Cop Killers (1977) User Reviews

Horribly acted but totally wicked.

[coldwaterpdh · 5/10 · 8 February 2008]

"Cop Killers" has what is maybe the worst acting I've seen in a movie, seriously. And I've seen my share of low-budget crap. This one takes the cake. It's so bad that it's good though! The scene with the ice cream man is the best. I was rolling on the floor.

I was impressed with the violence in this film, it's definitely not for the faint hearted. However, it's no "Cannibal Holocaust." It's not disturbing, it's more funny than it is upsetting.

I'd recommend "Cop Killers" to a few guys who wanna see some violence while consuming several cheap beers. Worth every penny.

5 out of 10, kids.

Went down smooth

[recluse2 · 7/10 · 17 April 2019]

Movie flowed smoothly along and held your attention to the screen. Action at a high level, characters interesting enough, a basic kind of story you can relate to (Get away! Get the mess over with, get the money). There is one fully degenerate character and another partly-degenerate character. A girl/hostage is along for the ride (not a very impressive actress). Outdoor scenery is a plus. And you meet this hippie cat who lives out in the middle of nowhere in a tapestry cocoon w/ 2 spaced-out hippie chicks. He's a pretty cool cat. There's enough shooting in this film to keep you happy.

NOT EVEN A PROMISE IS FREE

[nogodnomasters · 6/10 · 18 April 2019]

Alex (Bill Osco) and Ray (Jason Williams) are two drug transporters making their way across the desert with their product on their way to meet a buyer. Along the way they kill cops, people, high jack cars and take Karen (Diane Keller) as hostage. The film is pure 70's cult action. Hippies, telephone booths, and 33.9 gas. The soundtrack is dorky too.

The film is not for serious viewers, but 70's Drive-In cult fans.

Parental Guide: F-bomb, sex, nudity (Diane Keller, Donna Stubbert, Judy Ross- only movie credit for all three actresses, not a career builder)

Hippy exploitation film provides unintentional laughs.

[aliandweb · 5 March 2001]

A drug deal goes disastrously wrong for two long hairs when they run into cops at a roadblock. They kill the pigs and go on an orgy of kidnap and killing. Particular highlights include the theft of an ice cream truck complete with its camp, whining driver and a hippy hangout in the desert peopled with stoned hippy chicks and a pretentious hippy drug dealer. This is a film obviously inspired by the likes of 'Easy River' and 'Electra Glide in Blue', but it has a very amateur improvised feel to it, especially the dialogue which is a real hoot of late sixties cliches. The names of the cast and crew are the same which gives it all a 'lets do the movie right here' feeling. Howard Ziehm was one of the producers and Rick Baker did the gory gunshot make up.

Dag, this was bad....

[saint-21 · 1/10 · 13 September 2008]

OK, i usually don't watch 70's exploitation films but i figured i would give it half a chance, i mean my friend Jim saw it so how bad can it be.. It was bad. Now we all know what its about , A couple of losers killing every policeman they encounter. Now i was kinda surprised about how violent the film tried to be and it was rather different seeing some early effects work here by none other than Rick Baker who would go on the do an American werewolf in London. But yeah, some of the violence was kinda fake looking too. Now it seemed every time they killed or hurt someone they just splattered them with gallons of fake fake blood. Not my kinda movie. You could really care less about anyone in the film and the main bad guy was really just plain insane..

Don't bother with this when there's so many better movies to see. Sorry i did... Was this some kinda cult favorite i hope not...

A typical story

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 15 March 2018]

COP KILLERS is a typical on-the-run slice of 1970s exploitation featuring a couple of druggies who are chased through the American desert and blow away a number of cops during the pursuit. They take a young woman hostage and the film becomes a hostage thriller along the lines of RABID DOGS but without anywhere near the same kind of tension and suspense. Mostly, this is a cheap and sleazy production that wallows in excess. It has some nasty bursts of bloodshed here and there, with convincing effects contributed by a pre-stardom FX artist Rick Baker. The characters are all unpleasant and the story hackneyed from the beginning to the expectedly nihilistic outcome.

No, this film has nothing to do with Ice-T's controversial song.

[mazec666 · 3/10 · 25 April 2012]

I bought this movie expecting it to be a down-and-dirty grind house-style drive-in flick, and boy my expectations were way too high.

Instead, I got a bare-bones story of two losers on the run for killing two or three police officers after smuggling drugs across the Southwestern desert. Jason Williams (FLESH GORDON) and Bill Osco was well cast in their roles, but I felt they could've had better lines from a dodgy screenplay.

Eventually, all of the hallmarks of exploitation cinema are there: a lisp-voiced ice cream man, bad editing, awkward acting, continuity problems, and some decent make-up effects from future Oscar-winner Rick Baker which would be a step back from ITS ALIVE. All in all, COP KILLERS kind off suffers from those instances that the trailer was much better than the film itself.

Nothing to see here people, please back away from the COP KILLERS as soon as possible okay.

I am in this film!

[loren-knapp · 10/10 · 27 July 2009]

I am in this movie and for 36 years didn't even know it was ever released. I'm the lead cop in the final scene with the shot gun that guns the bad guys down during the exciting climax. I have posted it on Youtube. We spent the whole day up in Kearney, AZ filming that last sequence. The producer gave the car to an old man who came along catching rattlesnakes. I remember waiting while they went into town to get some kind of brains at Safeway to put under the girls skull cap in order to get the right effect when they shot her in the head. My family was quite surprised to see me in the film as they didn't know anything about it. Yes, the movie is bad, but in a good way. You can see the microphone cords running under the bad guy's shirt in many scenes. In one shot one of the sound guys can be seen in the back seat of the car. The director wasn't big on re-doing scenes. The movie was shot in 16mm and then transfered to 35mm. It cost $50,000 to make of which I was paid $100. What a hoot! I'm giving it a 10 cause I'm in it!

Up There With Two Thousand Maniacs

[Scars_Remain · 8/10 · 26 March 2008]

This is a movie that simply cannot be rated based on a regular movie scale. This movie gets an 8/10 based on the "bad exploitation scale." If I were rating this as a normal movie, it would probably get a 3 or 4 out of ten. However, it get rated solely based on entertainment, nothing more and nothing less.

That said, I was very entertained by Cop Killers. I found it used at the local record store and it looked like a good exploitation film so I decided to give it a shot. I'm glad I did.

I laughed at the actors the whole way through because there wasn't a single good actor in the entire film. Horrible sound and editing and cutting also make it very unintentionally hilarious. This movie proves that anyone can make a movie. you just have to make it happen yourself.

Check this one out if you're an exploitation fan and you should have fun. Don't expect anything amazing.

Really bad acting + excessive violence = very funny movie

[stevelopez · 10/10 · 8 April 2002]

Alex: "Look man, I'm uptight and wasted. Your messing around with that broad nearly drove us off the road. Now leave her alone. We ain't got time for that s***." Ray: "Is that all you have to say?" Alex: "I said keep your hands off her!" Ray: "Don't ever put your hands on me again. Look man, I was just trying to relax. I'll keep my hands off the young virgin. Now if she comes on to me, that's another story".

How could you not like this movie? Plenty of bad acting, poor production values, cheesy dialog, cheap violence, ridiculous music, etc... So what if the last half of the movie sucks, the first half is worth the price of admission. This is right up there with Going Bezerk and Cheech & Chong's Next Movie.

"I had a spider named Karen, once..."

[seanmoliver64 · 10/10 · 5 July 2008]

Wickedly mean, low-budget 70's road-film exploitation cinema at its best! Two sleazy long-haired dirtballs try to get rich by dealing coke, kidnapping a poor blonde chick named Karen, stealing an ice-cream truck, and killing everybody who gets in their way - mostly Arizona troopers. Filmed entirely on location around Tucson, "Cop Killers" is a non-stop stream of priceless scenes with great dialog, like when psycho Ray tries to make poor tearful, hysterical Karen read from the porno-novel she was carrying when the two scum-balls kidnapped her; "If you can't READ it out, then we'll just have to ACT it out!" he screams. When Ray then tries to rape Karen, and Alex tries to stop him, Ray says "Okay, okay, I'll leave little miss virgin alone, but if she tries to rape ME, then I won't be responsible!" The scenes with the drug dealer with the pet spider (also named Karen) and the two stoned hippie/stripper chicks reminded me of people I knew when I lived in Tucson! An absolute classic. Should be in every film-buff's library.

A nice'n'nasty slice of prime 70's crime/action exploitation sleaze

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 17 April 2007]

Scruffy sniveling weakling two-bit criminal Alex (a perfectly wimpy Bill Osco, who also co-produced the film) and his equally foul, more hard-nosed no-count vicious partner Ray (a marvelously mean portrayal by Jason Williams of "Flesh Gordon" infamy) are a couple of pathetic low-life hoodlums who wind up killing four cops when a coke deal for $100,000 bucks goes completely awry. The pernicious shaggy long-haired hippie pair go on the lam and embark on a wild'n'woolly crime spree: they steal an ice cream truck, abduct lovely young lass Karen (fetching blonde looker Diane Keller), and bump off several more folks. Man, does this baby have all the right tasty ingredients to qualify as a hugely enjoyable piece of vintage funky 70's drive-in exploitation junk: bluntly efficient direction by Walter R. Cichy (who also wrote the terse, concise script), a steady pace, raw, gritty, unpolished cinematography by Howard Ziehm, exciting occasional outbursts of gory action (none other than future Oscar winner Rick Baker did the bloody make-up f/x), a sappy folkie theme song, coarse, profane, priceless dialogue (sample line: "Why don't you snort a little dope; maybe it'll calm you down"), a little cheesy soft-core sex, a hard, no-nonsense and downright sadistic harsh tone, a spare, moody score by Hal Yoergler, a stirring last reel car chase, engagingly scrappy acting from a game no-name cast (James Nite in particular contributes a hysterical performance as a hapless ice cream man), a beautifully bleak bummer ending, and even a handy helping of rape, gratuitous nudity and degradation. An unjustly neglected gnarly little trash movie nugget.

Cruising around, killing cops, killing cops, all whacked off of Scooby Snacks!

[Coventry · 8/10 · 11 August 2019]

Mean-spirited, raw, merciless and utterly unhinged; - "Cop Killers" is one of the purest and thus most wickedly awesome American drive-in/exploitation gems of the entire 70s decade! There actually isn't a lot I can write about this rough grindhouse diamond, except that it offers straightforward and non-stop adrenalin rushes from start until finish. Two petty criminals, Ray and Alex, on their way to a big cocaine deal in rural Arizona turn themselves into public enemies when they murder four police officers during a roadblock. Determined to complete the deal and then flee to Mexico, the two continue their bloody trail across the state, with particularly Ray massacring a whole bunch of innocent people, including highway patrolmen and witnesses who are at the wrong place at the wrong time. "Cop Killers" is sort of an overdue hippie-exploitation effort, but one with nasty & explicit make-up effects from future Academy Award winner Rick Baker (yes, really), cheesy country songs and demented - albeit possibly unintentional - black humor. The acting performances of the two leading anti-heroes is decent, and the yummy female hostage Diane Keller is good as well, but all the supportive actors and actresses are amateurish beyond belief. The joyride with the ice cream truck is vintage exploitation heritage (or should be, at least!)

Fun in an Ice Cream truck.

[sbabin1 · 10 April 2002]

Read it, read the book. Start from where it says, he plunged his.... A classic movie in every sense of the word. Whats not to like about this flick. Lots of booze, drugs and babes, all in an ice cream truck to boot! My only regret is that I don't own my own copy.

"They're Dead, Alex! Dead!"...

[azathothpwiggins · 8 December 2019]

In COP KILLERS, two hippie-types named Ray and Alex (Jason Williams and Bill Osco) believe they've hit the big time after purchasing a satchel full of suspicious white powder. After a bloody shootout at a police roadblock, the unscathed duo emerge to start meeting "chicks". Soon, they're stealing an ice cream truck, committing another murder, and hitting the road. Yep, they're ruthless, desperate, and heading for the border!

An ultra-cheap production, this movie is filled with fun stuff like haphazard sound, a stock, travelogue musical score, hit-and-miss acting, visible, under-the-shirt microphones, visible production crew, etc. Regardless, it's an effective piece of 1970's crime drama with an ending that is bleak and satisfying.

BEST PART: When our "heroes" arrive at the hippie hive / drug den. There, we are introduced to two wasted women that are a stoned out hoot! In addition, their giant, Sasquatch boyfriend is a bearded wonder!...