Chopping Mall: The Novelization

Roger Corman's Concorde Pictures released Chopping Mall in 1986. The origin of the film's production stemmed from Corman's wife Julie negotiating a distribution deal with Vestron to create a horror film with a shopping mall locale. B-movie screenwriter, director, and producer Jim Wynorski joined the project to write the script (with Steve Mitchell) and direct. This was a partnership with the Cormans that would fuel future cult hits like Big Bad Mama II, Deathstalker 2, and Sorority House Massacre II and III (aka Hard to Die or Tower of Terror). Chopping Mall (initially titled Killbots) had a limited theatrical run but became rental store sustenance for millions of VCRs in the 1980s. Very few teenagers could pass up the amazing font and cover art.

In 2013, author, producer, and editor Mark Alan Miller teamed up with Shout! Factory to release the director's cut edition of Clive Barker's Nightbreed. Now, in 2024 Miller is the founder and president of the nostalgically modern publisher Encylopocalypse, which concentrates on horror, science-fiction, and action novels as both original content, reprints of prized vintage fiction, and new, fresh novelizations of cult films. His former collaboration with Shout! Factory inspired Encyclopocalypse to novelize Chopping Mall, which had previously never been novelized. Shout! Factory owns the rights to publish Roger Corman's film library. The marriage is a perfect curtain-jerk into more Corman films hitting the printed page. 

Chopping Mall's novelizations is by Brian G. Berry, an author of over fifty novels and the founder of Slaughterhouse Press. His most well-known series titles are Shark Files, Slasherback, and VHS Trash. Berry's experience with horror and his novelizations for SRS Cinema makes him the perfect fit for Chopping Mall: The Novelization (release date Nov. 19, 2024).

Berry's take on Chopping Mall mostly follows the film version, which is how I like my novelizations. After just reading Michael Avalonne's Friday the 13th 3-D novelization, which seemingly was written from a different script completely, I appreciate Berry's artistic integrity to preserve the film's original design.

The book, and film, concerns a technological advancement occurring at Park Plaza Mall. To detract theft and unruly behavior, Park Plaza has installed three robots deemed The Protector. They are armed with deadly, flesh-piercing devices like tasers, lasers, C-4 explosive, and pain-inducing pliers when in a pinch. The exterior of these robots is bulletproof. Why any of this is necessary at an average 80s shopping mall is never explained in the film other than security measures. 

One night after the mall closes for business, teenage employees stay late and converge inside one of the mall's furniture stores with their mattress mate. When a lightning storm frays the building's electronics, the robots are glitched and begin hunting the teens in the mall. These mop-headed survivors fight for their lives by stealing firearms, paint supplies (boom!), and other hardware to combat the run-amok robots. Like any 80s horror film there is the proverbial “final girl finale” to keep the faith. 

Berry's novel weighs in at 136 pages and presents these horrifying, stomach-clinching scenes of terror with enough descriptive detail to make it a bloody good time without being distasteful. I loved the breezy flow, shorter chapters, and the quick dismissal of the unimportant characters – pop, chop, and tase for (time) savings.

Unlike the film, Berry goes one step further and doesn't rely on the last page's embrace to welcome the credits. Instead, he includes a four page Epilogue titled “Protector 2.0” that explains the U.S. Army Special Weapons Division, funded by the Defense Department, staged this mall annihilation as an exercise to test how the robots would perform in combat. Berry also includes a scene from an undisclosed testing facility in California where the robots have killed a number of people before finally biting the hand that feeds in Dr. Vanders, in this case ripping her scalp from her head and shoving it in her mouth. Brian Berry can be nasty when he wants to be. 

Chopping Mall: The Novelization is a delightful retail rampage placing consumer combatants into an arena of oncoming death. Or debt from those monstrous credit card machines fueled on American capitalism and 80s excess. That's the believable horror story.

Buy your copy HERE.