Maniac Cop (1988)

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  October 11, 2011

  fb500439213

  Atkins and Campbell have been in their share of Z-grade dregs but 'Maniac Cop' is their first collaboration and it's a regressive and preposterous crime thriller. The opening with the titular character assembling his uniform accoutrements (such as nightstick, holster, etc.) is ul... read moretrastylish and sets a dynamic tone, the convoluted backstory for what is essentially a zombie movie is second-rate and dopey. Not to mention, Lustig has a fondness for ugly Dutch angles and films the seedy murders as routinely as possible (aside from an impressively perilous piece of stuntwork off the docks). 'Bad Lieutenant' already mined the potential of a law-enforcer who is more amoral than the criminals he is pursuing. 'Maniac Cop' is a lousy action film that squanders Campbell's innate camp value.

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  November 19, 2010

  TheDudeLebowski65

  Maniac Cop is one of those horror films that deserves to be treasured by the Horror fan. It offers a great blend of horror and action. The cast is surprisingly good. This film is a great ride from start to finish.Maniac Cop is a superior B movie. This is one of William Lustig's f... read moreinest horror films since Maniac. There is nothing to hate about this film. Maniac Cop offers a good blend of action and horror from a script by Scriptwriter Larry Cohen. A great cast of actors deliver great performances most notably Bruce Campbell (The Evil Dead) and Tom Atkins (Lethal Weapon). For me along with The Evil Dead, Maniac Cop is the best Horror film that Bruce Campbell has starred in. Robewrt Z'dar plays the Maniac Cop Matt Cordell, responsible for murdering innocent people in the streets of New York. Maniac Cop is the first of three films featuriung this homicidal cop bent on destroying the NYPD and the city of NY, whom he loyaly served, but got framed for something that he did not do. Of the three films in the series, I throughly recommend this one, and the second one. Maniac Cop has become a horror favorite over the years, and it's no wonder why. Though not the best of it's kind, it's still pretty original and good considering that this was made at the end of 80's, and the horror films weren't as good as they were, only with a few exceptions of course. I highly recommend this film, and it holds a special place in my Horror DVD collection.

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  September 25, 2009

  SirPant

  Rather slow but it?s got Bruce Campbell so I liked it!

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  October 11, 2008

  sononothing

  This film is pure shit that can't even be saved by Tom Atkins, Bruce Campbell, or Richard Roundtree.

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  March 13, 2008

  puffchunk

  Saw it for Bruce Campbell back in the day. I remember it sucking something fierce.

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  July 23, 2007

  76Majikat

  A film which I hadn't held out much hope for, which was good, as it then felt like an ok film

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  June 24, 2007

  drblood

  Bruce Campbell plays the hero with great energy though more could be made of the Maniac Cop than a simple Michael Myers impersonation.

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  April 3, 2007

  deano

  A square-face actor Robert Z'Dar looks freaky as a deranged killer cop. Dull cop horror-thriller film.

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  August 15, 2011

  Dannyrovira

  A minor cult-classic low-budget slasher film of the late 80's, well directed by William Lustig. it concerns a unstoppable psychotic New York City Police Officer named Matt Cordell, superbly played by B-movie character actor Robert D' Zar, a hulking 6'2" physically imposing man wi... read moreth a enormous face and a gigantic jaw, he is perfectly casted in the silent and fearsome role of the "Maniac Cop." Innocent people are being brutally killed by this mysterious mass murderer dressed in a police uniform , a young cop, Jack Forrest, played by Bruce Campbell in a solid dramatic turn finds himself as the chief suspect after his wife is murdered, but a veteran police detective Lt. Frank McCrae, played by Tom Atkins in a superblative performance who originally suspected Forrest of the murders, has learned that a police officer named Matt Cordell, who was framed and imprisoned then brutally murdered by the very criminals he put behind bars is behind theses horrors! This film has all the elements that makes a good American horror B-movie, suspense, fun, gruesome gore and some solid performances from its supporting cast which includes Richard Roundtree, Kaurene Landon, William Smith and even Spiderman director Sam Raimi as a television news reporter, and former world middleweight boxing champion Jake La Motta as a police detective both in a cameo, special kudos must be given to Sheree North as the "Maniac Cop's" ally and half-crazed, cane-wielding former lady love, she delivers the film's most compelling performance. The intriguing script by Larry Cohen makes this film an enjoyable thriller from beginning to end and a kitsch delight. Highly Recommended.

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  December 12, 2010

  itbegins2005

  It only took two words to get me to see this movie, the first in a trilogy of under-the-radar cult action/horror films: Bruce Campbell. The irony of that, though, is that Campbell's trademark charm and cornball humor are seriously subdued in this, the first movie he would make ap... read moreart from his cohorts Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert, because his character is kind of a jerk; so instead of another wacky Bruce Campbell vehicle, you have to take Maniac Cop for what it is- a slow-to-build urban slasher that plays like a cross between Halloween and The French Connection. If you have patience and a decent attention span, though, Maniac Cop does deliver- it's an intriguing and unpredictable genre offering, a horror movie with a plot (or at least the pretense of a plot) and some pretty impressive stunt sequences, in particular the driving scenes; considering the obviously low budget, director William Lustig manages to piece together a very solid film that, while it may not have Hollywood-level production values, has a kind of grindhouse-quality appeal to it- the appeal of a film that had real effort put into it instead of just bushels of money. It also introduces an enigmatic new slasher baddie, the titular "Maniac Cop" Matt Cordell (whose face we don't see 'til the very end through some nice framing and effective use of shadow), who would turn out to be quite the horror anti-hero due to a solid sympathetic backstory and the enormous screen presence of B-movie titan Robert Z'Dar, a man whose chin dwarfs that of even the mighty Campbell. And, well, it does still have Bruce Campbell in it, so you've got someone to root for, at least!
  
  What's interesting about Maniac Cop is that, for an exploitation horror flick, the story doesn't fall into too many of the standard horror cliches; in fact, structurally, it's more of a cop thriller than a slasher flick. A series of bizarre, motiveless killings start turning up in New York City, and eyewitnesses can only confirm that the killer is dressed as a beat cop. Detective Frank McCrae starts investigating the seemingly random killings, but before long a suspect is arrested: Jack Forrest, a patrolman whose wife was murdered shortly after discovering that he was having an affair with a (female) vice cop named Theresa Mallory. Jack insists that he's innocent, and that someone is framing him, and before long McCrae and Mallory come face-to-face with the true culprit: Matt Cordell, a former police officer who was sent to prison on brutality charges and was subsequently murdered by the inmates he put in there. Now, somehow, Cordell is back, and he's being aided (and held in check) by his former girlfriend, whose work in the records office of the police station made finding a patsy to frame easy work; but before long, Cordell goes on the rampage, cutting down cops and innocents alike, and only the escaped Jack Forrest and Theresa Mallory stand a chance of stopping him.
  
  The legendary Bruce Campbell plays our hero, Jack Forrest, but unfortunately the role doesn't encourage his particular brand of lunacy... in fact, it's played entirely straight, which does not work in Campbell's favor at all. See, Bruce is a great cult figure, but he's at his best when he can either be goofy or ostentatiously heroic- REAL acting is not in his repertoire (or at least it wasn't back when THIS was made, circa Evil Dead 2). Besides that, the character is kind of an asshole, cheating on his wife (with a woman that's not that much of a trade-up) and then later betraying almost no emotion for her when he finds out that she's been murdered- not even a good, cheesy "NOOOOO!!!". As a result, Campbell only really shines when he does a stunt sequence, which are thankfully plentiful in this movie (and he does get a great fight scene with Cordell at the end in which Bruce gets thrown around like a rag doll- this is the height of the Campbell-ness in the movie). Then there's the pseudo-hero, the guy we kind of think is the main character until he's, well, thrown out a window: Frank McCrae, played by B-movie regular Tom Atkins. Now, this kind of role is exactly the sort Atkins is used to playing: a bland, by-the-book cop who's good friends with people in authority but who can't get them to see what's really happening. Okay, maybe that's not exactly like all the other characters Atkins has played, but I could just never get past the "bland" part. Laurene Landon plays Theresa, the vice cop Campbell is cheating with, and a more manly woman you aren't likely to find anywhere else. I hate to be so harsh, but I can't believe that Bruce Campbell would settle for this woman- and not only that, but he would cheat on his wife (his far more attractive wife) to be with her. She looks... weathered. More than that, though, she and Campbell don't have anything in common other than the job, and there's no attempt to establish anything like romance between the two when they're together- they always just act like co-workers! Then again, I suppose I should be happy- I really wouldn't want to see Landon in a love scene. Richard Roundtree is in this, too, as the police commissioner who doesn't believe any of the heroes' stories until he's run through by the supernatural copper himself. Said copper, Matt Cordell, is an interesting case: played by yet another B-movie mainstay, Robert Z'Dar (starting to see a pattern here?), Cordell is only shown in shadows for most of the movie, and we only get a glimpse of his face in the climactic showdown. In later films he became something of a dark horse slasher icon, like a blue-clad Jason Voorhees with a knife-concealing baton and a revolver; yet in this film he seems much more human (they actually try to rationally explain how he survived being stabbed to death, despite the fact that he demonstrates super-undead abilities on a number of occasions), and his exact motivations are enigmatic (they would shed some light on this in the second movie). Still, he's a strong villain, literally and figuratively, and it's worth the price of admission just to watch the pitched battle between him and Bruce Campbell alone.
  
  This film was shot in 1988, but going by both the poor film quality and the subject matter, you'd think this was a product of the seventies. The whole "nobody trusts the cops" angle is given cursory exploration, but for the most part the movie starts as a cop drama and murder mystery and ends as an exploitation flick; it never really feels like a slasher film, though, probably because Matt Cordell looks pretty much normal up until you see his face in full lighting, and even then he just looks like a guy with some scars, not a ghoulish creature from Hell or anything. Putting the villain in all shadows is a nice touch on director Lustig's part- it hides the inadequacies of the make-up while building a sense of suspense and dread at just what the villain looks like. Lustig knows how to shoot good action sequences, I'll give him that: the car chase scene and the fights with Cordell are good, solid action set pieces from the Don Siegel school of direction. And he does create some effective mood moments, such as Cordell's dream-like flashback to his conviction and ultimate murder in prison (so effective that he saw fit to use it in both sequels...), or Theresa's first run-in with the eponymous maniac cop in a dark back alley. The cinematography looks grainy and seventies-ish, but I think that might have been done on purpose to give the film a gritty, more realistic tone- either that, or the production was so low-rent that they were stuck with crappy film stock. Lastly, the score by Jay Chattaway is largely a run-of-the-mill action/suspense score, but the main theme for Cordell- a spooky whistled lullaby, of all things- gives it just a hint of character.
  
  Maniac Cop isn't the best Bruce-sploitation movie I've ever seen, but it's certainly not the worst, either (Man with the Screaming Brain, anyone?); in fact, when you get right down to it, this isn't really a Bruce-sploitation movie at all- it's an exploitation movie that just happens to have Bruce Campbell in it, which is... rare. Regardless, this has all the makings of a great cult movie, and Matt Cordell is not a bad entry into the whole slasher film maniac category. It's a little too hung up on the police procedural stuff, neglecting to throw in very much of the bad guy himself- too much "cop" and not enough "maniac"- and because of that it drags for much of its run time; also, this might be the first time I've ever seen a slasher villain actually try to frame someone else for his crimes, which is more than a little bizarre. To be frank, though, I really just consider all this to be the set-up for the direct-to-video follow-up, Maniac Cop 2, which was a far superior movie in my opinion- it had better effects, better film stock, and a better story. If you want to see some really good B-movie schlock, check out the sequel; if you're just in it to see Tom Atkins get thrown through a third-story window, however, or to watch Bruce Campbell get his ass handed to him by a hulking mute patrolman, this is the movie for you.

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• Tom Atkins as Frank McCrae
• Bruce Campbell as Jack Forrest
• Laurene Landon as Theresa Mallory
• Richard Roundtree as Commissioner Pike
• William Smith as Capt. Ripley
• Sheree North as Sally Noland
• Robert Z'Dar as Matt Cordell
• Nick Barbaro as Councilman
• Lou Bonacki as Detective Lovejoy

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