Review of Q: The Winged Serpent (1982) by Andy S — 07 May 2013

Larry Cohen has a great imagination. He started out writing scripts (and helped create the 1960s cult Sci-Fi TV series THE INVADERS) before moving into the director's chair.

The story behind how Q got made is as interesting as the film itself. Cohen was supposed to direct the 1981 adaptation of Mickey Spillane's I, THE JURY (the really bad one starring a miscast Armand Assante as Mike Hammer) but was replaced as the director by Richard Heffron (who?). So Cohen set out to make his own movie and came up with the idea of a ressurected Quetzacatl (Q), a large winged serpent worshiped by the ancient Mexican Toltec civilization, brought back to life in present-day (1982) New York.

It has a very good cast, most notably Michael Moriarty as a failed Jazz-pianist and Junkie turned petty theif. This guy discover's Q's nest and offers to show the cops where the creature that has been snatching rooftop sunbathers and window washers for several weeks. A great mannered performance. Also good are David Carradine (as a cop), Richard Roundtree (as a fellow cop), and Candy Clark (as Moriarty's girlfriend).

Its a great homage to old-fashioned creature-features updated to the early 1980s. The Q-FX are good but obviously stop-motion and the subplot about the ritual Toltec-style sacrifices bringing Q back to life is not as interesting as Q itself, but this is a thoroughly enjoyable film, way better than I, THE JURY (1981).