Maniac Cop - A lesser-known cult classic

When old (and by ‘old’ I mean in the eighties!) horror films are discussed, you normally hear about the Friday 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street franchises.  Granted, they were the most successful, yet for some reason the unsubtly-titled ‘Maniac Cop’ never really gets a mention.  This is surprising for two reasons: the first is that it stars Evil Dead lynchpin Bruce Campbell and, secondly, it’s actually quite good.

Okay, so when I say ‘good’ I kind of mean that it’s good if you know what you’re getting.  And you should.  In the same way as if you watched ‘Snakes on a Plane’ you should know what kind of film you’re about to sit down to.  Maniac Cop is a horror, vaguely slasher film, although rather than having an unstoppable brute mercilessly stalking a bunch of over-sexed teens, you have an unstoppable, well, maniac policeman stalking people in a major U.S. city.

But, fear not good citizens, for every nut-job with a badge who wants to hack you to pieces for running a red light, there’s an honest cop waiting to solve the mystery (and a mayor who doesn’t want to admit that there’s a problem – kind of like that official in ‘Jaws,’ but we’re dealing with a shark with a truncheon here).  So, our decent, law-abiding boy in blue sets out to investigate the strange sightings of a cop out of control.  But our hero isn’t Bruce Campbell.  He’s also in it, but spends a large portion of the film in a cell.  That’s not really a spoiler as it happens almost directly after meeting him.  However, he does – as in many cheesy horror films – tend to steal every scene he’s in and the film wouldn’t be half so much fun without him (even if his ‘boomstick’ never makes an appearance.

As I mentioned, Maniac Cop never received the attention other – equally B-movie – horror flicks got and perhaps that’s because it’s (if I’m being generous) a little uneven (and if you don’t like the film you’ll probably call it ‘all over the place plot-wise).  It’s like it really wants to be taken seriously as a film, yet exhibits no real traits of anything other than a B-movie horror film.  Everyone plays it straight and there’s nothing particularly tongue-in-cheek here.  The plot has various elements and threads which start heading in one direction, only to go off in another.  Like I said, this could be a deliberate attempt to mislead the audience by the writer, or it could just be sloppy writing.  We may never know.

However, what I do know is that Maniac Cop – for all its numerous faults – is actually quite good fun and well worth a watch if you’re into horror (and Jason-style slasher) films in general.  See it quickly before it’s remade for the worse (Evil Dead, I’m looking at you).

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that