Maniac Cop III: Badge of Silence

Maniac Cop III: Badge of Silence
Directed by	William Lustig Joel Soisson
Produced by	Joel Soisson Michael Leahy
Written by	Larry Cohen
Starring	Robert Davi
Music by	Joel Goldsmith
Cinematography	Jacques Haitkin
Editing by	Michael Elliot David Kern
Release date(s)	July 7, 1993 (1993-07-07)
Running time	85 Min
Country	United States
Language	English

Maniac Cop III: Badge of Silence is a 1993 horror action film, and the second sequel to Maniac Cop, directed by William Lustig and Joel Soisson. The film was originally rated "NC-17", and some extreme violent acts were cut to get an "R" rating. Although it has received negative comments from critics, it has been recognised as a 'cult film' among horror fans.

Plot

A priest practicing the Voodoo arts resurrects Matt Cordell (Robert Z'Dar) who takes his badge and comes back from the dead to do his bidding. Meanwhile a pair of cameramen who are hoping to make it big come across a convenience store robbery where a police officer named Katie Sullivan (Gretchen Becker) intervenes in a hostage situation where she manages to wound the suspect, but she realizes that the clerk is his girlfriend and she had let him in purposefully to rob the store. There is a cross fire and while Kate is severely wounded and she ends up killing the clerk in return. When rushed to the hospital, she is rendered comatose and brain dead, much to the chagrin of investigating officer Sean McKinney (Robert Davi) who had caught the report of Katie using excessive force in a hostage situation seeming to make the clerk an innocent victim and in response threatening to free the badly injured Frank Jessup. Meanwhile, stalking Katie's progress, Cordell goes to the hospital to watch her. He kills one of her supervising physicians with defibulator paddles and the physician set to sign the warrant to cut Kate's life support by exposing him to high amounts of X-Ray radiation. The reporters who had framed Kate are then murdered as well.

While McKinney and a physician Susan (Caitlin Dulany) are investigating the murders and the strange behavior experienced by the comatose Kate. Their investigations lead them to Houngan (Julius Harris) who admits that he had brought Cordell back from the dead and he is interested in Kate who is on the verge of death. At gunpoint, Cordell forces Houngan to attempt the resurrection on her, but he is unable to do so, stating her spirit is refusing to return from the dead to be with him. Cordell kills Houngan and both he and Kate are set on fire in the process and she is immolated. As they escape, Susan and McKinney are chased by Cordell who survived the fire while remaining ablaze, he chases them in a beat up police car while they ride in an ambulance. They manage to throw an oxygen tank into the burning car before both crash, before Cordell can back up on the other disabled vehicle, the canister goes of, blowing the car and Cordell to ash.

Cast

• Robert Davi as Det. Sean McKinney
• Paul Gleason as Hank Cooney
• Jackie Earle Haley as Frank Jessup
• Robert Z'Dar as Matt Cordell (aka Maniac Cop)
• Caitlin Dulany as Dr. Susan Fowler
• Gretchen Becker as Katie Sullivan
• Julius Harris as Houngan
• Grand L. Bush as Willie

Release

The film was released on VHS on July 7, 1993 by Academy Entertainment in both R-Rated and unrated cuts. In 1999, Platinum Disc released a bare bones DVD of the film. Later, on May 25, 2004 the film was re-released onto DVD by First Look Studios in an unrated version. Like the preceding films in the series, the film was criticized by police groups for its portrayal of a police officer as a villain.

External links

• Maniac Cop 3 at the Internet Movie Database
• Maniac Cop III: Badge of Silence at AllRovi