What a shame that I have to phone in this film considering I already phoned it in once on this blog a few October’s back. That;s too bad because this is one of th more notable bad movies of the 80s, often mentioned around the likes of Troll 2, but I only saw it once about eight years ago and I just can’t bring myself to watching it again. What I can tell you is that if you’re ever looking for a good episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 to watch check out this one. Though aside from that my memory is fuzzy. All I can really recall is bunch of shitty puppets that bring people’s fantasies to life and then attack them and by attack them I mean you get to watch people being humped to death by stuffed animals. This is another one of the many Gremlins knockoffs of the 80s but somehow one of the most notorious, very lame, they even call them gruesome gremlins in the trailer!

The trailer makes this movie look about as good as I remember.

First off, awesome title. Which is crazy because it wasn’t even the original name of this schlocky Roger Corman produced flick. The original title was “Killbots” which is even better. I don’t think anyone would guess this is a film about killer robots after hearing the title “Chopping Mall”. Not to mention these killer robots don’t actually chop anyone up, they use lasers. So not only is the title misleading but it doesn’t have anything to do with the movie, but hey, awesome.

In Chopping Mall, robots called “Protectors” are invented to replace mall security. Meaning, after hours they are programmed to pursue anyone without a mall pass with a series of built-in gadgets to ensure their success. These gadgets include sleeping darts, a taser gun, and lasers that can slice through anything. Wait a minute, killer lasers? Why would a robot that’s supposed to be nonviolent have killer lasers? Hmm, well I’m sure that won’t come back to bite anyone in the ass.

Our main cast is a group of horny teens that work at the mall planning to throw a party after the mall closes. There’s the naive but good-hearted chick, the macho guy, the slut, the nerd, all the usual stereotypes and I’ll be damned if I can remember any of their names. For whatever reason, the teens get trapped in the mall and the robots go rouge and start killing them. I can’t stress that “whatever reason” enough because I don’t know why they became evil.

What I loved about my experience watching Chopping Mall is that it’s quick to the point. They don’t pussy foot around trying to make this a serious or even competent story. It’s purposefully over-the-top and when there are so many b-movies that attempt to actually be good movies, it’s refreshing to see one that’s comfortable with being a b-movie. There are great kills and bizarre moments (finding automatic rifle’s in a store in the mall) it’s pure cheese and sometimes you just need to chow down.

Here someone put together a collection of all the death scenes, skim through it if you dare.

I’ve seen my fair share of bad horror movies but too often I find that some of the most irritating are the foreign horror films. I’m talking about the kind of films that are quickly and poorly hobbled together, sloppily dubbed and then shipped out to the US market. The kind of films where you wonder if anyone really had a firm grasp of any language when making it. Though perhaps the more puzzling query is “What is The Pod People supposed to be about?”

First of all The Pod People is not about Pod People and I have no idea why his film is called The Pod People. The actual title of this Spanish sci-fi flick is Los Neuvos Extraterrestres or The New Extraterrestrials. Originally planned as a horrific alien thriller the success of E.T. drove the producers to also make it the story of an innocent boy and his friendly alien pal. Filled with pointless subplots, inane dialogue, and far too many pointless scenery cutaways, watching this film is worse than any kind of probe.

The film opens with the credits superimposed over footage of what appears to be some homemade alien monster movie. Though for whatever reason this footage of men fighting aliens in the woods is in fact from another movie called Galaxy Invader. How this happened I have no idea as not only is it completely irrelevant but the footage is so bad. After this we are introduced to a trio of egg poachers out in the woods looking for nightingale eggs, which I guess must be worth some money to someone. One of the poachers then wanders off after supposedly seeing something in the sky and soon stumbles upon an eerie cave. Inside the cave is a collection of large eggs, the man smashes one open and discovers a gross fetus. So without even considering that these eggs may be worth something, Mr. Dumbest Egg Poacher in the world starts to smash all the eggs which awakens an unseen monster that kills him.

The other two poachers continue to meander through what looks like the foggiest woods on Earth while each following scene seems to go back and forth between day and night. I seem to recall one guy even says “Don’t take all night!” when it’s clearly day. Moving away from these poachers we are introduced to a young boy living nearby in a house in the woods who is awoken by some mysterious lightning outside. The boy named Tommy also appears to collect animals as a hobby and lives with his mom and douchebag uncle. Tommy also sounds like he’s voiced by an adult Italian woman but hey why not? So we get a couple more shots of the poachers again and then the next thing you know were in some kind of recording studio.

Here we have Rick, a hot recording artist busy in the studio working on some song singing “Hear the Engines Roll, Now!” Though it sounds more like “Idiot Control Now!” This segment of the film was well covered in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Before we have any idea what this scene has to do with anything were back to the woods again following two characters that are taking the film nowhere.

Skipping ahead Rick (who’s a complete douchebag) and his studio friends travel out to go camping in the woods, Oh, now I see why they’re in this movie. It’s at this point in the film that I could swear some of the characters voices are constantly changing from the dubbing process but I don’t know, there’s definitely something going on there. Back to Tommy and we see that he’s discovered the mysterious egg cave and found one egg left behind. Tommy also discovers the dead body of one of the poachers and runs from the cave in terror, though I don’t believe he ever tells anyone about the dead body.

Tommy goes home and starts to care for the egg until it hatches into some kind of miniature Alf-like alien that the kid names “Trumpy”, here is where the E.T. element enters the film. Then in a SINGLE CUTAWAY the alien grows to the size of a dwarf in a costume and shows the kid his stupid magic powers. Skipping ahead again Rick and his stupid friends get ridiculed by the mother alien and make their way to Tommy’s house. This is where the rest of the film basically becomes your typical monster/slasher B-movie. As I’m growing weary of plot synopsis I believe it ended with Trumpy’s mom and a lot of others being killed and then some more footage from Galaxy Invader. What this all results in is a movie that’s part monster movie part kids movie and all terrible!

Trumpy and friends!

Some might say the selection of Basket Case was a a misstep on my part. Most of the film’s I’ve selected for “Shocktober” or “Shlocktober” have bee universally panned, but this one not as much as I thought. Sure I found it on many web columnists’ and blogger’s “Top Ten Worst Horror Movies Lists” but I was shocked when I found that the usually dependable rating site/my filmgoing bible Rotten Tomatoes gave this film a 79%. Sure it’s only out of 19 reviews but still, does this film belong here? It all depends on what I use to declare a movie as bad and though this is probably the best movie I’ve seen for this series that’s not saying much.

Considering this film is so low budget there’s a lot to appreciate in Basket Case. It’s a quirky and somewhat interesting story with a few nice laughs but at the same time I can’t get over the film’s monster. I think it helps to know your boundaries in independent filmmaking, know what will look good and what won’t and this film doesn’t seem to recognize that. Director Frank Henenlotter (a self proclaimed exploitation filmmaker) claims this movie is a dark comedy but still I wonder. Is Henenlotter just saying that because it turned out so ridiculous? Because if this is supposed to be a comedy it’s a tad off balance.

Basket Case is the story of Duane Bradley a seemingly nice if not naive young man who arrives in New York City with a large basket. What’s in the basket? Why it’s his parasitic twin that he shares a telepathic link with of course. Duane has arrived in the big city to get revenge on the all the doctors who separated him and his still living twin Belial when they were children. Well really it’s Belial who gets the revenge, despite the fact that he’s just a big hunk of mangled flesh. Complications arise when Duane starts to get a taste of life without Belial, going out on dates and what not, this of course leads to many new corpses.

“So he has a parasitic twin in a basket? That sounds terrible!” Well yes, the Beliali puppet (which on one occasion is stop motion) is one of the dumbest monsters I’ve ever seen. How can something without legs or even certain organs for that matter overpower and kill people, or do anything for that matter? It just looks so bad, what the hell is that thing? Duane describes it as looking like “a squashed octopus” that takes a little imagination but it’s a start.

Maybe this is a dark comedy but if it is I think it missed some opportunities. The idea that I’m supposed to take any of the non humorous moments as serious is a stretch. This is some kind of weird shlocky mish mash of horror and comedy that has it’s high and low points, not too bad but nothing I ever wanna see again.

And below we have pic of Belial in all his glory.

Were taking a trip back to Roger Corman’s film school with this one. Known as the King of B-movies, Roger Corman has directed and produced countless B-movies (good and bad) on shoestring budgets for many years and has also trained some of Hollywood’s best along the way. Everyone from Francis Ford Coppola to Martin Scorsese started out working for Corman and today’s film is no exception as features the talents of who else but Jame Cameron. Yes, James Cameron worked on Galaxy of Terror as both a production designer and second unit director, but even with all his technical prowess not even he could save this film forever lost in space.

Cameron’s clearly done his part here as the film looks great with some cheesy but amusing effects, the problem here is the story or lack thereof. I think it’s pretty clear that this film is just a ripoff of Ridley Scott’s Alien and while they did a good job of putting together some atmospheric sets they should of put more of that effort into crafting an interesting and unique story, ya know something that doesn’t suck. The cast is made up of all sorts of cult b-movie stars including; Sid Haig, Robert Englund in a rare non villain role, and Taaffe O’Connell in her career defining role as a technical officer who gets raped by a giant space worm. Additional cast includes Edward Albert (son of Eddie Albert from Green Acres) and Ray Walston (My Favorite Martian, Fast Times at Ridgemont High). All these actors and a few more makeup the members of a spaceship crew who “accidentally” crash land on the gritty planet Morganthus.

What kind of shit goes down on Morganthus? Mostly a bunch of wandering around to moody synth music. This I don’t mind too much, it does build suspense but it always seems to fizzle out when the film tries to show off it’s underwhelming alien antagonists. The poster shows some kind of Skeleton-faced dragon thing but I don’t recall anything like that in the film. I thought I might of once but for the most part you never really get a very good look at any of the alien puppets. The only ones we do get a good look at are these shitty little worm puppets that make really stupid cartoon noises. Oh yeah and some of the aliens can shape shift into various things like people and um glass, hmm. These aliens are far from the worst I’ve seen in a b-movie but when everything else looks so good it really takes me out of the movie.

So crew members get picked off one by one until we finally discover (Spoiler) that Ray Walston is this guy called “The Master” with a glowing red head and that this planet (specifically this one magic pyramid on the planet) is a training ground to test and control fear, which is totally stupid. So Edward Albert (sporting a very Burt Reynolds mustache) shoots him with lasers but then he becomes “The Master”? Wow this is so dumb, they couldn’t of just made it a straightforward sci-fi with a competent plot?

Another thing I have to address before finishing up is the “Alien Worm Rape Scene” which is perhaps the most controversial part of this movie. It’s basically exactly what it sounds like but I don’t see what makes it so taboo. I’ve definitely seen much worse on camera, in a sick twisted kind of way the scene is even humorous, has mankind just become more desensitized? As silly as all this is, it’s still probably one of the better films I saw for this list. It’s definitely (at least in my mind) one of the more forgettable Corman produced flicks but it still has a sliver of worth. This is the kind of movie you watch with all your friends at 2:00am, crack jokes, sit back, and have really dumb fun.

And here we have the memorable death of Sid Haig’s character, awesome?