The new Midwood mall has all the advantages that '80s consumers expect from modern shopping. Some, such as the ribbon-cutting-ceremony promise of "No more shopping in the rain," are obvious. Others, like the "I promise not to spit in your yogurt" pledge of yogurt-jockey Pauly Shore, are left for shoppers to discover as they go along. But there's also one tremendous disadvantage in the form of a masked psycho named Eric (Derek Rydall), who, as Phantom Of The Mall's subtitle suggests, decides to exact his revenge. Rydall, as flashbacks later reveal, used to live on property where the mall now stands. (Apparently, it was either a much bigger house than it looks on film, or the mall is more compact than it appears.) One night, his house went up in flames and he went up with it, leaving only his girlfriend Kari Whitman to tell the tale. Or so it would seem. In fact, he has disappeared into the recesses of the mall itself, where, living the life of some sort of phantom, he hides his deformed face behind a half-mask, kills the occasional security guard, and, in an appropriate twist on Gaston Leroux, listens to power ballads instead of opera. As the terror mounts, Whitman teams up with ace reporter and future Silk Stalkings star Rob Estes to get to the bottom of the killings, spurred by a vague memory of an earring-clad man burning down her old boyfriend's house. As their investigation gains steam, Shore pitches in, revealing that the piped-in Muzak contains subliminal messages like "Salesclerks are my friends" and "I can buy anything I want on credit." "Deceptive, yes. Illegal, no," Estes decides, before moving back to the real story. Eventually, he traces the arson back to an evil developer backed by Midwood mayor Morgan Fairchild. Frustrated and lonely, Rydall kidnaps Whitman; further frustrated by her rejection, he goes on a killing spree. Eventually, only the explosion of the mall can stop Rydall, but not before he bloodily and fatally impales Fairchild on a shard of glass. Content that his time listening to the soft-rock music of the night has reached its end, Rydall lets himself perish in the fire. Or does he? Since no sequel was ever filmed, apparently he does.
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