The golden days of the slasher film are long gone, but the fanbase hasn’t gone anywhere. The simple fun of a masked serial killer hacking their way through a mass of unlikable victims never gets old. Every self-respecting fan has already seen all 12Friday the 13thfilms and all sevenNightmare on Elm Streetentries, but they may not have seen theManiac Copfranchise.
Slasher films rarely tackledsocial issues in their heyday. When they did, it was either subtextual or disastrous. TheManiac Copfranchise follows a slasher with a cop gimmick, immediately evoking themes of police brutality, oversight, and accountability. Its take on those matters is expectantly bitterly stupid. There are occasional nods toward reality, but the series' politics are grim. The idea that perhaps all cops areManiac Copswouldn’t go amiss.
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What isManiac CopAbout?
A hulking man in a police uniform strangles a woman late at night on a New York City street. After his first known murder, the man in uniform stabs, shoots, and bludgeonsrandom victims across the city. The media dubs the killer the Maniac Cop, though the higher-ups at the police station are trying to suppress any news about the killer. The public begins to fear the police, leading to a bizarre reversal of fortune in which civilians use fear as an excuse to gun down innocent cops. Officer Jack Forest becomes the prime suspect after his wife catches him in bed with a colleague and turns up dead. Forrest’s mistress Mallory is attacked by the Maniac Cop while undercover. She discovers that his skin is ice-cold, his body is massive, and he shows no sign of pain after being shot multiple times.
With the help of a lieutenant named McRae, Mallory discovers that the Maniac Cop is a former police officer called Matt Cordell. Mattwas falsely imprisoned forpolice brutality after coming close to uncovering corruption at city hall. While serving his sentence in Sing Sing, he was mutilated by a criminal he put away. Though the medical examiner was prepared to conduct an autopsy, he detected faint signs of life in Cordell. Convinced the cop was brain-dead, the ME released Cordell to the care of a fellow officer. With Jack’s name cleared and every officer’s life at stake, it’s up to the prime suspect to take down the Maniac Cop.
How ManyManiac CopMovies Are There?
The original 1988Maniac Copspawned two sequels.Maniac Cop 2hit the small screen in 1990, boasting substantially improved effects over its predecessor. Many fans consider the second film the strongest entry in the trilogy. While it’s unquestionably a trashy exploitation film in the same vein as the first, the sequel enhances every aspect to the classic 80s level of excess. It’s an enjoyable action horror film withall the B-movie charmthat makes schlock lovable. The director William Lustig firmly believesManiac Cop 2is the best film he’s ever made.
The third entry,Maniac Cop III: Badge of Silence, does not earn the same praise.Like many other trilogies, the first film established its concept, the second built something great out of it, and the third ruined everything. The dialogue is somehow worse. The action scenes have dropped in quality, even from the relatively low bar of the first entry. The new deuteragonist is one of the worst horror movie “heroes” in recent memory. Fans planning on diving into theManiac Copfranchise for the first time are advised to enjoy the first two films and avoid the third at all costs.
WillManiac CopEver Return?
Multiple rumors of aManiac Coprevival have circulated through the 2010s but haven’t been heard from in a few years. In 2015, a remake was announced withDrivedirector Nicolas Winding Refnas its executive producer. The film was to be written by Ed Brubaker, the comic book scribe who famously resurrected Bucky Barns into The Winter Soldier. It was to be directed by John Hyams, who crafted the well-received slasherSickfor Peacock last year. By 2019, the project became a TV seriesset to air on HBO. Refn and Hyams were still attached, promising a drastically different tone from the source material. 2019 was the first and last time the project was mentioned, leaving it in limbo. One wonders whether watching the news in 2020 might have convinced Refn and company to ditch the idea.
TheManiac Copfilms are enjoyable action horror films. Their politics are widely dim, but it’s not hard to ignore them, especially considering how muchworse modern primetime TVcan be on the same issues. The first twoManiac Copentries are dumb and fun. Whether Matt Cordell ever rises from his grave again, he’ll always have two great slashers to his name. Fans of schlocky horror should look the series up because he’s out for vengeance, and he can’t be stopped. That’s why they call him the Maniac Cop.
