Phantom Of The Mall: Eric's Revenge (1989)

There's one major problem with Phantom Of The Mall: Eric's Revenge that I'll let you figure out before I single it out for a mention in this review. I think it's really obvious, and am just as surprised as anyone else that it's not the fact that Pauly Shore has a main role. 

Here’s the plot, which will already obvious to anyone who just read the movie title. There’s a mall. It seems to have been developed with some shady deals and criminality. Melody (Kari Whitman) spends a lot of time at the mall, both as a customer and in her new job role as a waitress. She grows close to a reporter named Peter Baldwin (Rob Estes), both of them becoming intrigued when there seems to be a growing number of “mishaps” in the mall. Could it have any connection to Melody’s “deceased” ex-boyfriend, Eric (Derek Rydall)?

Directed by Richard Friedman, the man who also gave us the enjoyable Doom Asylum, and the less enjoyable Scared Stiff, amongst others, Phantom Of The Mall: Eric’s Revenge is a fun, if unspectacular, slasher movie that repurposes the classic tale with a modicum of wit and intelligence. The screenplay is credited to Scott Schneid, Tom Michelman, and Robert King, and the biggest hurdle that they cannot overcome is the biggest main problem with the film.

Have you guessed it yet? It’s the title. As unsubtle as the plotting is, I wish that the title had simply been “Phantom Of The Mall”. Perhaps that would have encouraged the writers to play up a mystery element to the killings that is sadly missing here. A bit of restructuring could have increased a sense of playfulness and threat, even if viewers may have easily dismissed the potential line up of red herrings.

The rest of the movie is arguably better than it should be. Friedman directs capably enough and the cast are a good mix of the relatively fresh-faced and the more dependable. Whitman and Estes are just fine in their roles, the former a very likeable “final girl” candidate. Shore manages not to be as annoying as he will become in his later years, instead just feeling like an average teen/twentysomething who would spend most of his time at a mall. Jonathan Goldsmith and Morgan Fairchild are people in positions of power, and both feel like a good fit in their respective roles, and there’s a decent small role for Ken Foree. Elsewhere, Tom Fridley is fun as a troublesome youth, Gregory Scott Cummins is a menacing key to unlocking events of the past, and Kimber Sissons gets to play a cute BFF. There’s also a blink-and-you-miss-her cameo from Brinke Stevens (in a state of undress).

The soundtrack should have been much better, some of the kills could have been gorier and more impressive, and that lack of mystery is a real shame, but this is, overall, an entertaining and schlocky reworking of some classic material.

6/10

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