Review of Maniac Cop (1988) by John F — 09 Sep 2012

A damn fine piece of action horror... thriller... slasher.

The idea of a killer police officer is genius and makes for a more interesting and original sort of story for this kind of movie.

The cast is pretty awesome, Tom Atkins makes for a very likable hero and Bruce Campbell is my favorite actor and makes the most of what he's got in the film as does the rest of the cast, so acting side is pretty good!

I honestly was expecting a little more gore considering the UK age rating is still an 18 and it sounded like the type of movie that should have blood & guts flying everywhere, blood re-painting the walls and constant death scenes... but it sticks to a smarter side of the story and though there isn't much violence, it's still pretty well made.

There's some pretty dangerous stunts and some fun action sequences, mostly towards the finale and those are probably the most exciting scenes.

Another thing I like about this movie is that it's not afraid to kill characters, movies like that are always more fun as it's always hard to predict who will live and who will die.

Robert Z'dar makes for a very threatening maniac cop, the mystery as to what his face looks like is very strong through-out as we only ever see him standing around in the dark and it's rather creepy!

So, if you like 80's B-movie horror films, this is one to check out!

Also, look out for a cameo by director of The Evil Dead Trilogy & Spider-man Trilogy Sam Raimi!!! XD.