Q: The Winged Serpent

Q is a fun film but the main problem with it is that monster in the title is rarely seen or is just a simple plot device and the end result is sorta unsatisfying. The story is more about the Aztec cult and their human sacrifices to their god, a Quetzalcoatl (hence Q), and the cops trying to figure what's going on than anything about the flying serpent. There is a lot of padded moments in this film. But like I said, it's fun nonetheless and is more enjoyable than Cohen's heavy handed GOD TOLD ME TO.

Q is an homage of the monster movies of the 1950s, with lower production values and even more questionable acting than their 1950s counterpart. If you don't like those movies, you'll certainly won't like this homage. But if you're like me and enjoy watching those classic genre films, Q will make you smile. I just wish there was less talk and more monster action.

Writer/Director Larry Cohen is the genius that brought the world such classics as Hell Up in Harlem, Original Gangstas, Special Effects, and the It's Alive series. Nearly all of his movies are examples of low budget filmmaking at its best. Q (standing for Quetzecoatl, the flying Aztec god) is his giant monster movie in the tradition of King Kong and Godzilla. It's an excellent movie and succeeds best because of it's quirky qualities.

An excellent B-movie cast combined with Cohen's wonderfully realistic dialogue makes for some excellent characters. Micheal Moriarty (from "Law and Order" and Cohen's The Stuff) plays a loser who finds the nest of the beast, and Richard Roundtree (Shaft) and David Carradine (Death Race 2000 and Kung Fu: The Legend Continues) have excellent roles as two detectives trying to locate it before it devours more construction workers.

The plot has some great twists and turns and there's some great obligatory B -movie gore in this one, too. The monster plucks heads off of window washers and snatches sunbathers off of rooftops. Blood and body parts rain down on the unsuspecting citizens beneath. Meanwhile, some lunatic is busy skinning people alive. Is there a connection? The special effects are limited and not too spectacular, but effects don't make a movie (as is apparent in the 1998 remake of Godzilla), and everything else about this movie makes it a winner. The uneven effects actually add to the fun of this movie if you can appreciate low budget horror. Q constantly amazes me with its quirky attitude, great sense of humor (maybe the window washer's head "just fell off" says one of the detectives), creative characters, camp value, and energetic cast. This 1982 cult classic is further proof that Larry Cohen is nothing less than a god.

Final Review 98/100 (A+)

When the Empire State Building was being constructed, another high-rise skyscraper, the Chrysler Building was its rival. As far as I know, this is the only film to pay homage to the Chrysler Building.

The Q stands for Quetzacoatl, a winged serpent from Aztec mythology. Outside of that, the Aztec connection isn't that great. But the idea of a monster living in seclusion in New York, feeding on sunbathers and the like, is rather bemusing.

The film is a rarity: a police-procedural monster film. The only other that comes to mind is Them!, with the giant ants. This one is truer to form, though not as taut.

Entertaining. A good rainy-day film.

Cohen is pretty goddamned erratic for an auteur. I mean, I don't think I've ever seen a movie with worse continuity; I don't think the constant lapses in screen direction are an homage to Godard; the character motivation is a mess. The newspaper headlines even have spelling mistakes for crying out loud. And every gruesome effort is made to avoid showing the titular winged serpent on screen. So why is this movie so cool? First of all, because it doesn't give a sh*t; second of all, because its subject matter takes us on an unprecedented and mesmerizing tour of the rooftops of NYC. And third of all because of that cast! I can't fling my stock epithet of 'stupid detectives' at Richard freakin' Roundtree and David by-the-Jesus Carradine, now can I? And I've never seen anything like Michael Moriarty's lead performance as a born-to-lose ex-junkie loudmouth opportunist with ego to burn. He's so mesmerizing you don't care about all the nervous cutting away from the sub-Harryhausen goings-on upstairs. In fact when you realize that Moriarty in Q equals Haze in Little Shop equals Miller in Bucket of Blood, the accretion of glaring imperfections starts to look like another form of loving tribute.

Michael Moriarity is a small time crook and ex-junkie who - for a price - can lead the police to the nest of a huge prehistoric bird-like creature that is feeding off the residents of New York City. A lot of reviews rightly praise Moriarity's performance but for me having David Carradine (Kung Fu) and Richard Roundtree (Shaft) play the two leading cops was very cool. The creature is an ancient Aztec god called Quetzalcoatl, and has been revived by a man carrying out human sacrifices on willing victims (a good excuse for some fairly graphic gore). Although the special effects of the creature look dated for 1982 they add a certain charm and for me are preferable to the cheap looking CGI so often employed these days. The bird attacks are gory and fun, one involves a token scene of topless female nudity and there are some impressive aerial shots of the city. The film is occasionally let down by some poor script, the whole idea of the creature living at the top of the iconic Chrysler Building but only one man knowing this is pretty silly and I felt that the plot got bogged down at times with the police investigations. Overall Q is reasonably enjoyable, far better than most of the CGI trash that gets churned out nowadays.