Psycho Cop

Oh God, where do I begin with this one. (Deep breath...) I am shocked and chagrined that this masterwork has not seen the light of day for a DVD release. I would love to hear B.R. Shafer's commentary on how he came up with those hilarious one liners.

In a nutshell, a group of personal friends run to the hills for some boozin' and relaxation. Their only two concerns seems to be misplaced beer and the caretaker. They missed one...a devil-worshipping cop who is on the loose and filled with one-liners and bag of tricks on how to kill. Officer Vicker's one line cliches are timely and very funny. The movie is not scary or frightening. It wasn't meant to be since it was written diligently by Wallace Potts on a weekend. It was directed and produced by Potts in about a fortnight. The attire worn by the cast is appropriate for an 80's slasher flick and adds to the air of comedy surrounding this film.

The deaths. The deaths are silly, but he employs a variety of methods as a means to killing these youths. Especially when he rips a guy's heart out and follows it with "Have a heart. HA HA". This adds to the brilliance of this movie. I prefer this movie over Manic Cop by Bill Lustig.

Overall, a night of laughter and comments like "I cant believe I'm watching this" will fill your living room as you watch this film.

Score: 10 out of 10 -- NOTE: a 6 pack should be consumed before and an additional 6 pack should be consumed during.

A devil worshipping police officer follows a group of college students to a vacation home, where he proceeds to murder them.

Yet another teen slasher flick from the 80's, lesser known than most, with all of the typical elements of the genre in place, except for nudity and sexual situations. It is worse acted than most though, and features one of the most inept performances in film history by Bobby Ray Shafer. My rating: 4 out of 10. Rent at your own risk.

I barely ever get to say this when it comes to horror movies, but the sequel is a lot better. Don't get me wrong, "Psycho Cop" has its moments, but obviously it sinks like a brick after the caretaker meets his demise. He was the glue that held everything together, without him the movie's plot almost seemed incoherent and moronic. And talk about screen presence, no definition is high enough to do the character justice. Oh caretaker, you were truly a God amongst men, nobody could hold an axe for vague reasons like you could. Sadly when you take this ingenious character out of the equation, you're stuck with the kind of average slasher movie people were already sick of back in 1989. Cars never start, phones never work, people keep wandering of into the woods for stupid reasons, dead killers are never as dead as they look, every teen is 35 years old, it's that kind of movie and very little more. Officer Joe Vickers is a pretty amusing psychopath, but I think he's much better in "Psycho Cop Returns". He just doesn't have material in this movie. "Psycho Cop" is not quite funny and not quite scary either, sort of a failed slasher pastiche.

A country cop has a bad life and turns to satanic worship and killing everyone which happens to include some holidaying young people headed off to a very pretty lodge in middle of America somewhere.

What we are left with is a regular formula campy horror movie where there is always at least one person holding the group back from making reasonable decisions due to his unbreakable desire to holiday with his friends so one by one they get knocked off because no stands up for their own point of view and just leaves.

My primary complaint with this movie is the very wooden execution of the jokes told by the very persistent psycho cop. I laughed maybe once or twice hence I'm not rating Psycho Cop too low it is a B-Horror after all and one needs to remember this at the end which was very typical for Horrors like this.

Other complaints include the movie being too dark especially during the climax kills. You couldn't see what was going on, maybe they've never heard of day for night. Not to mention hardly any of the characters were likeable in any way. There's no T/A and no sex scenes not to mention what seems like the tiniest budget for blood and gore.

You can understand why many didn't like it that said however it does have very good flow. There's hardly a minute where something isn't happening to keep your attention and the script is solid for a B-Horror as well. It's only let down be the feeling the movie was lacking in so many other ways as previously mentioned.

If you're in the mood for a great 80's horror, full of cliches and bad acting, look no further! 6 young adults get together at a mansion in the woods (looks alot like the suburbs) and are slowly dispatched by the killer. A nice selection of cheesy one-liners, along with the ambiguously gay character of Blake Washer, make this a perfect rental for a night of laughs and moans of "oh gaaawd, whatever"!