Maniac Cop Trilogy (1988-93)

Maniac Cop (1988)

Dir. William Lustig

Maniac Cop turns the slasher movie premise around, making a thing traditionally associated with protection, a cop, into a malevolent killer who hides in convenient shadows with knife in hand.

His inhuman strength and bullet-sponge ability makes it all seem partially supernatural; if you reject that aspect then it all seems rather silly.

Tom Atkins plays the caring homicide Detective well. The usually reliable Bruce Campbell doesn't get to use his awesome B–Movie charm and struggles to make us care about his two-dimensional character. Conversely, the ladies, Laurene Landon and Sheree North, both get stronger roles and do a grand job with them.

Maniac Cop 2 (1990)

Dir. William Lustig

It was inevitable there'd be a sequel; the only surprise was that it took two years to appear. For the characters, however, it's just a day or two after the first film's end.

It wastes time by giving us a lengthy recap, and then later the very same flashback we had before. That's just lazy, guys.

Alongside the same two leads is the new Detective Gruff (not his actual name) and a female psychologist. The latter presented an opportunity to get inside the mind of the killer cop, but that doesn't happen. Instead, Cordell remains almost as blank as Michael Myers was in his later films.

It's not as bad as it might sound, though, because there's a lot more plot in between the killings this time, making for a better film. Even so, the highlight is a stunt shot. Foly Huck! Maximum respect to whoever was in that blistering suit. I've not seen anything that good even in movies with millions to spend on effects.

Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence (1993)

Dir. Alan Smithee (William Lustig + Joel Soisson)

Problems behind the scenes meant that Badge of Silence was abandoned by its original director (Lustig) partway though, after having reportedly turned in a rough cut running less than one hour.

A hasty replacement was drafted in (Soisson), new scenes were shot and outtakes from part two were inserted to make up the running time.

That maybe explains why the focus of the story is all over the place, giving too much screen time to uninteresting people that aren't necessary to the main story.

The remainder is more about Detective Gruff and his personal attachments. It's a scenario in which the maniac cop has no real function until the explosive finale.

There's a well-staged scene in a drug store during the first hour, but it's the ending that you'll likely remember most. Once again the stuntmen are the real stars.