I love Maniac Cop. I know Matt
Cordell is not a name that crops up as often as Jason Voorhees or Freddy
Krueger, but it should. This series
offered a nice action/horror hybrid slasher alternative to teens getting diced
at summer camp and you can’t go wrong with a cast like Bruce
Campbell and Tom Atkins all rolled up in one movie. The first movie in the series is great and
well worth checking out, but as much as I love it things tend to get bogged
down in police procedure and laying out Matt Cordell’s origin story;
it’s like the great
mouthwatering salad and appetizer you get before the main course. Plus Atkins dies in it and I don’t know if I dig
that. Things don’t really get
rolling until the end of the flick. So
when I get into my “Maniac Cop mode” I usually skip the
croutons and delve right into the main course; Maniac Cop 2.
Maniac Cop 2 is one of the best action/horror hybrid movies I can
name off hand, probably the best of the stalk and slash golden era. It begins by recounting the final moments of
the last movie, which happen to be the best moments from the last movie so no
complaints, and then there are some nice tracking shots of a junkyard full of
smashed police patrol vehicles for ambiance.
Matt Cordell is back on the beat in no time, claiming revenge on Bruce
Campbell for refusing to be the patsy from the first movie. He kills him with his trademark bayonet/night
stick combo; a blind newspaper salesman touches his hand and says it brings him
right back to WWIII, hiding from Nazis under the bodies of the frozen dead. I really dug that the old codger had more to
say than “you’re all doomed”; casting no
shade on Crazy Ralph but it was a nice change.
Next Cordell targets Bruce’s girlfriend
from the first film; Mallory, a fiery blonde who knows Matt is still alive but
can’t convince the
newly appointed commissioner and police chief he’s anything but a
ghost (again). When she hears of her
boyfriend’s demise she wisely choses to get the hell out of
town; but Matt somehow cuts the brakes on a taxi she is taking, which leads to
a cool extended car chase. Eventually
the cars crash and come to a stop, and in the fray Mallory gets her hands on a
chainsaw by raiding a local hardware store.
It proves ineffectual against Cordell’s deadly grip;
he stops the chainsaw dead in its tracks by simply grabbing the chain and then
casually snaps Mallory’s neck.
The revenge is complete; the cult stars of the prior movie are left dead
in the street.
However Mallory had a passenger in her taxi, a police psychologist that
miraculously survives when Matt hand cuffs her to a runaway car and now knows
the truth of his existence, a fact the city officials would rather ignore. She gets help from a hard-boiled detective
named McKinney, who is also chasing a serial killer targeting strippers named
Turkell. I just realized Turkell was the
same actor as Budd from Halloween 2, his acting was so spot on as a scummy
serial killer with a Southern draw, I had trouble connecting the two. When Cordell goes after the same victim as
Turkell the two strike up an impromptu friendship with secret handshakes and
inside jokes only maniac serial killers would get. Then they have a slumber party and pillow
fight. These things happen.
Turkell is caught by Detective McKinney, and soon Cordell comes to
his rescue, massacring an entire police station in the process. Working his way back from the gun range the
Maniac Cop brutally dispatches all police he sees, much like the T-800 in the original
Terminator he seems unstoppable, impervious to bullets, full rage mode engaged. Matt looks more zombified in this movie as
well, suggesting that he truly is an undead being, a force that cannot be
stopped, rather than a cop with bad acne and brain damage.
Turkell thinks Matt is looking for a full on revolution against the
police, releasing prisoners and causing a riot; next stop Sing-Sing. Cordell seems to be along for the ride until the
commissioner admits to any wrong doing against him, confessing his part in the
corruption that led to Matt’s death, promising him an
honorable burial and for his name to be cleared once and for all. Upon hearing this Cordell switches gears and
goes after the prisoners who cut him up in the first place; even while engulfed
in flames he shows no sign of stopping in his pursuit of revenge. Turkell realizes he is not the key to the
revolution he hoped for and stabs him in the back with his own bayonet. Cordell grabs Turkell, and the two go
careening through a cement wall into a bus that explodes on impact.
In the end Cordell is finally given an honorable funeral service and
his name is cleared, but as the funeral winds down a white gloved hand smashes
through his casket lid to grab his badge.
Cordell lives! Maniac Cop 2
raises the stakes in every way a sequel should while maintaining solid
continuity with the entry before it, a rare instance in slasherdom. The action scenes are top notch, and the cast
is pretty solid as well, great acting all around, another rarity for these
kinds of deals. Even the Maniac Cop is
given a nice story arc of revenge and redemption and there is even a theme song
at the end; so what are you waiting for “lovejoy”, add Maniac Cop
2 to your slasher collection today!
