Two Words, One Answer.
maniacs
 Maniac Cop $24.95 Yes Sid the Elf goes the extra mile for his reviews. So we found out that Maniac Cop was once on Monstervision and that made it a mortal lock for a viewing. It was brought in off the bench to beef up the numbers for October Horrorgreatsucess but it greatly exceeded expectations. As soon as we saw commissioner Shaft Sid was hooked. We start with serious Tales From the Darkside film quality as a cop or a man dressed as one murders a young punk in his camaro as he's downing a slice and a stella. There are a handful of additional killings that were pretty sweet. They weren't graphic at all, mind you, because we never see the killer actually stab or slice anyone. Good stuff. Just adds to the B. A young officer is framed for the killings and put in jail. However, a grizzled detective has a hunch that the young cop in question is innocent. He uses his old school methods and heavy scotch drinking to find the real killer. Good good great stuff. When we finally find out who the real killer is, it's great because he'd been disfigured(don't ask)and he has the fakest looking face in film history. The movie is horror/cop drama if you want to get technical but to Sid it doesn't matter. It is listed under horror and it straight B all the way. It would have and was in fact liked by young Sid the Elf as much as it is today.  Maniac Cop III: Badge of Silence $7.98 I bought Maniac Cop and part two and i had to make my collection complete with this one. The story is not that great but what do you expect out of a movie that should hav stopped with part two. I like it because it completes my collection and is always great to watch on a rainy day.  Maniac $19.95 This gory serial killer film got some press on original release for Tom Savini's fairly gruesome shotgun-to-the-head scene which occurs fairly early in the film, and Gene Siskel famously claimed to have walked out at that point, saying that the film could never redeem itself. I'm rather divided as to whether he was right or not. On the one hand, the portrait of late 70s New York with the seedy rubbing shoulders with the wealthy and stylish is nicely done - mostly coming from the seedy and resentful point of view, there is the gorgeous Caroline Munro to look at, and Joe Spinell's Frank Zito, while not exactly the most original psycho killer ever seen (he hears voices, imagines that the mannequins he dresses with women's scalps are real women, has a mommy fixation, etc) at least seems very real - he's sweaty, fat, unattractive and ill-dressed, and does a decent job at alternating between thoroughly crazy and just slightly weird. On the other hand it beggars belief even in a low-budget horror film that Munro's supermodel photographer character would just start going out with this guy after he finds his way to her apartment (from the info he's found rooting through her belongings) with merely the excuse that he saw her take his picture in the park. The music, photography, and acting are all certainly no worse than average for a sleazy cheapie like this, but they aren't good enough to really be noticeable either. Lustig's direction is competent for the most part, with one standout scene as our friendly neighborhood psycho slowly stalks a comely nurse victim through a deserted subway station - an excellent builing of suspense here that is sadly not replicated in the rest of the film. Savini's effects still look decent enough and the violent scenes are in general well-handled, but the film really goes downhill in the last few scenes, with a graveyard scene that wouldn't look out of place in PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE leading into one of the weakest endings I've ever seen in a horror film. Oh well. For genre completists and hard-core aficionados, I would think. |
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