At first, Larry Cohen’s winged, or in the film’s terminology, “plumed” serpent, the Mesoamerican god Quetzalcoatl, or “Q” for short, is merely a wry mock-up of latter-day Ray Harryhausen monster features. However, what would at first seem to be a film which places a priority upon fun before satire proves to be the exact converse for, buried beneath a duel genre storyline and what would appear to be an arbitrarily convoluted subplot involving sacrificial killings, lies a very scathing, yet blackly humorous, critique of theological belief and, at that, via the guise of King Kong’s modern-day replacement: a giant, airborne lizard.
Being accosted by a barrage of befuddling, gruesome deaths amid a cult-like killing spree, Manhattan Detective Shepard (David Carradine) and Sergeant Powell (Richard Roundtree) are lucky to apprehend a smalltime crook named Jimmy Quinn (Michael Moriarty). Yet how seriously can they take the criminal’s utterance that he has the key to both cases, which he will gladly disclose after being granted immunity atop a million-dollar prize package?
Granted, it is difficult to see beyond Moriarty’s fine performance as he provides us with his first poignant example of the Cohenian anti-hero par excellence. What can be said of a hardened criminal who cries in front of his girlfriend (Candy Clark), refuses to carry a gun, and has a love for jazz piano? What’s more, the director further exacerbates matters by cataloguing all of the individuals who might appear at high altitudes: We watch as the titular menace nabs rooftop sunbathers, high rise construction workers, and skyscraper window washers as Shepard attempts to wrap his narrow-minded head around the possibility that world might be more involved than the black-and-white realm of good and evil, cowboys and Indians morality which he would like it to be. Beleagueringly, though he gradually comes around, Powell is nevertheless left resolutely, unequivocally stating that there is a God when it has been proven beyond a doubt that such is merely a fully-scaled avian.
Which brings us to the crux of Cohen’s delightfully naughty feature. As we progress through Q’s daily feeding and the film’s excessively juxtaposed police procedural sister plotline, the director appears to posit the very uncharacteristic theme of conservative ideology as the State refuses, and twice-over at that, to humor the notion that ritualistic sacrifices have brought into being the famed figure of Quetzalcoatl, and what the authority figures are inferring to be its legendary namesake, a god. Yet, with his trademark iconoclastic wink-and-nod, Cohen counters this motif by installing one of the most subversive portraits of irreligion set to screen since James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein.
After Godzilla is replaced by a feathered serpent, sans Fay Wray, the (perhaps too thin for some) line between deity and–gasp–monster is narrowly drawn as more than one character observes that the easiest, most concise manner in which to determine which is in their midst is to attempt to kill it. If the being dies, then it was undoubtedly a case involving the latter because the former, by definition, cannot perish. Yet, as Shepard contemplates what lies atop of the Chrysler Building, he cynically mutters, “[This wouldn’t be] the first time in history that a monster has been mistaken for a god.” Predictably, though using dramatic convention as his alibi, Cohen proves Quetzalcoatl to be mortal and, as such, the interpretative door in which we could argue for a conservative reading of the situation is quickly slammed upon us as we nonetheless are forced to contend with what is now an irrefutable slew of serial-killing cult fanatics. An eyebrow-raising “a-hem” indeed. But, then again, this is Larry Cohen. Who else would fashion a work where a character is saved by his renunciation of God? Only Larry, God bless’em.
And, like a delicate icing on an already delectable cake, when Jimmy rhetorically ponders upon why Q never seizes him, Shepard retorts, “Maybe it’s using you.” Thus, Cohen coyly aligns the police force with Q for, indeed, Jimmy did serve as a patsy to the “monster.” As such, even though Jimmy’s surname begins with the same letter as the winged menace’s nickname, both parties are criminal elements in the City’s eyes, and the seemingly male predator is a mother as Jimmy espouses effeminate sentiments to his girlfriend as he belittles his manhood, the director nevertheless absolves his anti-hero in his truly unique, ironic, signature fashion by film’s end.
However, don’t mistake Larry Cohen’s sedition of mainstream theological belief to be anything more than part and parcel of the fun to be had with his over-the-top premise set during a (cinematic) day and age so as to make it nothing more than joyfully ludicrous. The filmmaker’s primary agenda, moreso than perhaps any of his other films which wear their satiric agenda proudly upon their sleeve, is to have fun at everyone’s expense but nonetheless goad us into occasionally thinking amid our laugher. And, with the aide of Moriarty’s grossly exaggerated performance, the director does just that in such a lovingly kitsch manner as to make even Roger Corman proud. Yet, in the end, Roger Ebert does have a point, “How did one Quetzalcoatl [manage to] get pregnant?”
Perhaps divine intervention . . . .
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
