Psycho Cop



"He always gets his man...and everyone else."

- Tagline for the first film.

Psycho Cop and its sequel Psycho Cop Returns (also known as simply Psycho Cop 2) were two So Bad They're Good Slasher Movies which followed the exploits of psychopathic police impersonator Serial Killer Joe Vickers, who is on a mission from Satan to kill everyone he perceives as criminals and make bad puns out of everything while he's at it. Curiously, these movies hit the cinemas right after the first Maniac Cop installment.

In the first film, three young couples decide to have good time on a luxury cabin which resides in the backwoods. They are followed by Vickers who starts killing them one by one. Unsurprisingly, the movie ends with Vickers Not Quite Dead.

The second film opens with Vickers hearing about a bachelor party from two office workers which will be held in an office building in late-hours and it will include booze, drugs and hookers. He then follows the two men to the site of the party, locks the doors and starts killing everyone stuck inside with him.

This movie ditches the Cliché Storm teenkill-approach from the first film and goes over the top with its presentation; gore, nudity and laughably bad puns are all over the place.

""Have a heart!""
 * Abusive Parents: Vicker's Freudian Excuse, along with being dumped by foster care.
 * Aerosol Flamethrower: Sharon defends herself with one in Returns.
 * ...And Show It to You: Officer Bradley's death in Psycho Cop.

"Vickers: "Seventh floor: Linens, luxury, eviscerated women.""
 * An Axe to Grind: Axings are prominent on both movies.
 * Barrier-Busting Blow: Done to a door in the first film.
 * Behind the Black: In the first film, Vickers manages sneak up on Zack with his car.
 * Big No: Brian's reaction when Vickers kills Larry in the sequel.
 * Boom! Headshot!: Officer Chris's death in Psycho Cop, and roughly half the murders in Returns.
 * Car Fu: Julie's death in Psycho Cop.
 * Cassandra Truth: In the first film both Doug and Laura are sure that there is something odd going on. Too bad the others wont believe them until it's too late.
 * Closed Circle: The Stonecipher Enterprises office building in the sequel.
 * Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are: Said in the sequel.
 * Continuity Nod: Vickers mentions the happenings of the first film at one point in the sequel.
 * Cool Shades: Vickers wears them at night and they are later burned into a kind-of eyepatch.
 * Creepy Cool Crosses: Vickers builds these to crucify his victims in the first movie.
 * Creepy Souvenir: Vickers's patrol car in the second film is filled with body parts of his past victims.
 * Curiosity Killed the Cast: First film.
 * Cut Phone Lines
 * Dangerous Workplace: Setting of the second film.
 * Death by Mocking: Zack in the first film.
 * Death by Sex: Rampant in the sequel.
 * Developing Doomed Characters: in the first movie most of the time is spend is watching protagonists wondering aloud where the caretaker went off to, where's the beer and other mundane things.
 * Does Not Like Guns: Satan, according to Vickers, though he shrugs this off with an "Ah, what the Hell!"
 * Don't Go in The Woods: First film.
 * Donut Mess with a Cop: While listening to Larry and Brian talking about the upcoming party in the sequel's opening, Vickers is seen drinking coffee and eating donuts... IN SLOW MOTION!
 * Double Take: Bartender's reaction when sees Vickers attacking Sharon outside his workplace in the sequel.
 * Elevator Floor Announcement: Used in the sequel.

"Vickers: Remember what I said about not holding a grudge? I lied!"
 * "Everybody Laughs" Ending: Returns.
 * Evil Elevator: Elevators in the sequel after Vickers has sabotaged them.
 * Evil Is Hammy: Vickers' actor Robert R. Shafer does his damnedest to entertain, and he succeeds.
 * Evil Laugh: Vickers has a very jolly one.
 * Exact Words: In the sequel, Sharon has Vickers on her sights but he has one strippers as a meatshield. Then he promises that he won't shoot her if Sharon puts the gun down. She complies, and he snaps the stripper's neck because he only said that he wouldn't shoot her.
 * Eye Scream: Gus's death in the sequel.
 * Eyepatch of Power: In the sequel, Vickers gets half of his face burnt while wearing sunglasses and is left with other half of his sunglasses covering his healthy eye
 * Final Girl: Laura in the first film and Sharon in the sequel.
 * Finger Wag: Vickers wags his finger at Mike when he unknowingly evades him in the second film.
 * Footprints of Muck: In the first movie, Vickers tries to gain Laura's and Doug's trust to lure them in Doug realizes that Vickers is the killer because the footprints he leaves behind on the floor are the same size as the prints he has left in the shed.
 * French Maid Outfit: One of the strippers is wearing one in the second film.
 * Grievous Bottley Harm: Vickers hits himself on the head with a beer bottle when rampaging in the offices in the sequel.
 * Gross Up Close-Up: Various body parts in Vickers' car are shown up close during the sequel's opening credits.
 * Grumpy Old Man: The sequel has Mr. Stonecipher, the boss of the company where the protagonists work. He hates brown-nosers.
 * Healing Factor: Vickers has it.
 * Hollywood Satanism: Vickers worships Satan.
 * I Lied

"Laura: "Oh God..." Vickers: "God? Hah! God has nothing to do with it!""
 * I Need a Freaking Drink
 * Immune to Bullets
 * Impersonating an Officer: Though Vickers technically was once a police officer.
 * Laughably Evil: Vickers.
 * Leitmotif: Whenever we're shown Vickers stalking the characters in the first film, he is always accompanied by certain ominous music.
 * Made of Iron: Vickers can shake off pretty much anything most of the time, but curiously he is easily impaled by a simple tree stake in the first film's climax.
 * Menacing Stroll: Vickers uses it in the first film, but has wised up for the sequel and actually runs in the final Chase Scene.
 * Mickey Mousing: Added to some actions in the sequel for extra cheese.
 * Mr. Exposition: Officer Bradley in Psycho Cop.
 * Neck Lift: Vickers performs it a couple times in the first movie. First time it's used is followed by:
 * Neck Snap
 * Nice Job Guiding Us Hero
 * No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Vickers gets one in the sequel from a lynch mob, in a sequence that comes off as a weird inversion of the Rodney King assault, complete with videotaping bystander.
 * Number of the Beast: Vickers has it tattooed in his hand and it's pretty much his calling card along with pentagrams.
 * Offscreen Teleportation: Happens couple times in the first film.
 * Omniscient Morality License: Vickers goes after his victims from slightest of hint that they are up something illegal.
 * A Party - Also Known as an Orgy: The bachelor party in the second movie.
 * Peek-a-Boo Corpse: Lampshaded in Returns, where the bodies fall out of the ceiling instead of the expected cabinet.
 * The Pen Is Mightier: To stab people in the eye, that is.
 * Police Brutality: Before he went full on Ax Crazy, Vickers was being investigated due to allegations of police brutality.
 * Pungeon Master: Vickers makes every pun imaginable from everything remotely police-related. And he doesn't even limit himself to those either.
 * Rain of Blood: After Larry says in the sequel that there isn't some crazy killer loose, blood starts dripping from above.
 * Reading Your Rights: Couple of puns are created from it.
 * Room Full of Crazy: Briefly seen in the first film's opening.
 * Sequel Escalation: Aside from Vickers' bad puns, the first film were still your average by-the-book slasher film. Returns amped the amount of gore, skin and bad puns making it tremendously entertaining B-Movie.
 * Scare Chord: Used in fake scares of the first film.
 * Serial Killer: According to a newscast at the end of Psycho Cop, Vickers (or is it Greg Henley?) may be an escaped serial killer named Ted Warnicky.
 * Slasher Smile
 * Perpetual Smiler
 * Smith Will Suffice: Variation is said in the first film.

"Caretaker: "It can't be." Vickers: "But it is!""
 * Sound-Only Death: In the sequel's ending when Vickers kills people coming in to his room.
 * This Cannot Be!: Caretaker says this when he sees Vickers and realizes that a cop is about to kill him.

"Vickers: "You act like trash, you get treated like trash.""
 * Trash Landing: In the sequel Vickers drops one of the strippers into the trash from the top floor of an office building.


 * Villain Based Franchise
 * Villain Opening Scene: First film opens with Vickers killing some couple unrelated to the plot.
 * Villainous Breakdown: As Returns progresses, Vickers grows more and more psychotic, babbling semi-coherently, destroying random office furniture, and beating himself over the head with a bottle.
 * What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: The various slow motion shots in the sequel.
 * What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic: The various markings of pentagrams, 666's and dead animals nailed to trees that Vickers leaves behind.
 * You Can Run but You Can't Hide: Said in the sequel.
 * You Look Like You've Seen a Ghost: Said to Brian when he is spooked.
 * Your Cheating Heart: In the sequel Tony (a married man) and Chloe stay at the work after closing-hours for sex. Also, Gary is about to cheat on his upcoming wife with a stripper before he gets killed.