AKA: MC3 : Manaic Cop 3

Tag Line : The wrong arm of the law is back.

Robert Z'Dar returns as the maniacal Matt Cordell in this third and final outing for our favourite undead cop. The plot this time round tends to centre around a young rookie cop named Kate Stevens (Grethcen Becker), who is fatally wounded during a shoot out a drug store and spends most of the film in a coma.

A couple of unscrupulous news reporters capture the final shootings on camera, and wrongly frame Officer Stevens for using excessive force in order to sell the footage to the TV networks. This angers Detective Sean McKinney (Robert Davi reprising his role from part 2), who immediately sets about trying to clear her name.

Meanwhile a voodoo priest resurrects Cordell, who subsequently sets about keeping Kate alive by bumping off all the doctors who try and turn off her life support machine (along with a few obnoxious arseholes who show contempt for the police).

McKinney becomes increasingly disturbed by the recent spate of killings at the hospital and suspects it to be the work of Cordell. But why would Cordell be interested in helping Kate?

For my money this is the best in the series. There's some nicely filmed action sequences, particularly the end chase scene (which I won't spoil for you), and solid performances from the entire cast (a first!). William Lustig and Larry Cohen definitely got the balance of action and narrative right this time and fans of the first two films should love it.

Overall marks : 6/10.

Other Information.

• Alternate tag lines "They thought the terror had been terminated.. but they were wrong", "The Maniac is Back".

• Ted Raimi, who has a role as a rival news reporter, is the brother of Evil Dead director Sam Raimi. He has also starred in "Candyman", "Army of Darkness" as well as the "Xena" and "Hercules" TV shows playing the part of Joxer.

• The film is often (jokingly) dubbed "Bride of Maniac Cop".

• Robert Forster, who plays Dr Powell also starred in "Alligator" and Quentin Tarantino's "Jackie Brown".

• Doug Savant, who plays the obnoxious Dr Myerson, also starred in the 1998 US remake of "Godzilla" as Sgt O'Neal. He also appeared in the 1985 comedy "Teen Wolf".

• The music this time was composed by Joel Goldsmith, who is the son of the famous soundtrack composer Jerry Goldsmith.

Cast & Crew.

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