UGH, this movie. Look, I wanted to like it, I really did. It's got the perfect 80's vibe going' on, it's a RIDICULOUS and awesome plot, and it's got both Bruce Campbell and Tom Atkins. You'd think this would be a no brainer. But this movie just wasn't good, and is certainly not worthy of any kind of cult status. Like, really, a bad movie from the 80's should not be automatically escalated to "cult movie" status. That is a title that should only go to movies truly deserving due to the perfect balance of entertainment, ridiculousness, and quotability… not just ANY movie that bombs.Anyways, from the opening credits — complete with SO MANY freeze frame shots of the titular "Maniac Cop" putting his uniform on — I knew I was in for SOME kind of ride. The basic plot is that there's a man in New York City dressed as a cop, but rather than protecting and serving he's slashing and killing. Jack Forrest (Bruce Campbell, who is one of very few things that make this movie watchable), a cop himself, sets out to solve the mystery after his wife (Victoria Catlin) suspects that HE is the killer (shortly before being murdered herself). He pairs up with his girlfriend-on-the-side, Theresa (Laurene Landon), to figure it out and clear his own name. It's eventually discovered that the killer is Matt Cordell (played by uber villain Robert Z'Dar), an officer that was legendary among the police force but was jailed for brutality and killed by fellow inmates. He's now back to exact revenge (I think? Except he's just killing random people?). Horror classic Tom Atkins is there alongside Campbell and plays Lieutenant Frank McCrae, good guy cop who is doing his best to help. Cool, right? YOU WOULD THINK SO, WOULDN'T YOU.I don't mind it not having much substance. I don't even mind it being straight up brainless at times. I'm alllll about a mindless gore fest. But THE KILLINGS WEREN'T EVEN FUN. At best they provided a moment of "oh, neat" and at worst they were straight up laughable — and I don't mean I'm laughing because it's so over-the-top ridiculous, I'm just laughing because it's sad. The paddy wagon flying off the pier was pretty neat, I'll give it that. And I'll watch literally anything with a shirtless Bruce Campbell. But those were, sadly, the only highlights of this movie.

So, I started watching the movie thinking it'll be terrible, and so the movie started off with a cop dressing up. I thought that it was an okay credits scene, and so the movie starts off with a woman walking along the streets. Some criminals come and try to take her money, and she starts running away from them. They come chasing after her, and so she suddenly runs into the maniac cop, the villain of the movie. Predictably, he kills her. And so, that's how the movie starts, and myself I thought the start was...meh. And so, about several minutes later, it felt like a million death scenes just happened in 14 minutes. Now, to be honest the first 15 minutes is complete garbage and not connected to the story AT ALL. It was just about the maniac cop killing everyone for 15 minutes, and I was about to switch the movie off in five minutes when suddenly, the movie actually got to the story! I was so happy, and so we have a detective trying to figure out who is killing everyone. Great! And we also have a woman that finds her husband cheating on her, and she think's he is the maniac cop! I thought the man that cheated on her would be the maniac cop, but no, I was proved wrong in the end! Although, I can't quite tell you the twist now, can I? I thought so :) anyway, this movie is brilliant after the first fifteen minutes of garbage. You'll love this movie, and the twist may be predictable for horror fans, but it won't be predictable for most people. I am really glad this movie got a trilogy, and I do hope that if they ever make a Maniac Cop 4 and 5 they will not ruin the series, also if you want to go see an action movie, don't watch this. This isn't an action. It's not even really a horror, actually. It's a mystery. Although, because of the twist I would call it a horror. 10/10 if you include out the first 15 minutes.

After a strange rash of local killings, a police detective finds that the reports of a cop committing the crimes aren't leading to the forces' scapegoat and rather to a former member though dead and tries to help him clear his name against the true killer.Overall this one here was quite the fun and exciting offering with a lot to like about it. What really gives this one a lot of its main enjoyment here is the fact that this one does so much of taking the reason for trusting the police-force out on duty and warps it into something to be feared, with the main gimmick of the undead policeman still wearing his old uniform bringing in the unlucky victims only to turn the tables on them. The kind of fear and panic this generates is quite fun and impressive here, as the early stalking scenes out on the city streets showing this off makes for quite a fun time here as this manages to keep the suspense going of whether or not it's possible to trust the police in uniform here with the identity behind him being quite mysterious and hidden so there's a lot to like here. Even furthering this is the slow- building angle of this one getting the framed-innocent-officer storyline as part of this one as there's a much bigger amount of deception required here to pull that off and manages to make this quite fun going about this. Not only does that play into the slasher angle here as this makes for a perfect foil to keep the killings going despite being held prisoner the entire time, there's plenty of action in here as these lead into the truly startling and wholly enjoyable mid-section here where he goes to town on the police force and launches a massive attack at the officers there after he's held for questioning, and the rampage is packed with brutal, bloody highlights and tons of fine action in the brawling and stalking to stop him, then gets quite fun as they have to maneuver through the corpses left behind only to make the mistake of being there to take the fall again. That makes the action even better in the later half, with the appearance at the police headquarters leading to the suspenseful stalking of the policewoman despite being handcuffed to a dead partner, the escape from the trapped supply room in front of the other officers and finally the out-of-control car chase through the streets leading back to the docks where the great shoot-out occurs and leads into the thrilling resolution here. There's enough fun here in the back-story for what happened here to keep this going along nicely with a fine series of flashbacks to his true identity and what happened that there's some fine motivation for his actions while making sure that the supernatural aspects throughout here are given some rather nicely-appointed reasoning as the early scenes of the inhuman killer seem appropriate given the later revelations given. As the make-up for the undead killer looks great and the kills are certainly gruesome and bloody enough, these here are more than enough to make this a highly enjoyable effort which holds out over its few flaws nicely. The only area that holds this down is the length it goes to keep the false-accusation thread going, blatantly ignoring tons of witness testimony and their own officers' accounts merely to keep his neck on the line and enabling the rampage to continue when it makes no sense to continue it. Otherwise, this one here is a pretty enjoyable and entertaining slasher.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and Brief Nudity.

Maniac Cop is definitely a cult classic horror action flick from the 80's.In New York a man dressed as a police officer is killing innocent civilians. Jack Forrest is a cop and gets framed, the real killer is Matt Cordell, a cop who was sent to prison for brutality and ended up getting killed inside. Forrest, his piece on the side Theresa and detective Frank McCrea try to solve the case, before the maniac cop kills again.Maniac Cop is a 1988 American action-slasher film directed by William Lustig and written by Larry Cohen. It stars Tom Atkins, Bruce Campbell, Laurene Landon, Richard Roundtree, William Smith, Robert Z'Dar, and Sheree North. Z'Dar plays the title character, a murderous ex-cop who returns from the dead, chased by his former co-workers. It was released on May 13, 1988, and grossed $671,382 from a budget of $1.1 million. Maniac Cop still is a cult film today.I seriously love this action Horror film. Tom Atkins,Bruce Campbell, Laurene Landon did definitely the best acting job. Specially Robert Z'Dar who plays Maniac Cop, a murderous ex-cop who returns from the dead, chased by his former co-workers did a terrific job one of his best roles I have ever saw. I love the sequels but for me this one is the best in the series. The acting in this film is pretty decent good for a 80's slasher horror flick. Jack Forrest is played by the legend Evil Dead trilogy Bruce Campbell. Campbell is one of the few actors that can make even the worst of films watchable, and makes any good film like this that much better. After the Evil Dead movies and Army of Darkness this is Campbell's best work. Genre legend Tom Atkins is perfectly cast as McCrea, Atkins starred in some of my very favorite 80's movies including The Fog, Escape From New York, Lethal Weapon and obviously this. He was also the main star of the underrated Halloween 3 Season Of The Witch, a film that would probably be quite well liked if they had left Halloween out of the title. He also played in another horror flick that I do like very much My Bloody Valentine 3D. Richard Roundtree who is better known as Shaft is good in a small role as commissioner Pike, Laurene Landon, William Smith and Sheree North give good support. Robert Z'Dar who looks like a real life Quagmire from Family Guy, is a huge man and is very effective as the supernatural Matt Cordell.Maniac Cop is definitely William Lustig's and Bruce Campbell's best Action Horror fun flick from the 80's. I really miss the 80's because back than they had much better action horror slasher films. 10/10