PSYCHO COP (1989) - this little piggie likes to kill teenagers

We all know how a proper slab of blue pork goes about his business. He’ll abuse his authority for personal gain (i.e. free donuts). He’ll hide behind the badge to cover up his own crimes, or maybe drudge up some petty, arcane law just to fuck with people. Not to mention, these captains of bacon like to verbally provoke people into becoming aggressive, therefore giving them the go-ahead to crack open a noggin with a nightstick, or, better yet, empty their firearm. This is exactly the kind of service we have come to expect from the boys in blue. 

However, for the love of god, please don’t start coming with the one liners. Throw my ass in jail, go Rodney King on my buttocks if you must, but please, stop it with the Freddy Krueger wisecracks. The titular psycho cop manages to squeeze in an avalanche of one liners, usually along the lines of “you have the right to remain…deceased!”, or “do you have your license and registration? Well, here’s your death certificate too! I hope you have a proper filing system for all this paperwork! HAHAHAHA!!!” You get the idea.   Anyway, shit like this is a big reason we can't just all get along.

So, a newly married couple find themselves lost on a dark deserted road, and promptly seek a friendly policeman that will “serve and protect” them. They get served all right. Some time later, we see a carload of teens, drinking and telling jokes, like “what has 18 legs and 2 tits? Answer - the Supreme Court”. However, this dated bit of humor is no longer hilariously funny, as Sandra Day O'Connor has since retired, thus rendering the Supreme Court titless.  Regardless, a psycho cop car mysteriously follows them to their party destination. The group arrives at the party house and the caretaker immediately sneaks up on everyone with an axe, politely explaining that he makes his residence in a nearby shack. Normally, he would just be an obvious red herring, but keep in mind he may be tag teaming with the psycho cop.  Even The Big Boss Man, normally a lone wolf of Cobb County justice, was once in a tag team with Akeem the African dream.

Ominously, the psycho cop draws a satanic star in the dirt, as if to say “not all police officers are maniacs, just merely all satanists”. The teens pass the time by hanging out by the pool, listening to some cool rock on their sweet ghetto blaster. The dude with the walkman hears on the radio that a woman that lives nearby went missing, and a dog was sacrificed on her front lawn, and “666” was carved in a nearby tree. They also can't find the caretaker, but Zach, the cool dude with the jet black hair, denounces this ominous revelation along with everything else (“don't worry guys! Just because someone goes missing doesn't mean their dead!”).  After all, nothing ruins a beer party like the analiyzation of obvious clues.

Not completely swayed by Zach's Fonzirelli hair, they decide to search the woods together, and find a couple of large, makeshift wooden crosses. The lame walkman dude happens upon the cop, who explains that the caretaker accidentally cut himself with an axe, and that he is healing up in a hospital somewhere. Well, that settles that then.  

Back to the party, the blonde and brunette have a champagne bubble bath (HEY NOW WONKA WONKA), but still have the where-with-all to keep their walkman on in case any more satanic-cop murder spree related news flashes are broken instantly via modern technology. Sure enough, they hear that a cop suspected of police brutality is missing, and to be on the lookout.  So, apart from the standard police brutality that is par for the course, this cop likes to teleport around, hiding objects from the teens so they can wander around trying to fetch them (whether a can of beer, a brush, a purse, the boom box, etc.).  Really, the movie is an Easter egg hunt masquerading as senseless police brutality. 

(SPOILERS I GUESS IF YOU CARE)

The teen’s plan of surviving this proverbial Easter egg hunt hits a literal speed bump when Zach drives over a tree branch, causing the car battery to die. The survivors try to get away in the caretaker’s car, but the psycho cop jumps on it like he’s the Terminator (well actually, he sorta is). Unfortunately, they drive over another tree branch, and this kills yet another useless piece of shit automobile.  Tree branches used to destroy cars, and now hippies use them to fuel their own automobiles ("automobile" is a strong word; maybe "go-kart with roof" would be more appropriate).  Technology is truly an ironic nutbar sometimes.

In the twist ending, the real (non-psycho) cops show up and provide psycho cop exposition, explaining that every barrel of apples has a couple of spoiled psychopaths, etc., blah blah. Just when this psycho cop fable gets to and that's when he turned to Satan…, psycho cop shoots one of the real cops and then rips the other cop’s heart out. Of course, he utters the line "have a heart" while doing so, which, incredibly, is exactly what happens in the film Dreamscape (1984), and, more coincidentally, in Hellbound (1994). 

You see, Hellbound is the touching story of Chuck Norris, a Chicago cop who’s grizzled and on the edge (in that order), and whose mission is to roundhouse the shit out of Satan. However, old scratch is, as one would expect, pretty much a bad ass. He throws a hooker through a fifth story window, and follows it up by ripping a rabbi’s heart out. Satan shows officer Norris the still beating heart, and utters the aforementioned line. So you see, Hellbound is really the ying to Psycho Cop’s yang, at least as far as heart ripping scenes involving police officers go. 

Anyway, despite being killed at the end, the psycho cop returned for the cleverly named sequel Psycho Cop Returns (1993). However, it’s really just a spoof of the original, as you apparently couldn’t do a serious Psycho Cop movie in the nineties, what with all those flannel wearing hipster assholes running around.