Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick
Larry Cohen was perhaps the greatest ‘idea man’ in recent genre film history. Throughout the 70s and 80s, Cohen as a writer, director, and producer, built a cult following with his low budget, high-concept genre films that combined old school schlock with prescient social commentary and ‘how did no one think of that before?’ premises.
Q: The Winged Serpent (also known as just Q) is one of Cohen’s best known works, marrying stop-motion monster action reminiscent of the classic Ray Harryhausen adventures with the nitty-gritty of New York City streets and the cynical hustlers and busted-up cops who populate them.
Q stars recurring Cohen collaborator Michael Moriarty as born loser Jimmy Quinn, a low rent crook terrified of just about everything. But Jimmy’s lifetime of bad luck takes an unusual turn when he stumbles across a giant nest in the spire of the Chrysler Building. Yes, it seems that the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl has taken up residence in the Big Apple, sneaking out only so it might snap up sunbathers and construction workers from rooftops for its next meal.
Quinn, seeing his first ever shot at the big time, decides to hold the dragon’s location for ransom until he gets paid off by the city. Meanwhile, detectives played by David Carradine and Richard Roundtree investigate a parallel, linked spree of killings, this one involving a rash of skinned, disemboweled bodies, the corpses mutilated in keeping with Aztec traditions of ritual sacrifice.
Q didn’t receive a great deal of attention upon original release, though Moriarty’s eccentric, committed performance earned him praise from the likes of Roger Ebert and Rex Reed. In the years since, the film’s DIY approach to shooting guerilla-style in NYC and orchestrating gory monster mayhem have earned devoted fans, alongside other Cohen oddities like The Stuff, God Told Me To, and the It’s Alive! trilogy.
With Cohen’s recent passing, there is a hole in the world of genre cinema. So before we say our last goodbye to a true original, let’s look to the sky and gaze in awe and terror at Q: The Winged Serpent.
Side note: Friend and erst-while contributor Justin Harlan put together his own tribute to “King” Cohen. Lots of great stuff to read/watch:
https://cinapse.co/streaming-with-the-king-b06315022b46
Next Week’s Pick:
With a shocking and thrilling formula mixing adventure, horror, wilderness survival, and dueling banjos under the direction of the great John Boorman, 1972’s Deliverance was a critical and commercial hit. The success propelled the careers of its up-and-coming cast featuring Burt Reynolds, John Voight, Ronnie Cox, and Ned Beatty. We’ve actually wanted to feature this one for a long time, and now that it’s on Netflix we’re taking the opportunity to do so.
Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co anytime before midnight on Thursday!
The Team
I’ve watched Q a couple times and generally really enjoy it, but this time I’ll admit that some of the magic was gone. I found myself impatient between bird-lizard attacks, and the acting from everyone except Moriarty’s bizarrely-magnetic scumbag lead and Carradine and Roundtree’s bemusedly unphased detectives (who seriously approach each new insane detail with an attitude that might as well be, ‘Ritual sacrifice in a hotel room? Must be Tuesday.’) too awkward and frantic to sit through. I’m a sucker for schlock set in that era of NYC when you could practically smell the city through the celluloid, and for a while Q skates by purely on the wonderfully pungent vibe the city and its inhabitants gave off.
As for the Quetzalcoatl monster herself, it’s a terrific design, wonderfully brought to life by stop motion masters including the brilliant Randy Cook. But I feel like Cohen was maybe a little ‘too’ in love with the thing, since he unveils it early and often, which leaves the film nothing really to ramp up to, resulting in a climax that just goes on and on as endless bullets get fired and endless heads get ripped off.
Q is still a charming little B-movie, but I think I will give it a rest for a while, and hopefully next time I sit down with it a little more of the charm is restored.(@theTrueBrendanF)
Larry Cohen was a genre film demigod, as far as I’m concerned. The way he could bounce around in the genre world from exploitation to horror to sci-fi will always impress me. Even if none of his films necessarily are top 10–15 film fir me, every single one is an enjoyable experience for me.
Q isn’t as strong as The Stuff for me, but it’s certainly a strong horror/sci-fi/mystery mashup that tackles presenting a kaiju style monster in such a unique way. The performances are great, the story is fun, and it’s enjoyable start to finish.
I’ll certainly miss the late great King Cohen, but I’m thankful he left us gems like this one! (@thepaintedman)
Q is odd, grimy, charming, and a lot of fun — in other words, a Larry Cohen movie. Like many of his films, it takes place in New York City and makes the most of that, using the location to bring scale to what’s essentially a very modestly budgeted film.
Moriarty’s character is a sleazebag and a baffling protagonist, Roundtree is the man, and I’ve come to the realization that David Carradine probably has the worst hair in the history of Hollywood.
It may be a matter of perspective whether the film’s janky stop-motion monster is its best or worst trait (personally I’d give “worst” to Carradine’s hair), but it’s charmingly hokey and lends an absurd touch of whimsy to an otherwise fairly serious treatment.
Next week’s pick: