Review of Maniac Cop (1988) by Robert A — 29 Jun 2008

Maniac Cop's a very good example of how a sharp script that understands how to structure a film (and ensuing direction) can amp up the obviously "____-themed slasher flick" premise. Here, a police officer starts offing civilians in New York. Naturally, the police attempt to keep it quiet, so we have to rely on Tom Atkins, Laurene Landon, and Bruce Campbell to solve the crimes.

The plot's pretty basic for this kind of film and really defies any kind of true logic, but cult legend Larry Cohen's screenplay knows how to handle this material. When Campbell is inevitably accused of the crimes, Cohen doesn't try to make it a red herring that the audience will pick right away. Instead, to keep the mystery running, the script never attempts to explain anything. Eventually, of course, the predictably silly zombie(ish) cop details come up, but, luckily, William Lustig even keeps the killer's face secret until the third act. In so many of these flicks, they rely solely on the sleaze scenes to keep audience interest. Here, the filmmaker and scriptwriter actually attempt to offer something to look forward to other than more nudity or violence.

That's not to say that these things are missing. Maniac Cop isn't a Fulci flick but certainly features its fair share of atrocities involving our mysterious policeman. Although many a kitchen implement are used, the majority of the material focuses on the cop's insane strength, a part of the genre that I think is usually ignored by writers who come up with set piece ideas in their local Home Depot. It doesn't hurt that Lustig films these sequences with some considerable skill, utilizing a giant actor and hard-hitting stunts to get across a number of intense moments with no gore or special effects.

It doesn't hurt that the film features perhaps my two favorite cult 80's actors: Tom Atkins and Bruce Campbell. They both pretty much do their thing with Campbell taking a more serious turn than usual and more often than not leaving me with the impression that those Evil Dead flicks may have kept him from a legit acting career. The other actors don't measure up quite as much with the other of the three starring roles going to Laurene Landon who, despite being an epitome of my conception of 80's female looks, never gets a chance to do anything. Of course, I don't imagine Lustig and Cohen were priming Maniac Cop to be a flick oriented for a female audience. Bit players get to give great lines about the physical abuse applied to the victims, using medical jargon that sounds like it was grabbed at random out of a medical book, and Richard Roundtree even pops in for awhile to say hi.

All in all though, it's the film's half-sleazy but somewhat competently made attitude that keeps it going. It becomes more clear when you consider the seeming political commentary that's only good as a cool nihilist attitude that Lustig and Cohen are an 80's B-movie dream team. *** out've *****.