Director: Richard Friedman
Year: 1989
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
After the erection of a new shopping mall, a woman and her friends are shocked to learn that a series of disappearances are being committed by the supposedly deceased boyfriend of hers who burned to death in a house fire to make way for the mall’s construction and must stop his revenge plot.
Review:
While flawed, this is still a generally enjoyable slasher effort. Among the more enjoyable features here is the cheesy atmosphere that’s on display here with the films’ time-capsule creation and setup that serves this rather nicely. The whole idea of serving as a setting to transplant the famous story away from an opera house to a massive multi-level shopping mall that was highly important in that time period is a great capsule idea that’s allowed plenty of fun leeway here to adopt the slasher leanings later on. With that in place, the films’ culture and general attitude are so unmistakable from that only continue to further place the look and feel of this one rather easily beyond other cheesy features like the shadowy martial arts training sessions or the erotic-tinged sexual encounter dream that plays out here.
There’s also the highly enjoyable and better-than-expected slasher outings which are quite fun. With the mall setting being utilized to its fullest with the majority of the early kills around here taking place mainly within the heating ducts and hidden away sections of the mall which allows for some grander extravagance in the kills, there’s a lot to like here. From the initial ambushes on the security crews involving the masked man appearing out of nowhere and striking using the setup of the mall to his advantage by disappearing quickly into the shadows, this part is all quite fun and enjoyable when packed alongside several intriguing and interesting kills. That also manages to include some highly enjoyable brawls between the killer and several victims which showcase some fun action in the martial arts scenes and some grandiose stuntwork in the finale out in the open sections of the mall. This all comes off well enough to have a lot to like.
This one does have some slight issues here, namely in the films’ overabundance of characters that tie up the storylines significantly in the first half. With tons of workers, security, and mall staff to account for on top of the multitude of storylines involving the different figures within the mall and the different cover-ups that are taking place in the community which sometimes means this one features several storylines that don’t need to be there. It also helps slow down the final half where the reveal of all these different plotlines causes the stalking and slashing to come to a halt more so than expected as the body-count drops significantly with the killer leaving way too many survivors because of having too much time here spent on aspects unrelated to the main storyline. Coupled with the generally goofy and cheesy atmosphere that’s on display throughout here, this is what holds the film back the most.
Overview: ***.5/5
A generally enjoyable if slightly flawed cheesy late-80s slasher that has a lot to like with those few issues, overall this one comes off far better than expected which makes for an enjoyable time. Give it a watch if you're a fan of the setup or the general presentation as well as those that enjoy this kind of late-80s slasher film while most others who aren't into those aspects should heed caution.
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