One of Campbell's first starring roles after the success of the first two Evil Dead films was, typically, in a schlocky, low-budget horror film: 1988's Maniac Cop. Unfortunately it fails to match up to the strengths of Sam Raimi's films, instead lapsing into a cheap rip-off of Friday The 13th and other generic 1980s slasher movies. Campbell plays Officer Jack W. Forrest, Jr., a policeman tasked with bringing down the psychopathic serial killer of the film's title. However, if it wasn't for the fact that a cult figure like Campbell stars in the film, there is no way that it would still be remembered today. It features all of the standard Jason Voorhees rip-off tropes: a murderer that is seemingly impossible to kill, several (sadly unimaginative) fairly gruesome death sequences, a plot that is secondary to random killings... Campbell himself isn't terrible in this early role. True, he fails to impress like in, say, Evil Dead II - there is a distinct lack of humour running through Maniac Cop, and straight acting isn't really his strong point. But he does the best he can with a skeletal script, especially considering that this is his first real film away from wunderkind director Raimi. He has since admitted that Maniac Cop is a poor film, but there's no denying that it was a key milestone in his career.