This sequel takes the term “Cop Killer” to viciously new and terrible heights.
Maniac Cop 2 picks up immediately after the events of its predecessor. The once alive, now walking dead, office Matt Cordell has been skewered by a pipe as he drives off the end of a dock and is presumed dead…. again. Officer Jack Forrest and his fellow officer Theresa Mallory, having now been cleared of the crimes pinned on him as a result of Cordell’s previous rampage, are put back to work in the NYC PD.
It doesn’t take long for Cordell to turn up again, however. Cordell appears in a run-down convenience store while amid a robbery. Instead of helping the clerk and preventing the robbery from going down Cordell takes the would-be robber’s gun and shoots the clerk himself. It’s become clear that Cordell isn’t trying to stomp out crime in his (second) after-life he intends to kill every cop he comes in contact with.
Meanwhile, Officer Mallory still protests that Cordell is out there, somewhere, doing all the things being blamed on rampant street crime. The Deputy Commissioner has the two, Mallory and Forrest, sent to see an NYPD psychologist to undergo a full psychiatric evaluation. In the midst of all this Cordell has managed to befriend a serial killer that has murdered at least six other exotic dancers. He and Cordell “hang out together” in Turkell’s (the serial killer) hideout. Turkel is convinced that Cordell is going to help him by breaking inmates out of Sing Sing and recruiting them into an army of criminals.
Maniac Cop 2 starts off with an almost “Last Time On Maniac Cop” style recap. From then on this movie slams its foot on the pedal and really doesn’t let off. It reminds me (weirdly) a lot of the original Transformers Animated Movie. Once it really gets pumping they immediately kill off the characters that you knew. Bruce Campbell and Mallory (played by Laurene Landon) are killed off in the first act of the film. Robert Davi then takes over the semi-lead character slot alongside the ACTUAL lead Claudia Christian’s Officer Susan Riley, the psychiatrist.
There are a LOT of deaths in the movie and most of them are cops. I think at one point Cordell walks through (literally) the police precinct and kills 19 in one scene. There is also WAY more Robert Z’Dar in this movie than I was ready for. I’ll leave it at that. Lots of blood. Lots of death. It’s even got some random boob-age in there too. Maniac Cop 2 was a straight-to-video release that actually felt more polished and put together than the original.
Having seen the first last year, and now the sequel this year, I am not sure which one I would honestly recommend seeing. While the original tells enough of the back story to set up what is in store for the viewer, the sequel really has enough of the original (the recap at the start) to carry the movie without any further reference to said original. It’s my understanding that the third part goes wildly off-the-rails so I guess I am in too deep not to watch that one next year. If nothing else this makes for a bloody and weird background movie if you absolutely need one for a horror party.
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