February 16, 2026

I had kicked off this new column, “Cinema Palette,” at the tail end of 2025 by focusing on the work of the great Ingmar Bergman. So, who better to follow up the master of existential cinema with than William Lustig! In all seriousness, my next edition focusing on David Lynch was already in the works, but a funny thing happened.

It’s January 5th, 2026 and I’m sitting in my girlfriend’s apartment in Paris. It’s 30 degrees out and snowing! A rarity for Paris, but beautiful regardless. I’m trying to keep warm by nursing a hot cup of coffee and combing through the Criterion Channel for something to watch when I stumble upon one of their brand new collections, “William Lustig’s Maniac Pulp!”

The MANIAC COP films go back to my first Fangoria Weekend of Horrors convention back in ’89 when I met Robert Z’dar and got my first glimpse of MANIAC COP 2. I’ve now known Bill Lustig for many, many years and have interviewed him several times over those years. I’ve always thought he was a vastly underrated filmmaker and director! And so, to see him get a little bit of recognition on the Criterion Channel was truly a joy for me. The only downside was it didn’t consist of all of his movies! Only 5 films; MANIAC, VIGILANTE, and the MANIAC COP trilogy.

However, delving into those movies again for the first time in years inspired me that now was a great time to re-evaluate ALL of his work, including the “lost” HIT LIST, starring Lance Henriksen and Jan-Michael Vincent, the some-what lost, underrated RELENTLESS starring Judd Nelson and Leo Rossi, and even the movies he didn’t get to finish like THE EXPERT and MANIAC COP 3! So, let’s jump right in and treat our cinema palette to the work of William Lustig!

VIGILANTE (1982)

Wow. I can’t believe that in 2026, the Criterion Channel has a block dedicated to William Lustig! It’s a beautiful thing because if anything, maybe it means more people will discover this, arguably his best, most underrated feature, VIGILANTE!

Nick (Fred Williamson), Burke (Richard Bright), and a few of their associates are already local vigilante’s in the New York City area, taking care of the scum that constantly slips out of the police’s hands. But it all comes to ahead when their co-worker and colleague Eddie Marino (Robert Forster) loses his family to a street gang home invasion, all brought upon because his wife stood up to these bullies at a gas station. Their son’s killer gets away because of his sleazy lawyer (a cameo by the great Joe Spinell) and Eddie goes to jail for contempt of court!

Let’s just say by the time he gets out, all bets are off and he will have his revenge. And we’ll cheer along for them to take out the trash!

No one captures the danger and lunacy of New York quite like Bill Lustig. Forster is GREAT as the passive Eddie turned Vigilante in this, on par with Charles Bronson’s turn in DEATH WISH. Gritty as only the best of independent cinema was in the early 80s. I mean, the sequence in which Eddie’s infant child is killed is truly jaw dropping and everything that comes in the third act is 100 percent justifiable because of it! Also, featuring another great score from Lustig regular composer Jay Chattaway, VIGILANTE could be Lustig’s best movie and I hope it being on Criterion Channel helps it get its due.

MANIAC (1980)

The year is 2026, and I’m watching MANIAC on the Criterion Channel as part of the “William Lustig’s MANIAC PULP” block! What a time! And honestly, it’s long overdue that Criterion gave a spotlight to one of New York’s most definitive 80s filmmakers.

VIGILANTE is the stand out of this block, but you also get the MANIAC COP trilogy, the first two of which are great, the second film in that series being arguably the greatest horror / action hybrid of all time! And then there’s the original MANIAC. A film that defies all logical explanation or odds. It was reviled in its day, and probably deserved it, as it truly skates the thin line between “art” and total exploitation. And yet somehow, there’s something unique and special about it that sets it apart from all of the other 80s “slasher” imitators. (And things that came much later, like MURDER-SET-PIECES which is what happens when something like MANIAC is made in the wrong hands.)

Perhaps it’s Joe Spinell’s haunted performance? I mean, he’s vile, sweaty, and despicable. And yet, you can watch his few scenes with Caroline Munro and think you’re in a completely different movie. They seem genuinely sweet and Munro, in real life, was completely smitten by Spinell, which shows in their on screen chemistry. Perhaps it’s the fact that Frank Zito does get some kind of comeuppance in the final moments. (Or does he? Depends on how you interpret that ending.) This is all juxtaposed with some of the gnarliest gory kills of the entirety of the 80s, courtesy of Tom Savini. (Paired with Jay Chattaway’s beautiful melancholy score, it’s such a unique beast.)

Anyways, it’s somehow stood the test of time, and as unpleasant as it is on repeat viewings, its on the goddamned Criterion Channel in 2026 which is kind of amazing.

Oh, this time I noticed what I initially thought was a continuity error in one of the earlier murder scenes, where the prostitute has lipstick and then suddenly doesn’t. But what’s happening is Frank is flashing and seeing his mother. Just a subtle detail I never noticed until now.

MANIAC COP (1988)

It’s been a long, long time since I’ve watched the original MANIAC COP because my default is to just go to the best of the trilogy, the second one. So, now that this is on Criterion Channel as part of the “William Lustig’s Maniac Pulp” collection, I had to make it a late night watch!

First off, that opening title sequence is creepy as hell. As simple as a cop putting on uniform, but if you already know who Matt Cordell is, it has a bit more impact. But also, is it Robert Z’Dar? The actor that plays him? I think so, but it’s the sort of footage that would be used for a teaser trailer and not the actual movie. It’s just cool and reminds me of this very specific era of horror.

OK, then the opening scene. A poor girl is about to get mugged by two guys, she fights them off and manages to escape! She runs to the park, both of them hot on her trail. In the distance, she sees a cop, covered in shadows. She runs up to him for help! Gets one look at his face and he grabs her with both hands, lifts her up, breaks her neck! Even the two thugs are in shock! In a later scene, an innocent victim gets handcuffed and then pushed face down into drying cement! This killer cop continues his random murder spree, and it makes average citizens nervous! So much so, that one guns down a regular on-duty officer that pulls over to help her with her stalling car. The “maniac cop” has succeeded in tarnishing the reputation and trust in the police force.

Oh right. And then we get Tom freakin’ Atkins. AND Bruce Campbell?! Atkins is great as always, and is a natural as Detective Frank McCrae and deserved a MUCH bigger career than he had. But I don’t really know if Campbell is “good” in this, per se. I mean, it’s Bruce Campbell, so of course I loved seeing THE EVIL DEAD guy in this. (My friend Steve and I screamed out loud in the theater during his cameo in DARKMAN.) But was he a good actor during this era? I think he truly “clicked” by the time he did ARMY OF DARKNESS.

Anyways, back to MANIAC COP. What’s impressing me so much on this viewing is how damn tightly written this script is, courtesy of the great Larry Cohen. The rumors are that him and Lustig came up with this concept over a lunch, where one of them just said “Maniac Cop” aloud and the other replied the tagline on the spot, “You have the right to remain silent… forever!” And hence, this was born out of that lunch session. Atkins’ McCrae is the only one convinced that the killer has to be a cop. But who? Bruce Campbell gets framed for the murders when his wife ends up dead with the killer’s M.O. and exposes an affair he’s having with a fellow officer!

But we technically know the killer’s identity from that opening title sequence: Matt Cordell. And at the end of the day, this is a straight forward REVENGE story. Cordell was a good cop. A little too good. So, he was set up by the corrupt lawyers and politicians, sent to the very jail where most of the people he busted were sent, and given a death sentence. Was he killed in the shower? Or did he somehow survive? Or is he a vengeful member of the living dead, back only for revenge!

You know it’s the latter! At a lean 86 minutes, this is 80s horror exploitation at its absolute best! Until the sequel of course, which improves on this in just about every way. That’s up next!

MANIAC COP 2 (1990)

I have very fond feelings for MANIAC COP 2 for very specific reasons. I can’t remember the exact year but if I had to guess, I believe my first ever Fangoria Weekend of Horror convention was around 1989. And I met everyone! Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Doug Bradley, Angus Scrimm… and they all signed 8 x 10 photographs for me for FREE because in those days, it was all promotion. And I distinctly remember Robert Z’Dar signing a MANIAC COP 2 8 x 10 of his gnarly face! So, in 1990, I was 14 years old, which meant that MANIAC COP 2 was probably the greatest movie I’d ever seen up until that point in my life.

And it’s fascinating how perceptions can change over the years. I still thought of it as the best of the trilogy several years back when all three made their Blu-Ray debuts. However, right now? In 2026? I now think, overall, the first movie is the more solid one while this one has better stuff in it. Why the change of heart?

In short, this one picks up with the ending of the last film with Jack (Bruce Campbell) and Theresa (Laurene Landon) defeating Matt Cordell and driving him and a truck off of Pier 14. Jack just wants to get back to work and write the whole terrible incident off, but Theresa is convinced Cornell will return for revenge against them. And she’s right! In a shock twist, he dispatches his former nemesis characters rather quickly. Then the narrative shifts with Matt teaming up with a serial killer, Steven Turkell (Leo Rossi doing his best Charles Manson) and kinda just… hides and hangs out with him? Eventually, they try to break out a bunch of other lowlife criminals, and head to Sing Sing for unknown reasons. Turkell assumes its to break out and build an army of psychos but really, Cordell wants revenge and redemption.

The whole Turkell thing, the “Maniac Cop” aligning with a sleazy serial killer, just feels a little silly now in retrospect. And completely out of place. There’s no real reason for it. I’m not sure why Cordell helps Turkell escape or how he even knows him. Luck of the draw? So, for this alone, the second half of the movie, plot wise, is kind of weak. Whereas the first half hour is just tying up all loose ends from the last one.

Now all that said, there are two, maybe three stand out sequences in this that blow away anything in the other films of the trilogy.

1 – The late night car “chase.” And by chase, I mean Cordell handcuffing psychologist Susan Riley (Claudia Christian) to the steering wheel of a car and pushing it into highway traffic. It’s exhilarating, terrifying, and done at a time where you’re wondering how the hell they shot this dangerous sequence without anyone getting killed!

2 – The other stand out sequence is the police headquarters massacre, on par with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the original TERMINATOR. It’s also the first time we see Matt Cordell’s face in this entry, and his make-up FX design is killer!

3 – This, I’m mixed on, but I’ll include it. Matt going through the prison and taking out the people that killed him, all while ON FIRE, is kind of insane and exciting to watch. And long! But usually when a fire stunt lasts this long, you can see the rubber mask on the slubby stunt guy. So, while cool in theory, in execution, it’s OK.

Claudia Christian is a nice addition, although she apparently did NOT get along with Lustig, at all. But it was the first time I’d seen her anywhere. And Robert Davi (don’t call him a “character actor” to his face, even though he is one!) is also a great addition. And it closes with the “Maniac Cop Rap,” something that sounds so 90s, it’s unbelievable. Robert Z’Dar is just great. He was born to play Matt Cordell and owns every scene he’s in. And in particular, I love the way they slowly reveal his visage in this. Done so effectively. Oh yeah, blink and you’ll miss a young Danny Trejo in the jail cell during the prison break.

Overall, there’s some great stuff in MANIAC COP 2, but now with time and wisdom, I recognize the first one is the better movie. Bless Criterion Channel for the William Lustig block. Although it’s a sin his other films like RELENETLESS and HIT LIST aren’t also on here! Will have to seek those out on my own!

MANIAC COP 3 (1992)

Oof. This one’s not good. But alas, it’s on the Criterion Channel as part of the William Lustig’s MANIAC PULP block, and I feel the need to give all his films my loyal streaming minutes! But yeah, weakest of the trilogy and everyone involved agrees, including Lustig and Cohen, who seem to have been forced into this thing against their will.

From what I understand, they had a new story they were both excited about that featured a black lead detective investigating a string of murders in Harlem, but by having a black lead, the financing portion from Japan dropped out, forcing a script rewrite, something Cohen wouldn’t do unless, ya know, you paid him for his services! (Honestly, it’s been a long while since I’ve watched the documentary on the Blu-Ray, so I’ll have to revisit it when I’m back in the States to confirm.)

What we DO have here instead is… BRIDE OF MANIAC COP!

A voodoo priest, for some reason, decides to bring back the “Maniac Cop,” Matt Cordell. Meanwhile, a botched pharmacy robbery goes wrong and nearly mortally wounds cop Katie Sullivan, a close friend and “kid sister” to returning Detective Sean McKinney (Robert Davi). To make matters worse, a sleazy TV crew got footage of the robbery but has doctored it to leave out the part where Katie was defending herself from a clerk who was in on the job. In other words, much like Cordell, Katie lies brain dead in a coma and framed for a crime she didn’t commit.

That’s kinda it. At 84 minutes, this thing is stretched super thin. And I believe Lustig said he only shot about an hour’s worth of usable footage. Producer Joel Soisson came in and finished the movie. I don’t really get the whole voodoo angle or what that guy wants? Why is he helping Cordell? Why’d he bring him back in the first place? It’d make sense if he were sending him after enemies or something but there’s no real explanation. And why does he want to “marry” Cordell to Katie Sullivan? I assumed it was because she was also a disgraced officer, but there may have been a reference to a relationship between the two in their former lives. But if that’s the case, it contradicts the girlfriend Matt had in PART ONE. (Cohen later stated that this was intended to be Laurene Landon from the first two, still alive but in a coma, but that was dropped with her very definitive death in Part 2.)

I mean, it’s nice to see Davi back in the role, and we get a super quick appearance from VIGILANTE’s Robert Forster, but otherwise, there’s not much worthwhile here. Even Z’Dar’s make up isn’t quite as impressive as in PART TWO, and he spends the last 10 minutes on fire! AGAIN!

Guess I’ll have to continue my William Lustig binge outside of Criterion Channel from here on out!

HIT LIST (1989)

One of my few blind spots in William Lustig’s filmography, it would’ve been impressive if this was part of the Criterion Channel block, but alas! When all else fails, and the movie is super hard to find, there’s always YouTube!

On paper, this should be a slam dunk. Lustig directs. It’s about a mobster (Leo Rossi) flipping on his boss (Rip Torn), and sending a hitman (Lance Henriksen) to kill his family and kidnap his son. Somehow, the hit man gets the address wrong (I believe it’s because the 6 on the door falls and turns into a 9?!), and instead, hospitalizes the wife of Jan-Michael Vincent! Kidnaps HIS kid and kill his best friend! He decides to take matters into his own hands!

So, all of those are the traditional ingredients to a straight forward revenge movie. And if you look at VIGILANTE and the MANIAC COP films, this should be something impressive from Lustig, but… for whatever reason, it all falls flat. I mean, it opens on the funeral of a gangster and the lead Detective takes a shovel to the corpse while it’s being lowered into the ground to show it’s filled with drugs! It’s silly. Lance, a great actor, is super silly as the hit man too. He literally has a license plate that says “KILLER” on it.

Jan-Michael Vincent, I’ll never fully understand how he became a star and box office draw. I’ve never seen him be “great” in anything. According to Lustig, he was a “functioning alcoholic,” although he promised he had just gotten out of rehab. He definitely comes across like he doesn’t want to be there. And this isn’t the first movie he appears this way!

This isn’t the “lost gem” I was hoping it’d be, but it was entertaining enough. Rossi is always great. Interviewed him once for the HALLOWEEN 2 special features and he’s just as great off screen too. Just a class act.

THE EXPERT (1995)

Well, since I’m on my William Lustig kick, I figured I’d take a look at this lost footnote to his filmography, THE EXPERT. Technically, Lustig walked off the film, and it was completed by second unit director Rick Avery. We’ll get into the weeds as to why and what the original intentions for this were momentarily. But for now, let’s just look at the actual finished movie at hand.

I remember distinctly going to see THE PERFECT WEAPON in movie theaters in 1991 when I was 15 years old, and at the time, I loved it. I thought Jeff Speakman was on his way to being the next Steven Seagal or Van Damme. And then… nothing. I don’t recall any other theatrical features with him beyond THE PERFECT WEAPON. Now, in all fairness, I had revisited it not that long ago, and Speakman is… not a very good actor in it. In fact, the majority of the first half of the movie is him flashing back to his teenage self, played by another actor, while he’s driving back to his old turf.

In THE EXPERT, Speakman plays John Lomax, a special forces instructor that trains his guys, loves his sister, and starts up a romantic relationship with a journalist that initially wanted to do a segment on him for her TV show. A creepy guy named Matt Kagan (Michael Shaner, he’s the “jumper” in the first LETHAL WEAPON movie!) targets his sister, and murders her in her home. He’s immediately caught and sent to jail but not before this whole spectacle trial in which he’s defending himself and the psychologists are trying to get him out on grounds of insanity. (All this stuff is so beyond irrational and insane! But so is our real world, so…)

James Brolin is in his own movie as the Warden that really, really enjoys executing the criminal scum locked away at his jail. So much so, that he throws cocktail parties with the press before he fries ’em.

Lomax gets wind that they MIGHT send Matt to some asylum for treatment of his mental health, and he might even be used as a model citizen that speaks to high schoolers to steer them away from crime (all an elaborate ruse), and that ain’t good enough! Lomax plans to break INTO the jail so he can take out Matt once and for all.

All that craziness aside, it’s a fairly mediocre 90s action movie. I know there were two directors on this, but it’s hard to decipher the action, and that is a major flaw in your action movie! Overall, it’s just not very good. The best thing about it is a very brief scene with Jim Varney (whom most knew from the ERNEST movies) as a bad-ass that supplies Lomax with his weaponry.

Now, what went wrong? Lustig originally conceived of this movie as BRUTE FORCE, a “Dirty Dozen” riff that would’ve featured his usual troop of actors like Lance Henriksen, Fred Williamson, Charles Napier and Robert Forster, all infiltrating a prison to execute a slew of criminals that has evaded the chair for far too long. Usual collaborator Larry Cohen apparently did a draft of this version, although in his biography, Cohen admitted it was an assignment he’d passed along to his daughter to write. I guess casting Jeff Speakman along with two primary producers that bankrolled the whole thing changed the entire story. The three insisted they whittle it down from seven bad ass characters to just one. For Speakman alone! Max Allan Collins did his draft! Although he claims he was mostly rewritten by Cohen’s daughter. Lustig quit half way through production, saying of Speakman, “We had to book two plane tickets. One for him, and one for his ego.”

It’s crazy to me that Lustig, the director of some pretty unique exploitation flicks like VIGILANTE, MANIAC, and MANIAC COP 2 had so many issues in the ’90s! But sometimes, the film biz just isn’t fair. Ah, what could have been.

*For a great break down of the original BRUTE FORCE and how it became THE EXPERT, check out this excellent article from The Schlock Pit!

RELENTLESS (1989)

I have a very vague memory of when this came out in theaters and then video. And at the time, I thought it was a pretty gnarly, crazy conceit. And now after revisiting it all these years later, I still think that! But also, I feel it’s one of William Lustig’s hidden gems; for whatever reason lost to VHS and has never had a proper Blu-Ray release, nor DVD here in the States!

The movie follows a very disturbed young man named Arthur “Buck” Taylor (Judd Nelson), the son of a former “super” cop but who also has a compulsion to kill, picking his victims at random in the phone book. The press have dubbed him the “Sunset Slayer.” And in the first two kill sequences, we get to see just how messed up Buck is. He makes his victims partake in their own murders!

Meanwhile, Detective Sam Dietz (Lustig regular Leo Rossi) has just moved to LA from NY and is paired with “old-timer” Bill Malloy (the great Robert Loggia) where this serial killer is their first case together. (Side note: I love that although the movie is set in LA, they give us the two most New York sounding Detectives in cinematic history!) Dietz is really, really good, and almost immediately picks up on patterns from the crime scene, much to the annoyance of Malloy whose a bit cynical with his long time served on the force. But the closer they get to uncovering the identity of the killer, the more dangerous it becomes for them, and Sam’s family!

After marathoning all of William Lustig’s films, I kind of feel like this is him at the top of his game as a filmmaker. The movie is well directed, well shot! Judd Nelson is GREAT as the trouble Buck, even if maybe it’s fairly obvious how crazy he is off the bat. His father, Ike Taylor (in flashbacks) is played by Beau Starr (Sheriff Meeker from HALLOWEEN 4 and 5!) and his abuse of young Buck is what made him what he is today. Rossi is great as always. So great that believe it or not, this spawned a direct-to-video franchise with him reprising the role of Sam Dietz for three more RELENTLESS sequels! (How has no one taken advantage of putting out the RELENTLESS collection on Blu-Ray or 4K!? Step up, Vinegar Syndrome!)

On top of Loggia, who always delivers, Meg Foster plays Sam’s wife. And if you want an example of how good Lustig’s directing is here, just look at the scene where the Deitz’s son is sitting on Buck’s lap, him with his gun in hand, and how Foster plays that whole scene; terrified for the safety of her son, tears instantly streaming down her face, unaware of who this guy is and what the hell he wants!

Hell, the murder sequences, in particular the first two, are mean spirited and cruel and play very much like they are set in the world of MANIAC. Also worth mentioning, Edward Bunker has a small, memorable role, as does Lustig regular Frank Pesce (currently my most watched actor of 2026 because he’s in every Lustig flick!). Jay Chattaway, arguably Lustig’s secret weapon, returns as composer to provide a solid score for yet another one of his features.

What’s most surprising to me is the rarity of this particular film, especially considering it launched a franchise of four films total. RELENTLESS (1989), DEAD ON: RELENTLESS 2 (1992), RELENTLESS 3 (1993, with William Forsythe as the villain!), and RELENTLESS IV: ASHES TO ASHES (1994). Hell, I rented a nice HD version of this on Apple TV, so an HD source exists!

While not my favorite of Lustig’s filmography, in terms of personal tastes, it’s damn good and I think this and VIGILANTE are two of his best made films overall. This absolutely shouldn’t been part of that Criterion “William Lustig’s MANIAC PULP” block!

UNCLE SAM (1996)

Every couple of years, I come back to UNCLE SAM, the last feature film that William Lustig directed, hoping to find something to appreciate in it as I’ve always felt it never fully “worked.” After my binge of all his other films, I’ve finally made it to the last film, and while it’s still probably my least favorite of his, this was the most I’ve ever enjoyed it. I saw a lot more in it now, especially given the political climate of the moment, than I ever had before.

Sergeant Sam Harper (David ‘Shark’ Fralick) is a Desert Storm vet is killed in a “friendly fire” incident in the opening moments of the film. (By our own military, no less.) In a bizarre twist of fate, his charred corpse manages to come alive long enough to take revenge on the inspecting military. But then his body is shipped back home.

His nephew Jody (Christopher Ogden) idolizes his Uncle Sam and thinks he was a hero and a true patriot. So much so that when he turns 18, he wants to follow in his footsteps and join the Army, not knowing that his mom, Sam’s sister, and his former wife hide the true nature of Sam from him. (Abusive, manipulative, and enjoyed hurting people.)

Well, it’s the fourth of July in this little town of Twin Rivers, and Uncle “Sam” is going to rise from his grave, put on an Uncle Sam costume on, and start murdering anyone he deems unpatriotic! And that’s kind of it.

What’s never gelled for me, personally, is the tone is kind of all over the place. I rather like that the first half hour or so takes the whole thing seriously. But even the Wikipedia page refers to this as a “black comedy slasher film.” And they go for odd one liners and laughs in the kills of the latter half. He also looks a bit silly in that Uncle Sam outfit, but I’m willing to let that all slide if it delivered on the premise or had something to say. But it kind of never fully comes together. Despite Larry Cohen writing the screenplay!

I like seeing Isaac Hayes here. And brief appearances from Lustig regulars Robert Forster and Frank Pesce. It’s weird that the Blu-Ray doesn’t really have any solid special features besides some commentary tracks. I’d be curious to hear if there were issues with the production on this one (since Lustig had a hell of a time getting movies made in the 90s), or if maybe the movie Gods just weren’t with them on this one. Who knows? (Sidenote: this would pair up nicely with Joe Dante’s season one Masters Of Horrors episode “HOMECOMING.”)

I still think now, looking back, Lustig had one of the most interesting directing careers in genre history. And while I applaud the Criterion Channel for finally giving him some respect, that block really should’ve included all his features.

*All of the above reviews have come from my personal Letterboxd account where I’ve gotten back into the habit of reviewing all of the films I watch. Please feel free to follow along: https://letterboxd.com/RobertVGalluzzo