Bullet Points: Terror in the Mall
If I have learned one thing during my time here at Bulletproof Action, it is that I missed out on a lot of made for TV movies over the years. The latest example of that is 1998’s Terror in the Mall…
- Prison Break: The movie opens with a prisoner escaping the Colorado State Penitentiary by rigging an explosion in the laundry room. The laundry room blast catches the prison guard by surprise and that’s when the freedom seeking prisoner strikes… shanking the guard multiple times! The prisoner then puts on the guards bloody clothes, hides the dead body of the guard in a laundry cart and lays on the floor… when the other guards come in, they see who they believe is their co-worker seriously injured and call for an ambulance. As the ambulance is driving away, the EMT realizes that the “prison guard” has no wounds and that’s when the prisoner strikes again… taking out the EMTs and then running into the rainy night towards Pines Valley.
- 14 Days and 14 Nights: We learn that the rainy night is not a new development. In fact, it has been raining for two straight weeks now. There is an on location news report talking about how the historic rain fall may impact the grand opening of the new Pines Valley Mall that is scheduled for the next day. Surprisingly they weren’t reporting on the much bigger news story… the one about the dam nearly being at capacity and how it could crumble at any moment and flood the entire valley!! This is when we meet Sheriff Chris Maratos, who needs to borrow a scale model of the valley from the local museum and dump a garbage can full of water on to it, so he can visualize what things will look like if/when the dam breaks. If only he could have just imagined it, kind of like how he imagined a tape dispenser placed on the model was the new mall. Chris’ wife, Dr. Sheri Maratos (Shannon Sturges, Convict 762), shows up to see how he is doing, Chris doesn’t have much time to talk as he is interrupted by a call about the prison break and the manhunt coming his way… when it rains, it pours, amirite?
- Last Minute: Sheri, realizing she had not picked up Chris anything for his birthday, decides to do some last minute shopping. Does she hit up Walmart or Target? Nah, she goes to the mall that is not open yet. But when she gets to the mall, she is not the only one there… Up and coming pop star, Suzanne Price, is doing a sound check for her grand opening performance for an audience of one, David, her manager… Security guard Tom is there, as is a man who claims to be Roger Karey, the architect of the mall. Tom catches “Roger” (David Soul, Pentathlon), coming out of one of the mall’s department stores (that was not open for business) with a stolen? sport coat in his hand, which is a very shady intro for the character… There’s one other person in the mall, the guy at the sporting goods store (Rob Estes, Attack on the Queen). Sheri is able to convince him to sell her a birthday gift for his husband… and that’s about the time everyone in the mall could hear, the rumble… the dam broke and within moments the first floor of the mall is flooded!
- Flooding Mall: The movie goes into disaster mode, with not only the rising flood waters, but an obvious gas leak… a gas leak that could spark an explosion if the power goes out and the emergency generators kick on. But we also have the escaped prisoner angle to deal with… the movie tried to make you believe that David Soul was the prisoner, but it turns out he really was the architect of the mall and the prisoner is *SPOILER ALERT* Rob Estes’ character, Glen Savoy! This only adds to the danger for Sheri and the others… who now have a homicidal maniac to deal with too!
- Show Me the Money: Savoy didn’t just wander into the mall to hide, he knows there’s money stashed in a suitcase at the luggage store and he intends on making it his. I believe this was the money that was never recovered from the armed robbery that landed Savoy in prison to begin with. I must have missed how Savoy knew it was in the mall OR more importantly why it was hidden in the mall’s luggage store. What I do know is the luggage store is on the first floor, so if Savoy is going to get the money, he is going to need to break out the scuba gear! And so begins the Savoy/Sheri rivalry… with the crafty Savoy finding out the hard way that the Doc is pretty crafty herself. *SPOILER ALERT* Sheri’s best move is drugging Savoy, so when he attempts to escape the mall via helicopter, he ends up flying into some power lines and I think we all know what happens to a helicopter when it does that!
There was a lot about Terror in the Mall that one could poke holes in, but Rob Estes’ maniacal performance was not one of them. I have been a fan of Estes’ work since the Silk Stalkings days and that may be part of the reason I was so impressed with his evil turn in Terror in the Mall. Watching him as a likeable hero for years, I would have never guessed he would play the main baddie one day, the closest I had seen prior to this was his henchman like role in Aces: Iron Eagle III, but for me he made Terror in the Mall an entertaining experience. Shannon Sturges’ Dr. Sheri made for a worthy adversary for Estes’ Glen Savoy. David Soul’s role ended up being a glorified cameo since *SPOILER ALERT* Savoy shoots him dead before the half way point of the film. The rest of the cast was filled with the type of expendable characters you’d expect to be disaster fodder.
I am always looking for Bonus Bullet Points fodder and I found some…
- Movie of the Week: Terror in the Mall premiered on FOX on Wednesday July 29, 1998.
- New Releases: I noticed posters for Absolute Power starring Clint Eastwood and One Eight Seven starring Samuel L. Jackson in the window of the mall’s video store.
- Mall Rat: Not to be confused with Rob Estes’ other mall movie, 1989’s Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge.
