Exactly what the title promised. Spice up the omelet with sprinkles of Atkins and Campbell and you get a hearty, brisk breakfast, empty of fat calories.

This review reportedly contains spoilers. I can handle the truth.

My unintentional Tom-Atkins-as-a-world-weary-police-detective double feature continues with Maniac Cop. The DVD I got from the video store looks like it was ripped directly from a VHS tape, but that did little to dilute the expertly-crafted, flavorful, and transgressive genre entertainment on display. Obscuring Robert Z'Dar's face throughout most of the movie is an unusual choice, but gets to do some top-notch scowling at the end. Bruce Campbell! Richard Roundtree! Ridiculous that I'm only just now seeing this.

Interesting collaboration from the brains of Larry Cohen shot with sleazy gusto from Bill 'Maniac' Lustig. Some well shot action scenes elevate this over most 80's slasher fare, but Bruce Campbell seems miscast. Perhaps they didn't realize he was funny yet. Surely they must've seen Evil Dead II?

OK... so very naively, I was expecting something similar to Lustig's 1980 film Maniac.
I am... a dickhead.

This is completely different.
Relentless killing machine in a Police uniform.
Strange supernatural element.
Government corruption.
Bruce fucking Campbell!!!
SHAFT!

The best and worse thing here is the script. Good grief it's atrocious but kinda legendary in how terrible it actually is.
I wouldn't say this is a "must see movie", but it certainly is entertaining in an old school kind of way.

I'm pretty sure that the only reason more of Larry Cohen's stuff hasn't been remade is because his genre hybrids are impossible for anyone else to replicate. This monster-slasher-police-procedural is probably the best of his films I've seen (he only wrote and produced it). Everything works very well, even the innocent man on the run played by Bruce Campbell (who, although I love him, isn't a great actor). There's a great late '80s decaying urban atmosphere, and one dream/flashback sequence in particular, a slow-motion lyrical homoerotic prison shower murder, is sublime. There's even a Sam Raimi cameo!

I have seen Maniac Cop 3 more times than I care to admit. But this is the first time I've watched the original. I guess I sort of wrote all these movies off as a "corny franchise;" but it was actually a pretty good watch.

It's hard for me not to like a movie with Bruce Campbell and Tom Atkins!

Solid and just a little bit creepy

My unintentional Tom-Atkins-as-a-world-weary-police-detective double feature continues with Maniac Cop. The DVD I got from the video store looks like it was ripped directly from a VHS tape, but that did little to dilute the expertly-crafted, flavorful, and transgressive genre entertainment on display. Obscuring Robert Z'Dar's face throughout most of the movie is an unusual choice, but gets to do some top-notch scowling at the end. Bruce Campbell! Richard Roundtree! Ridiculous that I'm only just now seeing this.

I'm pretty sure that the only reason more of Larry Cohen's stuff hasn't been remade is because his genre hybrids are impossible for anyone else to replicate. This monster-slasher-police-procedural is probably the best of his films I've seen (he only wrote and produced it). Everything works very well, even the innocent man on the run played by Bruce Campbell (who, although I love him, isn't a great actor). There's a great late '80s decaying urban atmosphere, and one dream/flashback sequence in particular, a slow-motion lyrical homoerotic prison shower murder, is sublime. There's even a Sam Raimi cameo!

This is a really fun slasher film with a pretty strong story. The only thing I'm not sure of is if Matt Cordell is a zombie or not...

OK... so very naively, I was expecting something similar to Lustig's 1980 film Maniac.
I am... a dickhead.

This is completely different.
Relentless killing machine in a Police uniform.
Strange supernatural element.
Government corruption.
Bruce fucking Campbell!!!
SHAFT!

The best and worse thing here is the script. Good grief it's atrocious but kinda legendary in how terrible it actually is.
I wouldn't say this is a "must see movie", but it certainly is entertaining in an old school kind of way.

Made in 1988 but looking and feeling like it was made in 1978, this is really silly but very watchable.

Decent cast but still has bad acting, though Bruce Campbell is a cult icon, he was/is no De Niro!

As far as horror films go, this one isn't actually all that bad. Tom Atkins and Bruce Campbell both put on fine performances, and the script isn't nearly as ridiculous as you'd expect from a low-budget flick about a killer cop. The action sequences actually work against the film, but if you can look past the silly low-budget scenes there's still a lot to be enjoyed. If nothing else it'll teach you the true meaning of police brutality!