Mall horror is a thorn in the side of many an experienced horror fan. The label applies to films that span any number of fright sub-genres. However, there’s one thing these movies all have in common — they suck.
To clarify, “mall horror” is characterized by films that are light-weight in scares, relying mostly on a worn cavalcade of clichés; short scenes of silence being shattered by a burst of loud music, usually accompanied by something jumping out at the on-screen character being the most common and damnable, and derivative in story, to the point that the majority are remakes. Asinine twist endings aren’t required but are common anyway. “Unrated” DVD releases that claim to be “the version too intense for theaters,” but actually add nothing more offensive then what’s all ready there, have quickly become a requirement as well. The one main aspect that categorizes a picture as mall horror is its need to appeal to easily startled teenage girls. In other worlds, if a fourteen year old girl dressed like the latest Bratz doll and says “The Foreboding Closet” is the scariest movie she’s ever seen, you can probably rest assure that said motion picture is mall horror.