Director: William Lustig
Starring: Tom Atkins, Bruce Campbell, Lauren Landon, Richard Roundtree, Robert Z’Dar
Release Date: May 13, 1988
Y’know, for a guy who spent all of his teens and early-20’s worshipping at the cinematic altar of Bruce Campbell, I sure haven’t seen many of his non-EVIL DEAD offerings. With that in mind I thought to myself, “Hey, why not try something different?” and decided to finally give one of his less-known works a shot. And with a title like MANIAC COP, how could I go wrong? Look, it’s even directed by William Lustig, revered film preservationist and director of the excellent MANIAC! (Okay, so the guy doesn’t exactly come up with the most original titles. Whatever!)
MANIAC COP follows Detective Frank McCrae (Atkins) as he investigates a series of brutal slayings committed against innocent citizens by someone dressed as a New York City police officer. Police Commissioner Pike (Roundtree) orders McCrae to keep a lid on the whole affair, but McCrae instead enlists the help of a former girlfriend who happens to be a news anchor to help break the story to the pubic. Panic ensues, with citizens gunning down innocent cops out of fear of being murdered themselves. As things begin to get out of hand, beat cop Jack Forrest (Campbell) is caught in bed with another woman by his wife, who storms off into the night and is promptly killed by the Manic Cop. When her body turns up in Jack’s motel room the next morning, he is placed under arrest as the prime suspect in the slayings. But McCrae believes otherwise. He uncovers that Jack’s mistress was another cop, Theresa (Landon), and saves her from an attack by the uniform-clad killer while posing as a prostitute. Unable to convince his superiors that the killer is still out there, McCrae delves into the mysterious doings of an old clerk who works at his precinct, following her to the lair of Matt Cordell (Z‘Dar), the true Maniac Cop. Matt was once a hero in the city, but his disregard for the rules prompted his superiors to frame him and send him to prison with the same criminals he had put behind bars. Beaten mercilessly by his fellow inmates and assumed dead, Cordell is back, and he will stop at nothing to wreak his bloody vengeance upon anybody in his path.
"The 'Stache"
If the above synopsis has gotten you in any way excited, I apologize, because MANIAC COP carries with it about as much excitement as an episode of “Hunter”. In fact, I’d say the best way to sum up the feel of this flick is if you crossed a terrible mid-80’s cop drama with one of the later FRIDAY THE 13TH sequels, featuring all of the blistering detective work, sleazy sax solos and bad 80’s hair of the former, and little to none of the relentless gore of the latter. From a technical standpoint, there isn’t anything to complain about. The film was obviously shot on the cheap, but Lustig manages to squeeze quite a bit out of his budget. It’s competently photographed, featuring many impressive aerial shots of the city, and the action scenes, while few and far between, are adequately staged, including one insane stunt involving a police van careening off of a pier into the ocean while being clung to by either the world’s dumbest stuntman or one hell of a convincing dummy.
"The Chin"
Aside from that, the flick didn’t have much to offer this reviewer. Iron-chinned Robert Z’Dar makes Cordell into an effective enough villian of the Jason Voorhees variety, but Lustig can never seem to decide if the guy is an unstoppable undead hell-beast or just a really strong crazy guy. Frankly, I would have preferred if the “Maniac Cop” was a zombie, as that would have made a hell of a lot more sense than the muddled explanation the movie gives us for how Cordell managed to survive a vicious shower room beating and escape from prison. Most of the blame here can be laid on the confused screenplay by Larry Cohen. Cohen has a reputation as a purveyor of schlock, having written and directed such cult oddities as the IT'S ALIVE series, Q: THE WINGED SERPENT, and THE STUFF. IT'S ALIVE and THE STUFF in particular seem spiritually linked to MANIAC COP through their abundance of sledgehammer-subtle social commentary and across-the-board lousy dialogue and performances from usually reliable actors like Michael Moriarty. Cohen introduces several neat ideas into his screenplay, in particular the public's panicked reaction to any and all uniformed officers once it becomes clear one of them is the killer. However, aside from a brief scene where an old lady guns down an officer who merely pulled her over for a speeding ticket, this plot thread is quickly dropped in favor of the far less interesting mystery of Matt Cordell. And besides that, none of the kills are all that interesting, as Cordell sticks mainly to vicious beatings with a bladed night stick, strangling, and drowning one guy in wet cement. Coming from the director of the nauseatingly “wet” MANIAC, MANIAC COP was a complete let-down on the gore front.
"The Shaft"
I unabashedly love Atkins and Campbell in just about anything they’re in, but they both flat-out stunk up the joint here. Atkins is clearly phoning it in, playing essentially the same character he did in NIGHT OF THE CREEPS, minus the scenery-chewing passion and sense of fun he brought to that picture. And Campbell…..look, no one is ever going to argue that he is a legitimately good actor, and if they do they probably need to take a break from re-watching that “Adventures of Briscoe County Jr.” box set they picked up at Big Lots for the low, low price of $9.99! Um……where was I? Oh, yeah, Bruce exudes manliness in the way only Bruce can, but he clearly could not give a shit about this movie. In fact, he said as much at a Q&A I attended last year. It shows, unfortunately, and I think that’s what bothers me the most about this one. MANIAC COP takes it’s premise far too seriously, offering none of the exploitative fun promised by the title, though I will admit getting some enjoyment out of watching Campbell violently fling his body to-and-fro in the back of an obviously stationary paddy wagon in one of his typically inspired bits of physical comedy.
I mean, look at this from my perspective: this movie features the 80’s power-trio of bad-assery, Bruce Campbell, Richard “Shaft” Roundtree, and Tom Atkins, and completely squanders the potential to even feature them in the same room together. Sure, Atkins shares several scenes with Roundtree and Campbell individually, but it’s just not the same. You put these three guys together in a movie where they star as members of an elite police force battling Kandarian demons on a college campus in Harlem during Pledge Week, and I’m there!
"The....ummmm.....OTHER, um....LARGER Chin." (Robert Chin'Dar. I mean, Robert Z'Chin.)
I don’t know what else to say, really. MANIAC COP doesn’t exactly suck, and it did manage to hold my interest for most of it’s running time, but I honestly cannot say I’ll be giving this one another watch any time soon. I think that if Lustig had just thrown caution to the wind and fully embraced the campy aspects of the premise, this could have been a really fun, cheesy movie. Likewise, if he had gone the opposite direction and played it totally straight he might have crafted a truly chilling tale of urban horror. As it is, he settled for something right in the middle, a film that doesn’t really know what it wants to be and embraces only mediocrity. I’ve heard that the sequels dive head-first into ridiculous camp territory, so maybe those will be more to my liking. I just might give those a shot in another entry of SIHS. We’ll see. Worst case scenario, they’re as bad as the BASKET CASE series. (glances at the poster artwork above and realizes that James
Glickenhaus was also a prodcer on those movies) .......Yeah, fuck that noise.
My Rating: 5/10
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