He’s back! And obviously he’s still psycho.
Two 9-to-5 bros sit at a diner. One is wearing suspenders and a belt, because those pants really need to stay up. They talk about throwing a bachelor party at their office after hours. A plan has been hatched. Alcohol has been secured. Weed has been procured. “Feminine entertainment” has been arranged (hint: it’s not the complete season of Sex in the City or a pile of tampons). The building’s night watchman has been paid off. Everything is in perfect order except for the fact that the last place anyone wants to be after work is at work. Keeping that in mind, here are better places for a bachelor party:
-A bar
-Da club
-Your house
-Urgent care clinic
As the bros discuss details, a cop that you and I both know is psycho listens silently. He simmers. He judges. He eats a donut in slow motion because a psycho cop is still a cop, and cops like donuts. I happen to hate donuts, which is why I’m not a cop. There’s an intense demonic sound effect that accompanies this donut.
Then comes one of the greatest opening credit sequences in the history of opening credit sequences. It involves a glove compartment filled with severed hands. It is also when you learn that “1993 Penthouse Pet of the Year Julie Strain” is in this movie.
Larry is the wisecracking wild man. Brian is the neurotic paranoid mess who, when eyeing the psycho cop, panics and dumps his brick of marijuana into a mailbox. Mike is a man who spends a lot of time in an elevator. They are all here to honor Gary, who is about to begrudgingly chain his penis to one vagina. Then there are the strippers: a cowgirl, a cheerleader, and a French maid. Pretty standard. In a nutshell, this bachelor party is four dudes and three ladies—in an office—grinding to counterfeit Aerosmith, which is somehow worse than genuine Aerosmith. At some point, Larry puts on a home movie called The Sponge Head Hustle, which is just footage of a guy sitting in a chair as two topless girls dance around a conference room. This is a movie that embraces its office set. It is all gloriously, fantastically depressing and confusing and exhilarating.
The psycho cop, of course, does not approve of the immoral acts abound in the office. This leads to a No. 2 pencil in an eye, an unconvincing tumble off a building, an ax to the chest, and an epic scene where an inbox tray gets the shit kicked out of it. The only things that can stop the psycho cop’s satanic justice are the jumpy edits in the kill scenes. The movie cuts away, so much of the violence happens off screen. It’s a shame, but don’t worry; we still see a couple impaled in the middle of a pentagram drawn with blood.
Of course, the psycho cop has plenty of one-liners, which in the sequel have expanded to multiple lines.
The psycho cop kills and then handcuffs a victim.
“You have the right to remain dead. Anything you say would be considered strange because you’re dead. You have a right to an attorney which you don’t need, because you’re dead.”
The real question is, of course, which is better, Psycho Cop or Psycho Cop 2? Both are solid pieces of entertainment that plow through plot holes unapologetically. It’s hard to choose, and I’m not just saying that to, uh, cop out. The first movie has a classic premise with asinine characters that genuinely hate each other. There’s also a box of soup and an endless search for a hairbrush. The sequel has a boneheaded premise with asinine characters that are dangerously campy. There are gratuitous ass shots, and the plot relies almost entirely on the use of the fax machine. Bobby Ray Schafer is sublimely evil in both, and even though he went on to star in The Office (U.S. version), he will always be Officer 666 to us. The psycho cop has snappier dialogue in the sequel, but he’s more mysteriously morose in the first. There’s more lurking tension in the first, but there’s a heightened sense of fun in the sequel. So really, how can I choose? I plead the Fifth.
The back of the original Psycho Cop 2 VHS tape promises “state of the part [sic] gore.”
