God Told Me To

[42ndStreetFreak]

God Told Me To (1976)

Dir: Larry Cohen


New York. A sniper on top of a water tower starts to randomly shoot people in the streets below.
He declares to Detective Peter Nicholas (Tony Lo Bianco, “The French Connection”), who has gone to try and talk him down, that “God told me to” and then promptly jumps to his death.

Soon the religious Nicholas is confronted with not only a whole series of similar mass murders (even one by a Policeman, played by tragic comedy icon Andy Kaufman of all people!), as seemingly normal citizens go around killing people stating that “God told me to”, but also has to face up to his own troubled past.

His investigation leads to a mysterious man named Bernard Philips (cult fave Richard Lynch) who has been seen with all the killers, who in turn leads to a strange cult (with far more to it then Nicholson could ever imagine) and even to an old, unsolved, case involving a kidnapped woman, a supposed impregnation by ‘God’ and the birth of something not quite Human….



Larry Cohen’s bizarre Sci-Fi/urban thriller is not only one of his best works, but also a film that has much to say that is valid in today’s World.

Paul Glickman’s hand held camera work, as Cohen shoots on actual New York streets full of real people (who sometimes look questioningly into the camera) and in actual grimy buildings and basements, adds an almost documentary feel to proceedings and gives the film not only a wonderfully raw edge but that essential 70’s’ concrete jungle’ feeling. And it’s a visual starkness that complements the movie’s narrative starkness.

Cohen has admirably kept the entire enterprise deadly serious and the film does not make for comfy viewing. One chilling sequence in particular is when Nicholas questions a Father who has coolly and quite happily shot his entire family dead. Lo Bianco does a wonderful job as the disbelief and anger builds in his character as he listens to the man calmly discuss shooting his young Daughter.

Cohen throws in some welcome 70’s bloodshed via some messy bullet hits and knifings (but decides not to dwell on some death scenes, like a supposed decapitation) and sprinkles in the odd flash of nudity.
The abduction sequence is suitably bizarre (helped actually by the cheap FX which make it even more weird) and has at least one grotesque sexual visualisation, that appears again later on, and has much in common with the ‘body horror’ images seen in the earlier work of David Cronenberg.

But there is more to this than just simple exploitation,
Cohen (especially via the figure of a maverick newspaper editor) has plenty to say on Religion, The Church and how society can be easily manipulated and/or pushed over into chaos when it has to face up to the reality of what it refused to believe, or coming to terms when what they DO believe in becomes reality.
He also embraces mankind’s cold and cynical opportunists by having unconnected killers commit murder and then hiding their crimes behind the “God told me to” fanatics.

But the film’s main strength is the complex character of Nicholas (and the very unusual take Cohen gives to the sub-plot of his Wife and mistress, who know about each other) and Lo Bianco’s superb essaying of him. Easily the best performance seen in a Larry Cohen movie and good enough to grace any big budget, mainstream project you could care to mention.
As far as other performances go, everyone does a good, serious job in helping Cohen successfully deliver his unusual plot.
Fans will spot Cohen regular James Dixon as a Cop, and the rest of the strong cast includes the likes of Sandy Dennis (“The Out of Towners”) as Nicholas’s sorrowful Wife, Deborah Raffin (“Death Wish 3”) as his mistress, Mason Adams (“The Final Conflict”) as a Doctor, George Patterson (“I Drink Your Blood”) as a vicious pimp and veteran actress Sylvia Sidney (“Dead End”/”Damian: Omen 2”) as an aged key to the mystery.

The low budget actually adds, rather than detracts’ from the film and there is really little to say that is negative. Only the initial sniper sequence screams of overly enthusiastic amateurism.
This sequence starts out impressively (and disturbing) enough but rapidly degenerates into a farcical contest of ‘who can do the most over the top flips and jumps into the air with wild abandon, pretending to be shot’ by the actors.
But thankfully the rest of the film is far better crafted (and acted) and is a definite gem in Cohen’s crown.

And despite the film feeling very much of it’s time, the idea of blind, murderous religious fanatics is scarily pertinent in today’s climate.
An intriguing, exciting and gritty movie that is a must buy for not only fans of Larry Cohen but also for fans of original, off the wall storytelling.