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Cracking open societal tensions is the Larry Cohen forte, and if it takes an ancient plumed serpent to do so, so be it. ("Brass tacks, hard dos," demands the scholar in Butley, "and no bloody metaphors.") Quetzalcoatl is the swooping beast's full name and it helps itself to window-cleaners and sunbathers and construction workers, "New York is famous for good eating." Flayed bodies are found in hotel rooms and bloody parts rain down on pedestrians, the police detective (David Carradine) embodies local patience ("Look, maybe his head just got loose and fell off, whaddya want from me"). Sun-gold cults and human sacrifices, in the midst of it all drama of the underworld flunky (Michael Moriarty). The gag is a creature feature from Jack Arnold or Eugène Lourié, say, set in the landscape of Lumet or Cassavetes, a continuous stream of perverse invention. Gangsters between mouthfuls scheme a diamond heist, the loot ends under a cab and the wheelman up the Chrysler Building, atop the new pyramid he stumbles upon a giant nest and egg. "Jesus, look at that fucking omelet!" The ex-hophead armed with knowledge at long last gets to set his own terms (his demands include "a Nixon-like pardon"), and Moriarty's jazzy jitters take off in a giddy tour de force. Government birdwatchers and undercover mimes, Manhattan harmonies conducted on the fly by the inspired Cohen. "Makin' the news" in a jaded town is an element (cf. Malle's Atlantic City), the God Told Me To theme resurfaces tellingly. "Wouldn't be the first time in history that a monster was mistaken for a god." It closes on an ode to Ray Harryhausen, and a seed for Bong Joon-ho. With Candy Clark, Richard Roundtree, James Dixon, Malachy McCourt, Fred J. Scollay, Mary Louise Weller, Bruce Carradine, and Shelly Desai.
--- Fernando F. Croce |