William Smith as Captain Ripley Ken Lerner as Mayor Jerry Killium Victoria Catlin as Ellen Forrest Sheree North as Officer Sally Noland Rocky Giordani as Officer Fowler Nina Arvesen as Regina Sheperd William Lustig as Motel Manager (uncredited) Sam Raimi as News Reporter (uncredited) Jake LaMotta as Detective Motta (uncredited) Release Theatrical Maniac Cop was released May 13, 1988. It played in 50 theaters and had a U.S. gross of $671,382. Home media The film was first released on DVD on April 8, 1998, by Elite Entertainment and included a commentary by director William Lustig, writer Larry Cohen, star Bruce Campbell, and composer Jay Chattaway as well as a trailer and deleted scenes. This was released on DVD by Shriek Show in April 8, 2002. Later, on November 14, 2006, a "special edition" DVD was released by Synapse Films. This version includes the film restored and re-mastered with a DTS soundtrack. In October 2011, Synapse Films released a Blu-ray edition of the film. Reception Rotten Tomatoes reports that 53% of 15 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating was 5/10. The film was mostly panned by critics at the time of its release. Variety called it a "disappointing thriller that wastes an oddball premise". Caryn James of The New York Times called it an amateurish film with stiff acting and dialogue. Chris Willman of the Los Angeles Times wrote that film quickly becomes an uninteresting Friday the 13th clone. Time Out London criticized the film as formulaic and said that it might have been better had writer-producer Cohen directed it himself. Richard Harrington of The Washington Post called the script "undernourished and obvious". Reviewing the Blu-ray release, J. Hurtado of Twitch Film wrote that despite its faults, Maniac Cop deserves mention as one of the last grindhouse films set in New York City. Tom Becker of DVD Verdict called it "a fun, mindless gorefest". Bill Gibron of DVD Talk rated it 4.5/5 stars and called it "one of the era's finest forgotten gems", deserving of a critical reappraisal. Noel Murray of The A.V. Club rated it B- and called it a goofy film that was always meant to inhabit the shelves of independent video rental stores. Gareth Jones of Dread Central rated it four out of five stars and called it a cult film that is "amongst the cream of the crop of late-eighties low-budget horror".