Maniac Cop 2

• Directed by William Lustig
• December 13, 1990

Having survived the crash at the end of the first film, Matt Cordell returns to dispense his own brand of justice.

The first thing that jumps out to me about Maniac Cop 2 is that it’s possible to watch this film by itself despite it being a sequel. It offers enough of a recap that you know the basics of the original yet its story elements are not so tied to that movie that you need to have seen it before to appreciate this film. Why can’t more filmmakers do that today?

It also upends expectations without making the action feel like a bad idea. It is practically a given when it comes to sequels that the survivors of the first film who appear in the next film will make it all the way through or at the minimum very near to the credits. This movie does things very differently and within the first 30 minutes or so they kill off the two survivors of the original.

As heroes they are replaced by the very Italian Robert Davi playing Irish cop Lieutenant Sean McKinney. He is joined in the story by Claudia Christian as police psychologist Officer Susan Riley. While McKinney starts out believing something is not quite right, Riley thinks all the talk connecting to Cordell (Robert Z’Dar) is bunk but eventually comes around. These contradictory do not create unnecessary conflict to stretch out the story but compliment things and add to the presentation.

All the characters have some substance to them. They are not the most well-done individuals, but they are not one dimensional either. And that’s mostly because they follow their line of thinking as set up. That goes to the quality of the writing.

And the significant cast is all good. Maybe not hugely famous but they are all quality performers. Robert Davi, Claudia Christian, Robert Z’Dar, Michael Lerner, Clarence Williams III, Leo Rossi among others here all were/are good and generally managed to elevate what they did.

Writer/producer Larry Cohen wrote something relatively guided by the actions of the characters that never exceeded what they could do based on their budget. It is a tight film without excess or unnecessary side quests. All is used to develop the story.

Previously about a cop that was able to fake his death through a series of fortuitous events, Maniac Cop 2 takes a bit of a turn into the supernatural as it is strongly implied (if not outright stated now) Cordell is undead and not simply the survivor of some rather serious circumstances. After all he was impaled in the closing moments of the last Maniac Cop, but we did see his hand pop out of the water. 

For the most part they hide Cordell’s face for much of the film. You see very little, and I always appreciate such an action when filmmakers do it. Hint at what something looks like. Let the mind of the viewer do most of the work. It’s a much more effective storytelling technique in film plus if you’re a low budget movie like this is it helps to hide any cheapness of the makeup. The human brain can make the cheap better.

For a low budget movie slasher film this is incredibly well done and it doesn’t look cheap either. I am tempted to think they had a slightly better budget than the last film. The story progresses strangely logically, and while there are plenty of elements made to surprise or shock Maniac Cop 2 is not focused on surprise, shock, or stupidity of the characters to put them in bad situation This has some brains to it. 

Though heavy on the nudity (at least at one part in a strip club) there is very little gore which one would expect in a slasher. If anything you see the end result of the attack such as when the cop that’s about to tow the car is dangling from the hook of the tow truck instead. You know what happened, but you never saw it happen. 

For me, the more disturbing stuff of the whole film comes in dialogue form. There is a moment where an old man running a newsstand describes an incident that happened to him during World War II. This individual accidentally touched the hand of Cordell and he talks how the last time he felt anything like that was during WWII when he was buried under some bodies after an explosion. It’s just a rather disturbing story, and probably the most unnerving thing in the movie when you think about it. 

Ultimately Maniac Cop 2 is a very entertaining and very well-done movie. It’s quality trashy cinema. This is certainly something horror fans will enjoy!