Review #810: 'Maniac Cop' (1988)

William Lustig's Maniac Cop plays like a B-movie fan's wet dream. It has Lustig - director of the wonderfully grim Maniac (1980) - at the helm, and Larry Cohen, legendary writer/director of such gems as It's Alive (1974), Q: The Winged Serpent (1982) and The Stuff (1985), on scriptwriting duties. In front of the camera it has Tom Atkins, Bruce Campbell, William Smith, Richard Roundtree and Robert Z'Dar - all together in the same movie! I almost feel like I should complain that Michael Moriarty wasn't invited to join the cast. Due to the stellar talent involved, I feel like Maniac Cop is almost a let-down. Contrivances and bad writing can usually be forgiven in movies like this, but it's difficult not to expect that little bit more. Still, this doesn't stop the film from being a great deal of fun.

When a man dressed as a police officer breaks the neck of a woman fleeing from rapists, investigating police lieutenant McCrae (Atkins) is told to keep eye-witness accounts of a cop committing the act hush-hush. This prompts McCrae to leak the information to a journalist, only for a media frenzy to cause the public to turn on genuine police officers trying to uphold the law. A woman suspects her husband Jack Forrest (Campbell) to be the killer, and when she is murdered moments after witnessing him in bed with another woman, Jack is arrested as the prime suspect. McCrae, however, believes Jack to be innocent and digs deeper into the story of a hero cop long believed to be dead.

Too much just doesn't add up in Maniac Cop. Like Jason in the Friday the 13th franchise, the Maniac Cop has superhuman strength and a sense of invincibility. Where Jason can be chalked down to some sort of supernatural influence, no explanation is giving here, failing to fit in with the back-story provided for the killer. The scenes of police procedural - something Cohen is normally very accomplished at writing - are muddled, with Jack still being held even after McCrae and Jack's lover and fellow cop Theresa (Laurene Landon) are attacked by the Maniac Cop while Jack is held in custody, and any real female police officers will no doubt be offended to Theresa's wailing reaction while being threatened.

I could carry on bashing the film, but I won't, as I actually had a pretty good time watching it. Like most movies with Cohen involved, Maniac Cop is very funny. Campbell is effortlessly hilarious, even in a relatively straight role, and the script is witty when it's not taking liberties with the plot. Lustig, who went on to direct two sequels, also provides some decently staged action scenes. The film is also surprisingly brutal in it's violence and gore, so gore-hounds will not doubt finish the film feeling satisfied. And it's due to these positives that I cannot be too harsh on Maniac Cop, as even though it's little more than a decent slasher flick, I certainly kept me entertained.


Directed by: William Lustig
Starring: Tom Atkins, Bruce Campbell, Laurene Landon, Richard Roundtree, William Smith, Robert Z'Dar
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie