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Released by: Platinum Disc Corporation
Released 5/25/2004
Director: William Lustig, Joel Soisson
Cast: Robert Davi, Robert Z'Dar, Caitlin Dulany, Gretchen Becker, Paul Gleason Doug Savant
Year: 1993
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The Movie:
The final installment, to date at least, of the Maniac Cop series, this time out we find a practitioner of the occult responsible for resurrecting Officer Matt Cordell, the same Maniac Cop that knocked off Bruce Campbell and Richard Roundtree in the first two films. No small task, if you ask me. I don't think I could beat Ash or Shaft in a fight, so you've gotta hand it to ol' Matt.
Anyway, he's back from the dead and he's pretty pissed off about it, so he does what any self respecting re-animated psychopath would do, and starts stalking the corrupt doctors and politicians who are getting in the way of real police justice.
It turns out that the lovely Kate Sullivan (Gretchen Becker) has been wrongly accused of botching up a hostage situation and it's these very same corrupt officials and doctors that are setting her up for a fall.
The only one she can turn to is Lt. Sean McKinney (played once more by the stern faced Robert Davi) and the two are off and running to clear her name and stop the Maniac Cop from killing more people, both innocent and guilty.
I have to admit, I like the Maniac Cop films. I find all three of them grossly entertaining, and while the sequels aren't as good as the original film, they're still a lot of fun and this installment is no exception. Co-directed by William Lustig (Maniac, Vigilante) and Joel Soisson, the film is a fun action/horror hybrid that delivers lots of low budget fun.
This is the R-rated cut, which has supposedly been trimmed of some violence that earned the film an NC-17 rating when initially submitted for classification.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Platinum presents Maniac Cop 3 in a decent fullframe transfer, which is the same as the laserdisc that came out a few years back as well as the VHS release from Academy that came before that. Colors are quite strong and blacks don't artifact too much. There are a few scenes that could have used a little bit of re-mastering, but overall, this doesn't look too bad. I do suspect that the film was shot in a wider ratio than 1.33.1 though, as some of the compositions do look a bit cramped.
A relatively clean Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo soundtrack graces this release, with no real hiss or distortion problems noticeable. There is a bit of decent channel separation happening in a few scenes, but this isn't exactly a demo disc to show off your surround sound system with. Overall though, dialogue is clean and levels are well balanced with no real noticeable defects to complain about.
Platinum has been generous enough to include a menu and scene selection. Other than that, this disc has the right to remain barebones…. forever!
The Final Word:
I like Maniac Cop 3, despite the lack of any Bruce Campbell element, and although this DVD doesn't exactly stand out as a reference quality release, if you can find it, it should be cheap enough that if you're a fan of the movie you'll want to pick it up. With Lustig running the show at Blue Underground though, I remain ever hopeful that we'll someday see all three films in the trilogy given their due on DVD.