Robert Hall’s Chopping Mall remake is about killer mannequins

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Way back in 2011, it was announced that LAID TO REST director Robert Hall intended to remake the 1986 Jim Wynorski cult classic CHOPPING MALL. Scripted by Steve Mitchell and produced by Roger Corman's wife Julie Corman, that film had the following synopsis: 

Some people will kill for a bargain… and at the Park Plaza Mall they do! Here, you can shop till you drop… dead!

High tech robots equipped with state-of-the-art security devices have been recruited as the new mechanical "night watchmen" for the Park Plaza Mall. When a jolting bolt of lightning short circuits the main computer control, the robots turn into "killbots"… on the loose after unsuspecting shoppers! Four couples are trying to make it after-hours in a mattress store. They make it alright – in the morgue!

At Park Plaza, you can save on everything but your life!

CHOPPING MALL was initially released under the title KILLBOTS, and if it that title had stuck Hall wouldn't be pursuing a remake of the property – his idea draws its inspiration from the title CHOPPING MALL and ditches the Killbots. During a recent interview with Nightmare Toys, Hall apologized to the CHOPPING MALL purists and says he couldn't find a way to do killer robots in this day and age and not make it silly. But the Killbots were silly in 1986 as well, they even told people to "Have a nice day" after killing them. The silliness was part of why fans loved them.

Hall went on to reveal just what he plans to replace the Killbots with in his version of CHOPPING MALL, which he describes as "THE FOG set in a mall":

My version of CHOPPING MALL that I wrote is totally supernatural … instead of killer robots, they are these mannequins that are possessed by the souls of dead slaves that worked at the plantation that the mall was built over."

That sounds like a cool enough slasher, but I still want to see the Killbots in action again, and not just in the cameo Hall says he will give them. 

Hall says it has taken almost seven years to get his version of CHOPPING MALL off the ground partially due to budgetary issues. With other companies getting their hands on the Corman library, he now has to check to make sure he still has the remake rights.

In the meantime, he is working on putting together a third LAID TO REST movie, which will see the return of cast members Nick Principe (star of the film AMERICAN MUSCLE, written by John "The Arrow" Fallon) and Brian Austin Green.