In this current boom time for horror films, let us once again praise the work of the city’s movie theaters that offer repertory showings—for providing access to both classic films of the form (education for recent converts to the genre, like myself) and some gristle for the longtime fans to gnaw on.
The calendars for Hollywood Theatre, Academy Theater, and Cinemagic tend to be packed with iconic works and cult favorites. But one frequently heads above them all is Clinton Street Theater.Â
Just recently, the 200-seat spot announced several May appearances from actor Ray Wise, at screenings of 1982’s Swamp Thing and the brilliant Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, where he plays Leland Palmer. Later on that month, they’ll be celebrating the career of the late producer Roger Corman with a packed calendar of kitschy classics from A Bucket of Blood (1959) to Forbidden World (1982).
This Friday, as part of their monthlong Women in Film series, actress Kelli Maroney will discuss two of her classic ’80s horror roles, in Chopping Mall (1986) and Night of the Comet (1984). Even without the chance to have your copy of Atari video game Tempest—which looms large in Comet—autographed by one of the film’s stars, the sci-fi horror double feature is perfection.Â
While Maroney is the star of both films, there are plenty of threads connecting Comet and Chopping Mall. Cult favorite actor Mary Woronov is in both and plays a particularly crucial role in Comet. Sherman Oaks Galleria features in a key sequence in Comet and is where all the action takes place is Chopping—it's also worth noting that the LA shopping center is famous in its own right, inspiring everything from Frank Zappa’s “Valley Girl” to the 1995 film Phantom of the Mall.
But beyond those cosmetic details, the two films dovetail beautifully as commentaries on a materialistic culture that took deep root in the lives of young people in the ’80s. That’s right there on the surface of a film like Chopping Mall, which pits a bunch of upwardly mobile 20-somethings against a batch of murderous robot security guards. Maroney and her pals—including future Head of the Class hunk Tony O’Dell—party in the Park Plaza Mall after hours, and run up against glitching robot security guards with head-exploding laser eyes. Director Jim Wynorski may not have intended this speedy, bare-bones slasher to be a critique on the vicious means of our capitalist system, but the message telegraphs handily with each killing. If nothing else, Chopping Mall will inspire some serious side eye to those autonomous robots rolling around hotel parking lots.Â
The assessment is a little subtler in Night of the Comet. Maroney and co-star Catherine Mary Stewart play sisters who, by pure happenstance, are two of the only survivors when the titular comet reduces much of the population to dust. Also wiped out: social strata or power structures.
That may be a lot to hang on a low-budget sci-fi horror lark where two women fend off zombie-like humans and evil scientists. But who among us doesn’t dream of leveling the proverbial playing field that pits the haves against the have-nots in one fell swoop? Just, you know, without the deaths of billions of people in the process.Â
Chopping Mall and Night of the Comet screen w/ special appearance by Kelli Maroney at Clinton Street Theater, 2522 SE Clinton, Fri March 21, 6 pm, $25, tickets here, content warning for robot violence and exploding heads.
