Schmucko Cop Improves!: Psycho Cop Returns (1993)

Psycho Cop Returns (1993) (AKA "Psycho Cop 2")
rating:***
starring: Robert R. Shafer, Barbara Niven, Rod Sweitzer                         

Wow. Just, wow. I never knew I would survive through this one and actually enjoy it. I must be getting nuttier...

Opening in a diner where two office co-workers discussess their big, secret bachelor party blow-out that they'll be having after office hours, with the main party planner bribing the guard to let them stay overnight with the hookers he hired, but their confiding is heard, nonetheless, by a man in blue uniform, dark shades and a sinister smile.

As the night came, these hard-partying fellas go on with their business partying, drinking, fucking and enjoying their titty dances, unknown to them that a man named Joe Vickers, AKA Psycho Cop! The Satanist serial killer in a police's uniform (previously impaled through the chest with a spear. Obviously survived somehow) had already broken in to their building and had planned a little party of his own, a hunting party. And they're the prey!

While the first Psycho Cop is a backwoods teen slasher involving a group of big-haired guys and gals partying in a cabin deep in the woods being stalked and killed by a horrendously scripted, one-liner spewing spawn of Satan, that actually lead to nowhere but cliché-town, Psycho Cop Returns is something a lot more welcome in my book. The flaw of the first movie is that it tried to focus on being a straight slasher with cheesy hookums, with very little to offer back and a lot of material that just doesn't work. (as in Psycho Cop's lame and unrelated one-liners); in Return, the story is more interesting as the teens are replaced with young working class adults and the premises took place in an office afterhours, the murders are more brutal and satisfying and the tone is more open as a horror-comedy.

It became a real treat for me, for all I care, and I'm proud to say that this sequel's quite underrated. The story's nothing really complicated, but there's a sense of direction and flow that made this movie quite watchable, despite having a trail of cheese on its scripting. The characters here, while most are just plain meat for the count, are likable as they do show a bit more humor than the cardboard teens from prior, something worth seeing before they actually get killed off. Even the psycho himself is an improvement; yes, he's still spewing one-liners now and then, but he seems to be more focused and serious with his spree here than just some random loon killing everyone like a walkthrough, yakking to himself these atrocious one-liners. He plays around with his victims first, which is a real tension bringer, but once he strikes, his kills would come in with much manic energy despite being simple in execution.

Also comparable here is the amount of exploitative and gratuitous nudity here; with all the booze, drugs and a trio of strippers, you can't expect the film to be without  any form of sexual gratification (and not the kind that just cuts away in twenty seconds in most horror films), as the first half of the film is definitely foreplay in a literal sense, making up of strippers stripping, supply room trysting and boobs. Lots of boobs.

The gore effects is still shoddy, but I don't mind the flaw if it does what its supposed to do, and I had fun. We have splattery gunshots, vicious pencil stabbings, a bunch of people being thrown off their deaths, a lot cooler for me due to the fun build-up. The killer himself is not free from the blood-letting either, as he's subjected to various hackings, shootings and even being thrown off the elevator shaft himself, but as any invincible man of psychosis, he just gets back up, giggling and killing.

Not a real winner all through out, as the supposed bad taste would come off as immature and desperate for many, but as a braindead slasher movie made for those who can switch off and have a good time, Psycho Cop Returns is a return worth waiting for!

Bodycount:
1 male stabbed on the eye with pencil
1 male pushed down in an elevator shaft, falls to his death
1 male shot on the head
1 female thrown off a building
1 male and 1 female skewered through with spear
1 male shot through the mouth
1 female shot through the head
1 female neck broken
3 males and 1 female killed off camera
total: 13