BACKGROUND
In 1988, director William Lustig and screenwriter Larry Cohen joined forces to bring us the awesome slasher movie Maniac Cop. They made a follow-up two years later, and Maniac Cop 2 is one of the rare horror sequels that’s generally considered to be even better than its predecessor. Then it all came crashing down with Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence, a project Cohen abandoned at the script stage and Lustig walked away from when reshoots were required. He even had his name taken off of it; the finished film is credited to Alan Smithee, the pseudonym that used to get put on movies that were disowned by their directors.
Larry Cohen had already made several great horror movies before he wrote Maniac Cop, including the likes of It's Alive, God Told Me To, Q: The Winged Serpent, and The Stuff. Lustig was just getting his own career started, having made the blood-soaked 1980 slasher Maniac and the 1982 crime thriller Vigilante. When these two met up for lunch one day, Cohen asked Lustig why he hadn’t made a sequel to Maniac, since the movie had gotten a lot of attention and impressed many genre fans. As soon as that question was asked, the brainstorming began – not exactly for a Maniac sequel, but for a different movie that would have Maniac in the title. Cohen quickly came up with the concept of Maniac Cop and the tagline, “You have the right to remain silent… Forever.” Then he just had to write a script that would live up to them. And he did just that.
The Maniac Cop himself is Matt Cordell, a New York police officer who was known to be a bit trigger-happy, but became something of a celebrity - and a hero to other officers - due to the notable busts he made. Then he got too close to bringing down crime bosses with connections in important places. City Hall turned against him, had him convicted of rights violations, and sent him off to Sing Sing, where he was locked up with the criminals he had busted. He was ambushed in the shower, cut up so badly he was believed to have been killed... but he wasn’t quite dead, kept alive by the need for vengeance. Now he stalks the streets of New York, killing criminals and innocent victims alike while also on a mission to wipe out the higher-ups and politicians that sacrificed him to save themselves.
By the end of Maniac Cop 2, everyone who was responsible for Cordell’s prison sentence and shower attack has been killed and his name has been cleared. But in the final shot of the movie, we see that’s still not enough to allow this unstoppable killer to rest in peace. His hand comes busting through the lid of his coffin.
Despite that ending jump scare, Lustig and Cohen didn’t have any immediate plans to make a Maniac Cop 3. They had wrapped things up pretty well and were ready to move on to other projects. But then a new company acquired the sequel rights and contacted them about making a third film, which they were contractually obligated to do. The previous movies had been described as “Frankenstein meets The French Connection,” so when Cohen was tasked with coming up with a continuation, he took the idea to the next logical step: Maniac Cop 3 would be inspired by The Bride of Frankenstein. And he came up with a story that gave Cordell not just a bride, but a child as well.
For the Bride character, he wanted to bring Laurene Landon back as Maniac Cop heroine Teresa Mallory – even though Teresa appeared to have been killed in the second movie. Cohen’s idea was that Teresa would now be braindead, kept alive by a life support system in a hospital in Harlem. This same hospital would have a high security wing in which a doctor named Susan Falconi treats criminals that have been wounded during apprehension. She gets them into good enough condition to stand trial. It would be Falconi who notices that Teresa occasionally has a visitor that causes her brainwaves to spike – a visitor no one else notices. A police officer that she sees vanish into the tunnels beneath the hospital. When hospital officials decide they should take Teresa off life support, the murders begin. And soon after, it’s discovered that Teresa is pregnant. She wasn’t pregnant when she arrived in the hospital. This happened while she was there. Cordell has impregnated his braindead victim during his visits to her room, and wants to make sure she lives long enough to give birth to his child.
Cohen introduced a new hero cop to work with Falconi to stop Cordell’s latest rampage: a detective named Moonjean, who was born in Haiti and had childhood experiences with voodoo and the undead. This was said to “add a sharp edge to his cop instincts.” The basic treatment Cohen wrote is available to read on the Blu-ray release, and it doesn’t really go into how Moonjean’s experience with voodoo would play into the story. He just has a voodoo shaman come in at the end of the film, after Cordell and Teresa – who rises from the dead and joins Cordell on his killing spree after she’s taken off life support – have already been defeated. If you want to get a better idea of how the sequel might have turned out with that set-up, the Maniac Cop 3 novelization is based on Cohen's early script.
The financiers were able to secure international deals based on Cohen’s script, but they weren’t able to close a deal with Japan. It has been said that the Japanese investors weren’t interested in a Maniac Cop movie that would have a Black lead. So the fall-back plan was to have Davi return as his Maniac Cop 2 character, Detective Lieutenant Sean McKinney. This may be what happened, and it’s unfortunate that the project would run into issues due to the race of the lead character in Cohen’s script. However, the story wasn't was very good to begin with. Asking viewers to go along with the idea that Cordell has come back from the grave to impregnate a braindead woman? That’s not a good direction to take a franchise in, and might be the most disgusting story idea that has ever been suggested for a horror sequel. It would have even made the previous two movies uncomfortable to watch, thinking of where the Cordell and Teresa story was going. Cohen was a great writer, he made some classics during his career, but what he had come up with for Maniac Cop 3 was a bad idea.
So, to appease the Japanese investors, the script needed to be rewritten to replace Moonjean with McKinney. According to Cohen, Lustig didn’t want to bring Teresa Mallory back as the “Bride of Cordell” character, so that also needed to be reworked. Cohen was willing to do the rewrite, but only if he received extra compensation. He had written a script and fulfilled his contract; if they wanted him to do more work on the script, he wanted to be paid more for that. More money was not forthcoming, so he never did the rewrite he was asked to do. Yet the producers still held on to the hope, until the last possible minute, that he was going to come through for them and deliver that rewrite. When producer Michael Leahy called him to ask about it, Cohen answered his early ‘90s cellphone and acted like he was going to dictate the entire new script to Leahy while driving down the road.
That clearly wasn’t going to work out. So Leahy’s producing partner Joel Soisson spent a weekend knocking out a draft of the script that took the usable ideas from Cohen’s draft, mixed in McKinney, and replaced Teresa Mallory. Soisson was no stranger to writing horror, his previous credits included producing and co-writing the 1986 movie Trick or Treat, but everyone was disappointed not to have a complete Larry Cohen script to work from. It’s worth noting that the producers of this film had not seen Maniac Cop 1 or 2 before they decided to make the third movie. Thankfully, Soisson had caught up on the preceding movies by the time he wrote the script for part 3. He would continue revising the script throughout the shoot.
Script troubles weren’t the only issue keeping everyone in suspense while the production start date drew near. It also wasn’t 100% certain they would be able to get Robert Davi to star in the movie. Davi didn’t officially sign on until two weeks before filming began.
By this point, Lustig was not in a good mindset, and a hectic pre-production was only one of the problems. He didn’t want to make Maniac Cop 3 at all, and having an incomplete script that wasn’t written by Cohen surely didn’t help matters. Worst of all, the project he wanted to make had just fallen apart after he had spent a year getting it together. That project was True Romance. He had gotten his hands on this script written by an unknown named Quentin Tarantino and took it to a company called Cinetel. They bought the script, and Tarantino planned to use that money to go toward the budget of a movie he wanted to make called Reservoir Dogs. Lustig was going to make a three million dollar version of True Romance at Cinetel, he knew the actors he wanted to cast, he figured he was about a month away from shooting it… then it was taken away from him. An executive at Cinetel was the former assistant of director Tony Scott. She had introduced Tarantino to Scott, Scott had asked to see some of his screenplays, so she showed him the script for True Romance, and Scott decided he wanted to make that movie. So Cinetel sold the script, Lustig was paid off, and Scott went on to make True Romance for around 12 million.
Lustig was severely depressed about the True Romance situation while he was working on Maniac Cop 3, and very disinterested in having to direct another movie about a rampaging Matt Cordell. He was so disinterested, there was even a time when he was watching Ferngully on his monitor instead of paying attention to the scene he was supposed to be directing. Apparently Davi was fine with taking control of his scenes, so that wasn’t a problem.
Lustig’s lack of passion for the project is very clear in the set visit write-up that was published in the pages of Fangoria magazine. While a filmmaker would usually be hyping up the movie they’re working on, Lustig instead made it clear that he was only working on Maniac Cop 3 for the money. He tells readers not to expect the film to be as exciting as the previous one, as it had a lower budget than part 2. He and Davi both complain about the ending, with Lustig implying that the producers are out of touch with the horror audience. They don’t describe what the ending is, so we can’t be sure if it’s the same one that’s on the finished film. And when he’s asked if he would direct the Maniac Cop 4 that the producers were already discussing, Lustig replies, “I hope I’m in a financial position after this to walk away from it. For me, it’s not creatively stimulating at this point.” That’s how the article ends – not exactly a quote that leaves the reader pumped to see how the movie is going to turn out.
It's no surprise that Lustig took his name off of it.
SETTING
Like the previous movies, this one takes place in New York City - but in this case, the lower budget resulted in fewer locations. Much like Halloween II, this sequel takes place largely in and around a hospital. Luckily for the slasher at the heart of it all, there are underground tunnels that connect the hospital to the nearby abandoned church that he has been hanging out in.
Despite these movies being set in New York, some filming took place in Los Angeles for all of them. Maniac Cop 3 was primarily shot in Los Angeles, and viewers may recognize the abandoned church from other L.A. productions, with John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness being the major one.
Even when the action extends to city streets, that's still Los Angeles standing in for New York City.
KILLER
The begins with the resurrection of Cordell, who doesn’t rise from the grave on his own – which makes sense, since his issues have been resolved. This time he has been bought back from the dead by a voodoo shaman played by Julius Harris. It’s not entirely clear why the shaman wants the hulking, undead police officer walking around, but it has something about him hating injustice. It's not explained very well, but at least we have some explanation for Cordell still being here.
The story catches up with McKinney to show us that he’s friends with fellow officer Kate Sullivan, played by Gretchen Becker. Her style of policing is basically making her come off like Cordell: The Next Generation; she has been accused of excessive force and earned the nickname Maniac Kate. When future Freddy Krueger Jackie Earle Haley, playing a very bad guy named Frank Jessup, busts into a pharmacy, Kate arrives on the scene. It looks like Jessup has taken a young pharmacy assistant hostage, but after Kate guns him down the girl reveals that she was in on this robbery with him. The girl and Kate shoot each other at the same time.
While Doctor Susan Fowler, played by Caitlin Dulany, treats Jessup in a high security wing of a hospital, in another area of the hospital Kate is declared braindead and hooked up to life support machinery. Manipulated news footage makes it look like Kate was completely out of control when she shot Jessup and his supposedly innocent hostage. When Cordell hears a report about this, he knows that she’s getting framed just like he was. He becomes very protective of Kate and sets out to kill everyone who causes trouble for her, whether that’s the news people who set her up, an uncaring doctor – played by Doug Savant, who worked with Soisson on Trick or Treat – or just some random person on the street who talks negatively about her.
Although Kate is braindead, her brainwaves will occasionally spike as she has dreams about a wedding ceremony where she’s marrying Cordell. The best thing about the movie versus the initial treatment is that the relationship between Cordell and his bride is never consummated. Eventually Cordell brings Kate’s body to the church so the shaman can perform a ritual that will make her just like him. She will be his undead bride.
Lustig and Cohen complain about their vision being compromised and Maniac Cop 3 being a movie made by committee, but Soisson's rewrite gave Cordell a much better story than what they had at the start of the process.
And Z'Dar, as always, did a great job playing this underrated horror icon, even as he made his way through a production that was a step down from the previous ones.
FINAL GIRL
She may be overshadowed in the story by returning hero McKinney and the comatose, dreaming Kate Sullivan, but Susan Fowler is technically the final girl of this movie. Dulany does fine work in the role as Fowler interacts with McKinney, advocates for Kate, and realizes that Cordell is stalking the halls of the hospital.
Fowler is the one who figures out that Cordell is entering and exiting the hospital through the underground tunnels - and when McKinney goes to the church to confront Cordell and the shaman, she's right there with him. She's also with McKinney during the climactic car chase - and that chase is the main reason to watch this sequel.
The first two Maniac Cop movies feature some amazing action sequences and Lustig was determined to get some spectacular action into this one as well, despite having less money. It seemed to be his main focus; Soisson said he was concentrating on action to the detriment of story. The death scenes, multiple shootouts, and the climactic chase were more important to him than the drama.
In the chase, McKinney and Fowler are in an ambulance, being pursued by Cordell in a police cruiser - and while Cordell drives his car, his body is fully engulfed in flames. This sequence was a jaw-dropping accomplishment, pulled off by stunt coordinator Spiro Razatos and his team. While a burning stuntman sat in the driver’s seat, Cordell’s vehicle was actually driven by a second stuntman who was sitting in a protective glass cage on the passenger side. Although they could only film for twenty seconds or so with the stuntman on fire, they captured enough footage of him that the chase takes up around six minutes of screen time.
The filming of the chase sequence almost ended in disaster, but not for the burning stuntman. The problem was the burning dummy stand-in that was used for wide shots. When they were setting up the dummy at one point, the thing’s foot shifted onto the gas pedal right after they set it on fire. The car went driving off through the streets of downtown Los Angeles with a flaming dummy at the wheel. Thankfully, it didn’t collide with any pedestrians or other vehicles. Its drive ended when it crashed into a propane tank, which luckily didn’t explode.
There's an odd moment during the chase when you can hear Fowler scream "I hate this!" It's funny because of the way she screams it and also because it goes without saying that someone would hate being in a car chase with a flaming, undead slasher - so it makes you wonder, was that Fowler speaking, or was that Dulany expressing her feelings during the filming of the chase, and it just happened to end up in the movie?
VICTIMS
As mentioned, the characters who end up being taken out by Cordell in this one include an uncaring trauma doctor who's flippant about Kate's condition, the news people who manipulated footage to frame Kate, and a random civilian who says the wrong thing about Kate in Cordell's presence.
Paul Gleason also shows up as a sleazy lawyer, with Robert Forster as the doctor who's asked to remove Kate from life support.
There are plenty of scumbags for Cordell to deal with here, but what's surprising is how many of the kills are actually committed by characters other than Cordell. Gleason isn't taken out the movie by Cordell, he's killed by Frank Jessup when he attempts to escape from the hospital.
Since his pharmacy robbery kicked everything off and got Kate injured, you'd think Jessup would be the most important victim for Cordell to claim by the end of the film, but it's McKinney who gets to avenge Kate and shoot Jessup to death.
DEATHS
Cordell has a signature weapon: a blade concealed within what appears to be a regular policeman's baton. He kills a few people with that blade in Maniac Cop 3, but the hospital setting also gives him the chance to use devices like a defibrillator and an x-ray machine to kill people.
More than twenty people die over the course of the film, and the majority of them are shot to death. Some of them are shot by Jessup, some are shot by Kate, some are shot by McKinney - and, yes, a couple of them are shot by Cordell.
Most of the kills are not very impressive, but the worst may be when Cordell grabs a person, tosses them in the air, and shoots them as they fall like he's blasting skeet. It's a really goofy moment.
CLICHÉS
We have plenty of clichés to enjoy in this one: the undead slasher resurrected through supernatural means, corrupt officials and manipulated media, hospital corridors and underground tunnels being used as stalking grounds, nightmare sequences, and an attempt to boost a short running time with an abundance of recap footage and exposition scenes.
The producers had a feeling that the movie was going to come in shorter than the contractual minimum of 90 minutes, but they were shocked when Lustig assembled his rough cut. He had only delivered a 51 minute movie. Reshoots were necessary to pad it out significantly. Soisson wrote new scenes to extend the running time – and as soon as they got on set to shoot those new scenes, Lustig decided he was done with this movie. Just like Cohen had walked away from the script and passed the rewrite over to Soisson, Lustig walked away from the production and left Soisson to direct the reshoots.
When you watch Maniac Cop 3, there are some scenes that feel like filler, and we know for sure that the early scene where we see McKinney and Katie interact at the shooting range was added in reshoots. This is shocking, because that’s the only scene they have together before her injury. Without that, there’s nothing to establish the friendship that causes McKinney to be involved through the rest of the story. If they didn’t realize that during principal photography, this really was a mess.
POSTMORTEM
And, of course, the finished film did come out as a bit of a mess. There’s no way the movie could have gone through all the script and production issues without seeming like it was cobbled together and not completely thought out. Even with the filler scenes, moments of stock footage, and a five minute recap and title sequence up front, it still couldn’t reach the 90 minute mark. The final running time is just under 85 minutes. Which is actually just fine for a horror movie.
While Maniac Cop 3 is lacking compared to its predecessors, it’s okay as far as lesser sequels go. It’s a bland and disjointed movie, but it could have been a lot worse. It could have been about Cordell impregnating Teresa Mallory while she was on life support.
All the trouble paid off, because Maniac Cop 3 was a financial success when it was released straight-to-video in July of 1993.
Lustig and Soisson weren’t too happy with each other when they walked away from the making of this movie. The experience was so unpleasant for Soisson that whenever the rights holders brought up the idea of making a Maniac Cop 4 in his presence, he would just laugh and walk out of the meeting. There’s no way he would ever work on another Maniac Cop movie. But there is a happy ending here, aside from the investors making their money back.
Years after the Maniac Cop 3 debacle, Lustig and Soisson crossed paths at a convention and buried the hatchet. They get along so well that they even recorded a commentary together for the recent 4K release of the film. The idea of them doing a Maniac Cop 3 commentary with each other would have been unthinkable for a long time after the film’s release. Now they can look back at it, admit mistakes and regrettable decisions were made, and leave their past issues behind them.
It’s just a shame Matt Cordell never got to come back and redeem himself in a Maniac Cop 4. It wouldn’t have been difficult for the next sequel to be better than this one.
No comments:
Post a Comment