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Me Again wrote:Maniac Cop, that is one awful, awful, awful movie. Just looked and it has a 6.0 on IMDb, though.To put things in perspective, Keisuke Kinoshita's Big Joys, Small Sorrows -- a fine film -- has a 6.1. I don't know if that does put things into perspective or not. I kind of feel these things should be ranked within their own general groups. Maniac Cop has elements that make it somewhat more interesting than its peers in the horror underbelly so I could see it getting a "better than expected" bump in the ratings. The camera work, framing and lighting are all on point and Larry Cohen's ability to keep a story moving is a welcome plus. Have you seen Psycho Cop or R.O.T.O.R? Make a triple feature out of those with Maniac Cop and tell me it's not punching above its weight.On the other hand I can definitely see a Kinoshita film getting a shrug. I haven't seen this one in particular, but of the ones I have (Apostasy, Army, The Living Magoroku, Twenty-Four Eyes, Boyhood), their is a certain blandness and schmaltz going on as compared to the works of his contemporaries. He's no Naruse, Ozu, Shimizu, Gosho, Yoshimura, Mizoguchi, etc.

Poor Pretty EddieThe BabyQueen of BloodWerewolves on WheelsSpider BabyAlucardaThe Mansion of MadnessTargetsBrain DamageChristmas EvilLemora: A Child's Tale of the SupernaturalEbola SyndromeSex and FuryHorrors of Malformed Men Queen of Black MagicMystics of Bali

Some of my favorites have already been mentioned, but off the top of my head:The SadistYou're Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the KeyTurkey ShootFreewayLa Grande BouffeShivers

Story of Ricky is one of the funest movie experiencies ever. Pure unbridled trashy joy.

Seconding Street Trash, although it's essentially a soundtrack to a particular friendship for me. Out of the blue phone calls/text messages/voice mails from one of us to the other with random quotes from the movie.For fans of the movie - hard gangster Mr. Duran was played by Catskills entertainer Tony Darrow. Someone recently gave me a record of duets between Tony and his wife - I can't remember the name of it but it's terrible. Scorcese saw Street Trash (director Jim Murrow would later become Marty's steadicam operator) and liked Darrow so much that he cast him in Goodfellas. Perhaps sensing a fellow creep, Darrow also became a regular in Woody Allen movies for a while and ended up doing a house arrest stint for extortion. I have seen Street Trash many times.= Justin

Larry Cohen just died, the king of exploito pics.Black Caesar, It's Alive, The Stuff, Q, Bone, God Told Me To, Maniac Cop etc etc- guy was a machine.

Great thread. I'll add:Hard Ticket To HawaiiMaster Of The Flying GuillotineRe-Animator

Caga Tio wrote:Me Again wrote:Maniac Cop, that is one awful, awful, awful movie. Just looked and it has a 6.0 on IMDb, though.To put things in perspective, Keisuke Kinoshita's Big Joys, Small Sorrows -- a fine film -- has a 6.1. I don't know if that does put things into perspective or not. I kind of feel these things should be ranked within their own general groups. Maniac Cop has elements that make it somewhat more interesting than its peers in the horror underbelly so I could see it getting a "better than expected" bump in the ratings. The camera work, framing and lighting are all on point and Larry Cohen's ability to keep a story moving is a welcome plus. Have you seen Psycho Cop or R.O.T.O.R? Make a triple feature out of those with Maniac Cop and tell me it's not punching above its weight.On the other hand I can definitely see a Kinoshita film getting a shrug. I haven't seen this one in particular, but of the ones I have (Apostasy, Army, The Living Magoroku, Twenty-Four Eyes, Boyhood), their is a certain blandness and schmaltz going on as compared to the works of his contemporaries. He's no Naruse, Ozu, Shimizu, Gosho, Yoshimura, Mizoguchi, etc.Kinoshita might have been a little bit of a "journeyman" from what I gather, probably not up there with the likes of Ozu, Mizoguchi, Naruse, etc., no. But that film, while a bit of a sleeper/underdog, is pretty damn good for an Eighties Shochiku melodrama. Maniac Cop, on the other hand, is laughably bad--not so much technically/formally as narratively. It is a dumb film to feel oneself buy into and stick with for its duration. And notably it has an unpleasant atmosphere. That both films have a similar rating puts things in perspective mostly in showing the ridiculousness of IMDb's rating scale, in which different standards apply to different types of movies because, largely, different people are watching and rating them. That's less something I would genuinely lament than something I find amusing, hence the original post.

Not that I'm well versed in trash cinema, but I don't like my trash cinema to be very exotic.I prefer early 1990s West Coast commercial flops teeming with toxic masculinity, dorky one-liners, and odd assortments of supporting actors.In that respect, The Last Boy Scout and The Adventures of Ford Fairlane hit the spot. I have a blu-ray of the former and need to pick up a blu-ray of the latter.

Maniac Cop, that is one awful, awful, awful movie. Just looked and it has a 6.0 on IMDb, though.To put things in perspective, Keisuke Kinoshita's Big Joys, Small Sorrows -- a fine film -- has a 6.1.