1989 Directed by Richard Friedman
A young man named Eric apparently dies in a suspicious house fire after saving his girlfriend, Melody. One year later, a new mall is constructed atop where Eric's house once stood, where a shadowy, uninvited guest is preying on the mall's crooked developers.
Dumb late 80’s mall slasher feels like the end of a tired genre cycle but it still scratches the itch with fun kills, lots of air duct footage, Pauly Shore, Morgan Fairchild, pervert security guards, Ken Foree!, a mugger getting crossbowed, and a bathroom snake. Went with the composite Phan cut and enjoyed it even more this time around... its idiotic fluff but I’m a sucker for mall shenanigans and weirdo takes on the monolithic Leroux story.
Hmmm… a Phantom of the Mall remake with Paul Reiser as the scumbag mall owner???? I’d see it.
Favorite part is that this sounds like it's a sequel to a movie that doesn't exist.
A fun mall-set slasher with amateurish (but effective) gore, a large serving of cheese and hilarious '80s fashions. There are even a couple of sex scenes thrown in there for good measure.
I had a digital copy, but I had such a blast watching this with Michelle that I am going to buy the Arrow blu-ray.
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Good evening and welcome fellow Children of Chaos.
Crap Movie Collective catch up.
The Phantom of the Opera, valley girl edition.
Basically this is the exact same plot as Phantom of the Opera, except it is teens and a mall instead of whatever the fuck that stupid old story is about. Like Opera, who even could care.
Joking aside, I am 100% here for this take on Phantom. And it plays it way straighter than I thought it was going to. A little silly sure, but it never really falls into outright goof territory, except...
Toward the end of the movie Eric is having a confrontation with Morgan Fairchild, and he lifts her up in a gorilla press slam like he's The Ultimate Fucking Warrior and tosses her out of the rumble, errrr. out of the window.
And if you know me, putting dumb wrestling movies in your movie is an instant boost.
PRICES ARENT THE ONLY THING BEING SLASHED! - one of the best tag lines I’ve ever heard
Can’t believe that as much as I love movies with malls that I never got around to watching this until now! And Morgan Fairchild as a sassy mayor? Of course it’s 4 stars!
It’s not quite on par with Chopping Mall, but apparently it was filmed in the same mall that is sadly being torn down to make room for new luxury apartments because that’s what we need more of!
Still, plenty of fun, plenty of violence, Pauly Shore being not completely irritating, and a killer reveal that reminded me of the Toxic Avenger all add up to a pretty fun time!
Late 80s slasher shennanigans it's Phantom of the Mall Eric's Revenge! Filmed in the same set as Chopping Mall we are treated to that beautiful 80s mall setting. One of my favourite slasher settings for shizz. So basically Eric was murdered and everyone is sad. Soon enough theres grizzly killings at the mall and everyone freaks the fuck out. Especially Pauly Shore.
The kills are pretty fun and I loved the scene where the security guard gets electrocuted resulting in his eyeballs popping out! Radical dude! The killer is also trained in Karate and crossbows and has tons of tricks up their sleeve. As does Pauly Shore. With his hair. Ken Foree plays a security guard which is pretty sweet.…
"Prices aren't the only thing being slashed!"
Another obscure 80s slasher rescued from the depths of oblivion and given the royal treatment it deserves! Can I get a hallelujah!? A film with such a ridiculous "only in the 80s" kinda premise it's such a delightful crainium crusher. I mean what a great albeit confusing title I love it! Who the heck is Eric? And why does he want revenge? Is this a sequel? Well in the wonderful world of wacky 80s horror it doesn't even matter! You just gotta ride that campy wave of destruction!
The blending of 80s teen comedy and slasher works really well here. The characters are funny without being annoying and most of the humor lands…
would happily take this authentic mall fetishization over the Stranger Things brand of trendy nostalgia for this very thing but I never need to see that snake/toilet death again in my life
Welcome to the Mall
Arrow over here doing the work of the Gods, restoring this obscurity of tacky late 80's madness and transforming it into a crispy clear-eyed vision of pure drool-covered joy. Richard Friedman's magnum opus, a wacky nightmare of mixed morality with multiple villains, multiple lovers, and multiple gore-drenched kills.
In a film where we get an electricity kill AND a snake bites a guy in the dong, leave it up to an escalator decapitation to quite possibly outdo both of those maniacal spectacles. Friedman's dropped a doozy!
On revisit, I actually liked this way more (hence my upgrade of 3.5 to 4) and I almost wonder if I prefer this to Chopping Mall ...
Hey where did…
Very dumb slasher which gets a less annoying performance out of Pauly Shore than normal. Disfigured kid running amok in the vents of a mall while keeping his eye on his ex-girlfriend after getting severely disfigured in a fire. Lots of fun kills including escalators, forklifts, hydraulic doors, air vents, and an awesome eye-popping electrocution kill. Miss February 1988 Kari Kennell Whitman gets a flashback sex scene and Mac's dad from It's Only Sunny turns up as a killer/arsonist with a distinctive earring.
Possibly the 7th best movie shot inside a mall but then the others didn't have a snake biting a penis so maybe it should be higher.
Slightly different setup here where the random girl the phantom fixates on was his actual consenting gf before he was horribly scarred in a fire deliberaely set because his parent's home was inconveniently located where the evil big shot developers planned to build a...you get the idea.
Morgan Fairchild wears many sparkly dresses and has the eightiesest of all 80s perms. Pauly Shore wears a yellow golfing cardigan, evacuates the mall and saves everyone on an awkward sidecar honda scooter. He even gets the girl he has been hanging around in a passive agressive (but never overly pushy) manner waiting for her to hit rock bottom and consider playing detective and crawling around in an air duct with him a…
