I was lucky enough to find a MANIAC COP DVD recently in a bargain bin at the local supermarket, of all places! I hadn't seen the movie in over a decade but remembered enjoying it (and its two sequels) back in my slasher-crazed teenage days so I gladly slapped down $3.99 and took this slice of trashy B-cinema home for immediate viewing. Y'know what? MANIAC COP has held up pretty well. It may not be gory enough to appease the splatter hounds but if you enjoy B-Movies that blend action, crime drama and horror, MANIAC COP should make for a decent night's popcorn entertainment. M.C. paints a gritty, bleak and fairly realistic picture of what might happen if a New York City police officer suddenly went off his nut and started killing innocent civilians, as crazed cop Matt Cordell does here. Innocent beat cops start getting blown away on the streets by fear crazed citizens while an honest cop (Bruce Campbell, who's always fun to watch, even if he's not in lunatic "Ash" mode here)is wrongly accused of Cordell's string of murders. Aided by a grizzled NYC detective (Tom Atkins of "Halloween III" fame), Bruce escapes from jail to stop Cordell's rampage and clear his name. Due to the low budget some of the fighting and action scenes are a bit underwhelming, but overall Maniac Cop is a well written, well acted, overlooked little action/horror flick. It was followed by two sequels, neither of which I've seen in years, but if memory serves the gore and violence quotient was upped in each one and Cordell became more of a "Jason" or "Michael Myers" character dressed in a cop suit, i.e. another seemingly indestructible psycho slasher. Now I'm going to have to do some bargain bin diving and see if I can find parts 2 and 3!!
Review of Maniac Cop
