The Film (3.5/5)

I was way into the print version of Chris Gore’s Film Threat magazine, and Film Threat was way into filmmaker Adam Rifkin – so I have no idea how I didn’t get that the director of Psycho Cop Returns was Adam Rifkin working under the pseudonym Rif Coogan. Hell, Film Threat Video Guide ran constant ads for the Rif Coogan joint The Invisible Maniac. The dots are there to connect. Maybe I learned this tidbit and forgot about it – but I can’t imagine I would have, because I have steel-trap/total recall gray matter.

What was I talking about?

Ah yes – Psycho Cop Returns. Some of you may remember the utterly execrable Psycho Cop – or maybe you just remember the “caretaker” character from the film, if YouTube clips are any indication – but for those who don’t, it’s basically a garden variety slasher where the villain is in police uniform. That’s it. There’s no real justification for him being a cop other than William Lustig’s Maniac Cop did big business a year earlier.

Oh – and he worships Satan, because that’s always fun.

I’m a believer in the notion that no film doesn’t make money – especially if you make it/acquire it at a low enough price point. It was with that notion in mind that Cassian Elwes – a producer with great instincts and a penchant for veering wildly between high art and low rent – went to work on a sequel, and he tapped the aforementioned Rifkin (who is currently earning raves for his latest project, the Burt Reynolds-starrer Dog Years) to direct. Rifkin was prepping his cult classic The Chase, and dove into the opportunity to practice shooting energetic action sequences – and to further a peculiar filmmaking goal: he wanted to direct would-be A-pictures as Adam Rifkin, while simultaneously crafting quirky, junky cult films under a secretive pseudonym.

With these ambitions in place, Psycho Cop Returns amounts to a kind-of self-aware, intentionally schlocky, try anything kind of goofy B-flick with a few moments of decent gore, a whole lot of exploitative, baby-oiled nudity, and a willingness to play around visually.

The film follows the hoary old slasher template beat-for-beat, and functions in the way so many sequels do – as a slightly more ambitious retelling of the first film. Like the original, a group of people targeted by the titular Psycho Cop (played to the hilt by canny stage vet Robert Schafer, angling for “horror icon” territory) for their loosely-defined criminality are dispatched in the name of Satan – but rather than being the rationale for his mania, his service to the Dark One in Rifkin’s film gives Officer Joe Vickers unholy strength and invulnerability – so Schafer gets to smart-assedly shrug off all sorts of physical violence while dishing out a bunch of his own. The biggest difference between the films is that the setting for Returns is an office building – which lends some definite production value to the sequel (despite the fact that it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense that the dudes in the film would throw a drug and stripper-fueled bachelor party at their place of employment). Rifkin shoots the hell out of the building, and at times, the steely cinematography evokes a sort-of Die Hard-on-a-shoestring vibe. The performances are smarmy mugging pretty much to a man, with the standout being Rifkin’s childhood friend Miles Dougal. His intentionally antic, frantic overacting sells the film as a sort of live-action cartoon, amplifying the punny and over-the-top screenplay by animator Dan Povenmire. The only performance that isn’t completely ridiculous is delivered by Barbara Niven, who is grounded grit in the role of corporate career woman and audience surrogate. She’s just a minute older than most of the women who show up in these types of films, and her refined, corporate-clad beauty and veneer of respectability/responsibility give way to a withering wit and a bit of badassery. Her character/portrayal were a surprising thing to get out of a goofy exploitation film, topped only by the picture’s penultimate sequence: an unexpected, righteous, and cathartic riff ( or “Rif”) on then-current events… that somehow manages to feel timeless and inspirational at the same time.

Audio/Video (5/5)

At a certain point, it starts to feel like I could just cut and paste this section from any VinSyn product I review. The release looks and sounds fantastic. Comparing the image to even the old (hacked to pieces) DVD is a night (mare) and day proposition. There’s no artificially boosted color or contrast, no digital noise reduction – just the film, looking for all the world like film. Don May’s Synapse shingle is the only other company that does it with this kind of consistency. I may not always be the target audience for what they release, but I know that when I spin a Vinegar Syndrome Blu, I’m viewing the film in question under the best possible circumstances.

Extras (5/5)

When you’re a fan of a film like this, you don’t imagine you’re ever going to get a home video release with a set of extras – so when it happens, it’s a minor miracle. Here, it’s a wealth of riches. A nearly hour-long retrospective gathers more of the cast and crew than you’d ever expect to talk about a film many of them didn’t use their real names on, and there’s a great commentary track where Rifkin discusses his Hollywood ambitions, his career goals, his process, his philosophy regarding low-budget film production, and how the lessons learned flying by the seat of his pants on a cheap slasher have helped his work to this day. There’s also a talk with effects artist/prop guru Mike Tristano, who talks about the prep involved with gore gags on a shoestring.

Overall

Psycho Cop Returns is a fairly standard entry in the slasher genre that distinguishes itself with a playful tone, witty cinematography, hilariously broad performances, and dexterous editing by the excellent Peter Schink. Vinegar Syndrome’s presentation is the same as it ever was – top-notch – and so it’s a goldmine for fans of creepy, cheepy, dopey Bs.