Harefooted Halloween: Maniac Cop

What I Liked: A slasher picture with a cop (Robert Z’Dar (Tango & Cash)) being the villain is a cool idea.  He can blend in and target unwitting victims easily.  The rash of homicides causes the public to become distrustful of the police so who do you turn to for help?  This is exemplified in a scene where a lady is having car trouble on the side of the road and a cop pulls up to see what the problem is.  The lady is so terrified it might be the maniac cop that she shoots him dead right away.  That setup is genuinely unnerving.

In general this is a fairly well made film on a technical level.  It’s shot nice, it’s well cast and the pacing is good.  However, there’s some glaring continuity with the locations.  The setting is supposed to be NYC but there are parts that were clearly filmed in LA with palm trees in the background and too much open space.  Kinda distracting.

What I Didn’t Like: The mystery of the identity of the killer cop and his motivation end up being kind of exactly what you’re expecting.  The story could’ve used some sort of twist, even a small one to spice things up.  Is it possible for a movie to be too straight forward?

Tom Atkins (Lethal Weapon) and Bruce Campbell (Escape from LA) are the two leads yet their parts feel disjointed, almost like they’re in two different versions of the same film.  Atkins is the lieutenant tasked with hunting down the serial killer and Campbell is a cop who becomes suspect number one due to some circumstantial evidence.  They’re given equal screen time but the focus should’ve been on one of them with the other playing a smaller role.  Or they could’ve edited these threads together better.  The issue is we go for long stretches following only one of these guys around and it just makes the film unnecessarily confusing.  I kept forgetting about whoever isn’t on screen at the moment because we don’t cut between the characters often enough.

Overall Impressions: This is a title movie where the name pretty much says it all similar to Snakes on a Plane or Killer Klowns from Outer Space.  The script isn’t fantastic but the competent execution elevates the material.  There are enough neat camera angles and notable performances to push this one to be a very watchable and fun time.

It’s not a total horror movie either which is sorta interesting.  Things start out that way with the cop racking up a lot of bodies in the beginning but then it morphs into a thriller with Tom Atkins trying to chase down the perpetrator and Bruce Campbell doing what he can to clear his name of the murders.  By the end we find ourselves in full blow action movie territory with a car chase, a dingy warehouse showdown and what looks like an extremely dangerous stunt of driving a van off a pier into the water.  It all takes place during the day as well which again, makes it more action-y and less atmospheric.

So while I’m not convinced they utilized the cop angle to the fullest extent it’s solid.  Definitely better than the blatant Die Hard knock off Psycho Cop Returns (sorry, haven’t seen part 1).