Maniac Cop 1988 (Shaprio-Glickenhaus) 85 min.
d William Lustig, s Larry Cohen, c Vincent J Rabe,
se Hollywood Special Effects,
lp Bruce Campbell, Richard Rountree, Robert Z’Dar, Laurene Landon, Sheree North.
Maniac Cop is an entertaining, if unspectacular slasher movie which cross pollinates with partial success, two strands of American horror popular in the 80’s by taking the structure and narrative hooks of the stalk and slash movies epitomised by the classic Halloween (1978) and relocating it from suburbia to the milieu of the urban nightmare film, which at that time often depicted their frequently New York based setting as a neon lit, crime infested hell hole, where a knife wielding psychopath or gun toting deviant could be found lurking in the shadows of every dark alleyway. The city’s real life spiralling homicide rate gave New York an image of real danger and threat, exploited by many a filmmaker to ramp up the fear factor for their blood soaked epics. Films within this sub genre, such as Abel Ferrara’s The Driller Killer (1979) Lucio Fulci’s New York Ripper (1982) and Williams Lustig’s earlier, nastier Maniac (1980), take their cue from the sordid surroundings and pathological alienation seen in Taxi Driver (1976), but with a greater focus on gory slayings at the expense of intelligent social commentary. Here the chaotic, confusing and sordid space inhabited by the psychopaths of the stories serve as both metaphor for, and probable cause of their mental deterioration.
The view of the Big Apple portrayed by members of this sub genre is usually shot through with right wing paranoia, portraying a city rife with moral decay, the authorities having lost control of the population and true justice only being achieved through the barrel of a gun. Maniac Cop’s pedigree here can be uncovered by the fact that it was financed by a James Glickenhaus, author of the infamous New York set vigilante pic The Exterminator (1980), released at the time to widespread vilification due to its blood thirsty, reactionary overtones and general crapness.
Maniac Cop’s twist on the cycle’s conventions is that the psychopathic killer is the authority, a Dirty Harry (1971) style police officer (Z’Dar) who was imprisoned by City Hall following an investigation into his somewhat mercenary methods of dispatching undesirables. Once inside, he is in turn finished off by a gang of inmates while taking a shower. However, it becomes apparent that death had eluded him, as he takes to the streets of the Big Apple, slicing and strangling a variety of innocents who are unlucky enough to cross his path. His homicidal behaviour, according the movie is caused directly by his treatment from the city and it’s lily livered respect for criminal’s rights, which have resulted in his stint in the clink where they claim he was “handed out a death sentence” (“validating” the killers desire to take revenge on New York’s inhabitants). In siting the city itself as suitable motive for psychotic behaviour, this echoes the highly dubious justification given to the irredeemable deeds committed by the villain in New York Ripper, where a detective points an accusing finger directly at the cities culture of ruthless competitiveness and pressure on people to “be the best” as the primary agent in the ripper’s disenchantment, informing his subsequent decision to partake in some of the most vile and graphically rendered atrocities against the female body ever committed to celluloid.
Maniac Cop manages to break free from the tiresome ultra conservatism regarding women with which its genre relatives often bath themselves, whereby there is a desire to titillate through the use of sexual violence acted out against any females misguided enough to dress sexily or display any physical desire (New York Ripper being a main offender). Though a large number of the villain’s victims are women, no sexual motive is inferred and the comparative lack of gratuity witnessed during the murder scenes implies that women have been chosen as the victims because a sense of peril is easily achieved through exploiting their relative air of vulnerability, as opposed to any evidence of misogyny by the films creators.
I purchased a dusty old VHS copy of Maniac Cop from an impoverished thrift store in North London for £1, and set about watching it the very same night, having been aware of the movie when I was a kid but not actually being allowed to see it in all its 18-certificate glory. I recommend to anyone reading this that they track down the 1988 video copy of the film rather than forking out for the DVD. The murky grime of the locations and the wobbly synth score are nicely suited the blemished imperfections of this format, and the video sleeve features a rather excellent and satisfyingly lurid 80’s spray-painted cover image of the uniform clad nut job towering over the New York skyline. Worth the price alone however are the trailers, previewing the likes of Underground, Out of the Dark and Double Revenge, all nasty looking urban thrillers that look bad in all the right ways. Such movie morsels perfectly set you up for the main feature, proving themselves to be unintentionally hilarious forgotten relics that truly feel like the products of another, entirely different age.
Brilliantly, Maniac Cop features both Bruce Campbell as the put upon cop forced to prove his innocence and Richard Rowntree as a tough detective. That’s The Evil Dead’s Ash, and Shaft himself sharing screen time. Never mind that neither are provided with the most memorable dialogue to chew on and that their performances are merely adequate, they’re very presence here ensures that this warrants the attention of any cult movie fan with a quid or two knocking around in case the unlikely circumstance arises that they stumble upon a second hand VHS copy of the movie. (Seriously, don’t but the DVD. This aint Lawrence of Arabia).
Plot wise, the film is marginally more intricate than the majority of the decade’s B movie horror fare, mixing the stalk and slash sequences with a story involving Campbell’s struggle to uncover the true identity of the killer in order to demonstrate to the authorities that it is not himself who has murdered his wife and many others, but another, unlikely member of the force. Though MC is quite economical with logic and believability, the strong premise keeps things ticking along, and is possibly the chief reason behind it’s relative box office success and ability to spawn two sequels. In a reversal of the horror franchise norm, Maniac Cop 2 (1990) is regarded in some circles as a more inventive, entertaining picture that the original.
The film’s routine slasher movie structure inevitably runs the gamut of oddly satisfying cliché’s in the way it assembles information about the background of the killer and handles the plight of the main character. We are informed that the cop villian has escaped prison/death and so he avenges his circumstances in a gruesome fashion while the protagonist hero tries to convince the rest of the cast of the murderer’s true identity while trying to avoid a gory death- see Halloween (1978), A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday 13th (1980), Prom Night (1981), The Burning (1981) et all). However, writer Larry Cohen (who also penned Q- The Winged Serpent (1982) and The Stuff (1985)) makes the token effort of including a minute glimmer of subtext. One sequence shows a news programme’s montage of ad hoc street interviews with member’s of New York’s petrified public, who are now aware that the wave of murders that have occurred around town have been perpetrated by a cop. The interviewees are seen expressing their reluctance to turn to the police for help in times of danger. Here the movie parallels the mutual distrust between the authorities and the citizens of the city during the crime ridden and corrupt 80’s.
It was quite common back in the era of the video nasty that otherwise unremarkable movies could lodge themselves in the public conscience by pushing back boundaries of taste and decency, particularly when depicting gore splattered slayings. Unlike the explicit murderous acts portrayed in Maniac, (which saw it fall foul of squeamish British censors adverse to the odd graphic scalping who banned the film until 2001), the death sequences in Maniac Cop are comparatively banal and lacking in originality or visceral details. Most of the victims meet their maker by way of an off screen stabbing from the Cop’s blade (concealed in his truncheon) or strangulation- surely the most un- cinematic murder method imaginable. Of course, this wouldn’t matter if any of the victims were sympathetic or fleshed out characters that we could be afraid for, but this isn’t the case. Even Campbell’s “hero” is a thinly drawn figure whose plight begins after he cheats on his long-suffering wife with a fellow cop (interestingly for this type of film, it’s the dutiful wife who is killed straight away, with the blonde lover surviving to see the films denouement, rather than being punished for her “sins”). The lack of a suitable audience identification point doesn’t quite do justice to the unnerving concept of an ostensibly trustworthy authority figure transpiring to be the person to avoid more than any other, and the notion that the people of New York have nobody safe to turn to on the perilous night time streets.
None the less, Lustig keeps things moving at a fairly brisk pace, climaxing with a decently shot and edited car chase and some pretty nifty stunt work. When the face of the villain is revealed shortly before the final showdown, his features are suitably grisly and unpleasant, with some neat make up wound effects that have faint echoes of Freddie Kruger. However, he proves to be a more terrifying prospect in the atmospheric earlier scenes when he is shrouded in shadow, the viewer being afforded brief glimpses of his uniform and hulking stature which is often seen in mid shot, practically silhouetted against the gritty urban backdrops. Good mileage is had from these sequences, where hapless victims are shown running to the beefcake in blue for help, followed by a close up of him producing a blade from his holster for an ensuing bout of slaughter, just as the unfortunates feel safe and protected.
The final seconds of the movie see the Maniac’s hand emerging from the water after his van is chased into a river following his impalement on a metal pole that has penetrated the windscreen. This occurs just as the main characters have misguidedly presumed that “its all over”. Parts of the charm of typical 80’s slasher’s are their endearingly slavish devotion to upholding, even celebrating genre clichés. Maniac Cop’s concluding shot doesn’t disappoint, gleefully ripping off the famous closing moments of Friday 13th among others in the most charmingly lazy and baldly obvious way possible, and leaving the door open for a sequel in the process.
The opening title sequence also owes a debt to previous genre outings. It is somewhat reminiscent of that seen in Nightmare on Elm Street, the high water mark of 80’s fright flicks. We see the Cop donning his uniform, together with distinctive white gloves, in a series of darkly lit close ups that recall those eerie first moments with Fred Kruger, where he is shown making his infamous razor glove and trying it on for size.
Along with policeman gone psycho set-up, the films main trump card is the atmospheric New York locations. Eschewing the gaudily lit sets sometimes used in 80’s horror to depict inner cities (Friday 13th: Jason Takes Manhattan (1987) springs to mind), the film instead ops for mundane and often down right ugly real life exteriors for it’s frights to occur, affording Maniac Cop the occasional thin veneer of authenticity absent in the majority of its peers. In addition to this, there are a few nice images dotted about it’s 85 minute running time, not least an impressive helicopter tracking shot of Brooklyn Bridge against the backdrop of a dull overcast sky, the antithesis of the colourful glamour usually used to portray New York post Sex and the City.
Maniac Cop is a tad too derivative and sketchy in both structure and execution to do true justice to its brilliantly simple comic book premise, but that kind of misses the point. It makes a perfectly watchable hour and a half of campy 80’s entertainment, with the odd nice idea thrown in for good measure. I advise a combination of alcohol and mates to make the best of this.
Verdict 70%
