Chopping Mall – Film Review

Posted on December 3, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: Jim Wynorski

Writers: Jim Wyonorski and Steve Mitchell

Starring: Kelli Maroney, Tony O’Dell, John Terlesky, Russell Todd, Paul Bartel, Mary Woronov, Dick Miller, and Barbara Crampton

Chopping Mall, is a fun slasher film, with incredibly cheesy effects, silly moments, and a fair few laughs. The premise is three security robots in a shopping mall start hunting down a group of teenagers that are locked inside after hours. It’s like Robocop mixed with Dawn of the Dead.

The opening scenes are brilliant. It starts with a presentation being given about the robots, how they work, their abilities, and the way they would be able to distinguish between the good and the bad. You just know it’s not going to happen the way they say it is. It’s very reminiscent of the scene in Robocop, which actually came out the year after Chopping Mall, where the company introduces the giant robot in a presentation that ends up killing one of their employees. It doesn’t end up the same, however, and the robots are put into use, although thanks to some lightning strikes, they don’t take long to start killing.

Everything about the film is a little goofy, from the opening presentation to the inconsistancies in the attacks from the robot’s lasers (they explode heads but also barely hurt people). It’s not trying to be anything other than a good entertaining film, and for the most part it does just that. Mindless entertainment that passes the time, but not much more than that.

When the film received its original limited release, it was simply titled Killbots and was around ninety minutes long. Audiences didn’t react well and the title was changed to the far better Chopping Mall, and a chunk of the film was cut out. Sadly, even with a run time of around seventy-five minutes, it does feel like it goes on a little too long. It’s charm starts to run thin and the whole thing starts to drag way too soon. It’s a shame because when the film first starts, it’s really good, it just doesn’t keep that up for the whole run time. There’s still enough to enjoy in the film so it’s worth watching at least once.

Like so many 80s slasher films, Chopping Mall has gained a cult following in the years since its release and it’s easy to see why. It’s fun, charming, and doesn’t take itself seriously. It’s not a great film, but if you ever have a marathon of the good kind of bad horror film, then it more than deserves a place on it.

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The Slumber Party Massacre (1982) – Film Review

Posted on December 2, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

Director Amy Holden Jones

Writer: Rita Mae Brown

Starring: Michelle Michaels, Robin Stille, Michael Villella

Rating: ★★½

The original The Slumber Party Massacre was released in 1982, at the height of the slasher craze. The original script was written by feminist writer Rita Mae Brown, as a parody of the genre, with the title Sleepless Nights. Instead when the film went into production it was a much more standard slasher film. The story follows a group of teenage girls at a slumber party who are attacked by an escaped serial killer who brandishes a giant drill. In the years since its release the film has gained a cult following, as well as two original sequels, a surprisingly brilliant reboot, and quite a few spin-offs.


While it was originally intended to be a parody of the genre, it instead comes across as a formulaic film. There are parts where it’s doing nothing more than copying Halloween from four years prior and there’s nothing to really set it apart or make it unique, besides the killer’s choice of weapon. Despite that it’s still entertaining. There’s a good amount of humour and the hint of feminism makes the film feel a lot less dated than it could of, especially since there’s a lot of gratuitous nudity in opening half of the film.


It doesn’t take long for the blood to start gushing, with the killing starting very early in the film and there isn’t a long gap between any of the deaths. There’s not a lot of gore on show, probably due to a low budget, but the sound of screams being drowned out by the drill as the camera pans away is probably scarier anyway. Later in the film the stabbings are shown, but there’s nothing impressive about the effects, even for the time. The original Friday the 13th had been out for a little while by this point, which has some great effects on show.


Running at a little over seventy minutes, the film flies by. It’s shorter than some episodes of modern TV, and that’s probably its greatest strength. It’s short, sweet, and bloody. It’s pure entertainment, with paper thin characters that you don’t really care about, being killed one after the other by a killer who has just as little development. It’s a good horror film to watch with a group of friends and have a good time. It’s funny, not always intentionally, and that makes it worth a go. One of the funniest bits is the neighbour to one of the girls, who just keeps on turning up making everyone jump and is just downright creepy.

While the original is enertaining, if you haven’t already, watch the reboot from last year, which is a great parody of the genre fulfilling the original premise.


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December 2022

Posted on December 1, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

November was a pretty good and productive one for me. My main target was to write 50,000 words of a story with the working title ‘Once’, which didn’t go exactly to plan, but I still made good progress. In the end I wrote 31368 words, which is still more than I would write in any other month. I had a couple of times when I was ill, mostly due to lack of sleep I think and that really put the brakes on my writing plans. I’m not able to turn on writing mode when my head isn’t working at 100%. I’ve not been feeling great this week, although I’m pretty much all good now besides a endlessly snotty nose, so I haven’t written a word of ‘Once’ for about 7 days. I really hoped to get up to 40,000 words by yesterday but it wasn’t meant to be. Still come Monday I’m going to go full force again and hoping to get to 50,000 words by the middle of December.

What I have been doing this week, is reading. I’ve been working the late shifts, so starting at 12 has given me a lay in each day and time to read in bed before. I started reading The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy on Monday, which I’m very much enjoying. I have around 90 pages left, and hoping to finish it tomorrow morning. It’s his first novel since The Road, from around fifteen years ago, and he has another book out next week, which is a companion novel to The Passenger. I did struggle with the writing style at first, but once I got into it, I’m finding it much easier to read. Tomorrow I’m going on a little weekend trip and will be taking The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks with me. I’ve had that book for over ten years and never read it. My fiction lecturer from the first year of university recommended it and it’s just sat on various shelves since then. It suddenly popped into my head earlier this week, so I decided it was time to actually read it.

I had to stop writing this post because the trailer for the new Indiana Jones film was just released, now titled Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. I know a lot of people think that Harrison Ford is too old for the role, but I’m very excited for the film. The trailer makes it looks like a lot of fun and now I can’t wait. It’ll be great to see Ford in the role one last time. On other news Metallica have also released a new song, Lux Æterna, from their upcoming album 72 Seasons. I’ve listened to it more times than I can count this week. It’s short and punchy. It’s a good teaser of the rest of the album and I can’t wait to listen to that over and over again next year.

Thanks for reading and until next time,

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Blood on the Tracks: Volume 1 – Manga Review

Posted on November 30, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

Before reading Blood on the Tracks, I’d not read much by Shūzō Oshimi, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I had a feeling it was going to be weird and a little messed up, but the story was completely shocking. The manga follows Seiichi, a shy teenager who has an incredibly overprotective mum, Seiko. Right from the opening scenes, with Seiko waking up Seiichi, you know that things aren’t quite right. There’s something very sinister about her, but I wasn’t expecting where the manga was going. It’s dark and subtle, at least in the first volume.

The art throughout this volume is incredible, the facial reactions from the mother say so much and make her into such a sinister character. When the big moment happens towards the end of the book every panel is so well done. The look on her face, the look of Seiichi when he’s not quite sure what he’s seen. I don’t want to spoil anything, but it’s a brilliant moment and seriously well done. The only bit that I didn’t like was the character designs for Seiichi and his school friends were too similar, so I couldn’t tell who was who in some panels. But they weren’t a major part of the story so it doesn’t matter.

I read the first volume in about twenty minutes to half an hour. It’s very light on dialogue, although the story is still very gripping. I’ll definitely be checking out more of the series as well as other manga by Shūzō Oshimi.

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Ten Years Later

Posted on November 29, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

I realised earlier today that I must be reaching ten years of writing on this blog, and it turns out that I’ve just missed that anniversary. My first post was on the 27th November 2012. I can’t believe how quicky a decade has passed, but while I’m a little late I just wanted to mark the occasion with a big thank you to everyone who’s read anything I’ve posted on here.

Ten years ago I was coming up to half way through my second year of university, and I was editing my book, To The Other, which was then released in June 2013 and is currently free on kindle if you want to check it out. (UK – USA)

The memories of writing those early posts are very strong in my mind. In the years since, I’ve published 1037 posts on here, with over half of those in the last 18 months when I started writing film reviews. Today also marks 547 days in a row with a post.

I’ve enjoyed writing on here, and feel that it’s always been a good outlet, whether that’s just writing about stuff I’ve been doing or sharing what I love about a certain film or book. It’s also been great to share the stories I’ve written and receive wonderful responses. The posts I’m most proud of are my short stories, and every time I put on up, I get nervous that there will be a ton of errors or people will hate it, but that hasn’t happened yet.

The first short story I put up on her I actually wrote when I was still in school, The Valley of the Shadow of Death, and put it on here the day I started the blog. You can take a look here:

https://ashleymanning.com/short-stories/the-valley-of-the-shadow-of-death/

Much more recently, I put up Best Friends Forever, which I put up on 11th August this year, just after my birthday. You can read that one here:

https://ashleymanning.com/2022/08/11/best-friends-forever-short-story/

I’ll let you decide if I’ve gotten better or worse with writing. Hopefully better.

Moving forward I have plenty of new stories in the works, both short stories and longer pieces. I’m even working on a sequel to Best Friends Forever, as some feedback I received inspired the follow-up. I have a sci-fi story that I’m about half way through writing, and another that’s about a quarter of the way there. There will also be more film, book, and manga reviews, as always.

Again, I just want to say thank you to everyone who’s read anything I’ve written. I truly appreciate it and every like, comment, and follow I receive means the absolute world to me. Thank you and here’s to the next ten years!

Thanks,

Ashley

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