Bruce Campbell of "Evil Dead" fame returns as the good-guy cop for this sequel. Unfortunately, he's barely in this follow-up, getting killed unceremoniously while reading a newspaper during the first third of the story. His female sidekick from Part 1 (Laurene Landon) is also present early on. (Her hairstyle actually changes dramatically between her two scenes. Pretty sloppy.) This time around, the major protagonist of the story is a police psychologist (Christian) who begins to suspect that Campbell and Landon weren't crazy when they claimed a cop had risen from the dead to wreak havoc on the city of New York.
Naturally, the maniac, undead cop from Part 1 is back in action. Police won't believe Campbell's story about a zombie policeman. In this movie, the evil zombie cop helps criminals whenever they're in trouble with the police. When one rich guy is having his car towed by an officer, Maniac Cop kills the policeman, and tows his body away. Best scene in the movie: Landon attacks the undead killer with a chainsaw.
With some decent action scenes, "Maniac Cop 2" is considered by some fans to be better than the original, although that's a bit of a stretch. The first film used the evil cop concept better, playing up the fact that the entire community becomes paranoid of the police after reports of an out-of-control officer hits the news media. There's not much of that cleverness here.
The whole "Maniac Cop" franchise was certainly a step down for Larry Cohen, who wrote the first two films. Best known for such politically charged horror films as "It's Alive" and "The Stuff," Cohen was slumming writing and producing these action/gore films. But I'm sure they more than paid for themselves at the box office. Director Lustig, it should be noted, used to make a living directing porn films. Director Lustig also did better "Maniac," which many horror films remember and love.
There's been talk of another sequel or remake of maniac cop with Tom Sizemore????? Should be someone equally as scary as Robert Z'Dar... Andrew Bryanarski (the new leatherface) perhaps? What do you Maniac Cop fans think?
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