This high-tech spin on the slasher genre pits a group of sex-obsessed teens spending the night in a shopping mall against the mall's marauding robotic security guards -- whose programming turns homicidal after a bolt of lightning scrambles their control circuits. Director Jim Wynorski cut his exploitation teeth working for
Roger Corman's legendary "B"-movie factory New World Pictures in the '70s and '80s, and this film's comic early scenes contain homages to that outfit's heyday -- with humorous cameos from
Paul Bartel and
Mary Woronov (reprising their characters Paul and Mary Bland from Bartel's
Eating Raoul) and the ubiquitous
Dick Miller. The majority of the film, however, is essentially a teens-in-jeopardy story, with the lethal bots unleashing their amped-up arsenal and bringing the victims to nasty ends amid buckets of gore -- such as the unforgettable moment when one woman's head is targeted by one of the droids and blown up like an overripe melon. (The shot is repeated during the end credits.) ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide