but gets right to the action.
A mall is a great setting for a slasher film. It provides an excuse for a wide variety of locations, hazards, obstacles, and opportunities. Once you've locked your victims inside it, they have plenty of opportunity for all kinds of shenanigans. Obviously sporting goods and hardware stores provide ample opportunities for arming the puny humans, but Chopping Mall also gets good mileage out of the creepy crawlies in a pet store and of course the furniture store where most of the crew get drunk and have sex (a caution to those of you considering purchasing a floor model).
For their part despite all the death and destruction they create, the bots are disconcertingly cute. They're entirely believable as the misguided child of R&D and marketing - diminutive and absurdly lethal. I mean really, why do they have lasers? Why are they bulletproof? You get the sense that their backstory involves a military contract that fell through with the way they methodically and ruthlessly hunt down the people in the mall. They even clean the scene of their first victim so the second doesn't stumble upon him!
Knowing what I know of software development, the idea that the lightning strike near the film's beginning substantially altered the bots' programming is far less likely than the idea that the blast merely disabled a module inhibiting lethal action - removing oversight revealed these agents of public safety to be ruthless killers. In other words Chopping Mall was trying to tell us ACAB. We should have listened.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 7/26: Baby Face
PRE-CODE WEEK!
For Pre-Code Week we'll be watching the film that most proximately led to the strict enforcement of the Hays Code with 1933's Baby Face, starring Barbara Stanwyck. Be sure to join us next week as we discuss a film sold on sex and sleaze which led to the end of treating sex with any kind of realism in Hollywood for decades. Baby Face is available on WatchTCM and for rent at the usual places.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 7/20: Summer of Soul
The podcast concludes its pairing on 1969 music festivals with this Questlove jawn (directed by Ahmir-Khalib Thompson) on the Harlem Cultural Festival. Come join our discussion on Wednesday of this film, available on Hulu.