One voodoo rite later, Officer Matt Cordell (Robert Z’Dar), better known as the Maniac Cop, is resurrected from the grave and is back on the beat… and by beat, I mean beating people to death, of course…
Meanwhile, Detective Sean McKinney (a returning Robert Davi… which after hearing his thoughts on Maniac Cop 2 I simply can’t believe… ) is dealing with the fallout of a robbery going very wrong… so wrong his protégé, Officer Kate Sullivan (Gretchen Becker) is left braindead and saddled with the rap of having shot both perpetrator and hostage (whom the press have no idea was actually an accomplice to the crime).
As the body count rises in and around that harrowing hospital Kate now calls home, McKinney will be up to his hard-boiled ass in ghoulish goings on thanks to ol’ Maniac C-dawg and the homeless Houngan (Julius Harris) that’s pullin’ the strings!
While not the stunt showcase the second entry in the series was (well, until it is… more on that in a bit), Maniac Cop 3 is every bit as entertaining as it’s predecessors.
This go-around, director William Lustig (Maniac) and screenwriter Larry Cohen (whom you may remember from such pictures as It’s Alive and God Told Me To… both of which are amazing by the by) takes things in a more John Woo vein, with plenty of explosive gunplay within the walls of that aforementioned hospital… but there’s the presence of voodoo… and of course slasher elements… it’s a strange witches brew that works like a wicked wonder, even though it shouldn’t!
As I said, the majority of the stunts on display here are definitely back loaded… but my lord when they make the scene they are absolutely stunning! We get another insanely long burn gag that segues into an honest-to-ass batshit crazy car chase that features a fully engulfed Maniac Cop cruisin’ down the highway smashin’ and crashin’ into an ambulance containing our heroes as bodies are hurled into oncoming traffic! It’s an absolute showstopper of dazzling action and nail-biting suspense!
Adding to the good times we get a truly great performance from Jackie Earle Haley as the creep that kicks off the entire Kate affair, and what has to be one of the best death scenes ever committed to film namely: Maniac Cop hurling a dude through the air and shooting him six times before the victim hits a car, then the ground. Superb!
The good times keep rolling with the included audio commentary featuring Lustig and uncredited co-director/co-writer Joel Soisson that takes us through the film’s production in candid detail, as well as the film’s trailer.
Also included in this 4K Ultra HD release from Blue Underground is a Blu-ray version of the film that includes the aforementioned extras as well as a brutally self-effacing “making of” featurette, a collection of deleted scenes, a poster & still gallery, and the original planned synopsis of the film (which got drastically altered thanks to the personal politics of the foreign producers who enacted “Operation: Change-o or No Dough”.
Despite what Lustig and co. think of the end result (and the hardships they faced during it’s creation), Maniac Cop 3 is a fantastic follow-up to it’s predecessors filled with action, gore, and utter insanity (and it’s never looked better than here)!
