Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence

Directed by Alan Smithee, Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence details the further murderous exploits of Robert Z’Dar’s undead title character. Filmmaker Smithee, armed with Larry Cohen’s script, delivers a sluggish sequel that remains distressingly uninvolving for the duration of its short-yet-not-short enough running time, and it’s clear, certainly, that the arms-length, momentum-free atmosphere is compounded by an almost total lack of compelling action sequences (eg there’s nothing here that even comes close to the highs of Maniac Cop 2‘s police-station scene). And while the picture boasts a handful of engaging performances, with Jackie Earle Haley and Robert Forster offering up solid work here, Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence, despite its impressively polished visuals (eg a one-take shot within a busy hospital emergency room), builds towards a lackluster climax that confirms its place as a rather misbegotten followup unlikely to please even fans of this erratic series. (And this is to say nothing of the entirely underwhelming subplot involving the voodoo priest that resurrects Z’Dar’s fearsome figure.)

** out of ****