Maniac Cop Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: A seemingly undead police officer wreaks havoc on an unsuspecting New York City.

Review: I know some horror fans really love this trilogy, but it's mostly mediocre. I want to say part 2 is the best, but I originally watched these films in reverse order many years ago. Sure, there is casual entertainment to be had, but I think this series highlights the kind of lackluster movies that put the slasher genre on life support by the early '90s. In a nutshell, this series simply revolve around a killer cop--that's it. Yeah, I know, nowaday that may seem par for the course in real life, but let's not get into that debate! Anyway, there was a chance to utilize the police-themed material effectively, but the story is too incoherent to pull it off.

So, it's not quite script-in-a-blender phenomenon, but the main problem that holds part 1 down is plot inconsistency. At the core of the film there is a decent story trying to escape, however, the maniac cop himself is ill-defined and doesn't have any kind of parameter to work within. In other words, the maniac cop, Matthew Cordell, is like Jason if he became a cop yet doesn't have an explanation for why he targets the random people he kills. While the sequels did try to correct this mindset of Cordell, it remains the primary hindrance of the first entry. At first it seems as though Cordell is killing the people that wronged him, but he spends half the time killing random people. The incidental scheme to frame someone else for these murders was also tackled in a half-assed manner. Due to all the shenanigans going on, the pacing of the story becomes a mess and plot cohesion is totally lost along the way. It didn't help that the film can't decide if Cordell is alive, dead, or something otherworldly. Finally, killing off the McCrae character felt like a huge misstep given that he was essentially the main character.

Overall, this is a by the numbers slasher enhanced by the police concept yet weakened by a nonsensical narrative structure. It's not a terrible film, but it's not necessarily a good or even noteworthy one either. And there were plenty of great ideas like obscuring Cordell's appearance in the shadows and use of the cityscape. Had they centered the story around Cordell's revenge, and incorporated a real reason for why Cordell was inadvertently framing the Jack character for the murders, this would have been significantly better and made some semblance of sense by the end. I wouldn't really recommend this movie individually, but, if you can watch the entire trilogy at once, that offers up a better experience to the viewer that's for sure.

Notable Moment: When we finally see Cordell's face. I'm not sure why there was so much buildup for makeup effects that looked like Chef Boyardee ravioli. In fact, he kind of looks like the Joker when he was dressed up as a cop in "The Dark Knight."

Final Rating: 5.5/10