God Told Me To (1976)

I find Larry Cohen movies are difficult to hate, but also difficult to love. This one is a prime example. Cohen has a knack for big and clever ideas, and for somehow convincing some of the best New York character actors to be in his films. Despite this his films never seem to gel quite as well as his premises suggest they should. Maybe it is his uneven directing style, or the one-take ultra low budgets. Whatever it is they always seem to me like I'm watching a first draft screenplay, lots of promise and no polish.This film is a prime example. Certainly what hollywood wheelers and dealers used to call a "high concept" picture. The premise, as I'm sure you are aware, involves a police detective (Lo Bianco) investigating a series of senseless murders in the big apple. The first of which evokes (likely intentional) echoes of Charles Whitman's infamous rampage from the U of Texas clock tower. When the detective asks the killer the inevitable question "why'd you do it", all he can answer is "God told me to". As the body counts mount, (and Lo Bianco becomes more unhinged) the titular refrain is repeated by perpetrators of various atrocities across the city.As we delve deeper into the mystery, the film takes an extremely unexpected though not wholly unpleasant turn into science fiction, as the cop finds an unearthly explanation for the killings-- just not the one the title might suggest.Unfortunately this is where the film completely falls apart. What should be the climax of the movie comes about 1/3 of the way in. The plot quickly degenerates into a quagmire of nonsensical sub-plots from which it never really recovers. Ebert famously opined that he thought for sure the reels were being shown out of order. I felt more like watching someone flip the channels on a tv through several different movies as the various subplots unfolded. First you get a scene of a police procedural, then a science fiction scene, then a scene out of a blaxploitation/gangster film, then back to the police subplot. Genre bending can often be a benefit of b-movies in this case its a determent. It left me consistently saying "who is that again? Whats going on here". The subplots sort-of come together but the story is told so incoherently I could not help zoning out. When the twist ending came (was it a twist? Im not exactly sure), I was too confused to be surprised. I even rewound the last 10 minutes a few times and still could not figure out exactly what the hell i had just seen.Many seem to consider this Cohen's best film, I would say its actually one of his worst. The shame is the concept is actually very good and the first third is really well done. It is just a shame he seemingly ran out of ideas before he ran out of film. I'd certainly rank this as much inferior film to "Q" , "The Stuff", or even his Blaxploitation pictures. Overall I recommend this to Larry Cohen fans or b-movie completists. I doubt many others will bother sitting through the entire thing.

I am writing this after watching "God Told Me To" for a second time. I rewatched it because I didn't remember much about it from the first time. And after seeing the movie again, I think I know why I forgot so much about it. That reason being that the movie is extremely confusing. It start off okay, but little by little it starts to get largely incoherent. I could understand the basic plot, but many essential details don't seem to be there or are delivered in a very murky fashion. I do give writer/director Larry Cohen credit for an interesting premise, one I don't think was done in a major motion picture before. And despite the low budget and independent nature of the movie, Cohen manages to give the movie a "big" feel like what you'd get with a major Hollywood studio production. All the same, it's a frustrating experience, one that you'll probably forget after a few weeks of watching it. I know I'll probably forget all about it again.

Peter (Tony Lo Bianco) is a detective brought in on a strange case. As the film begins, some guy with a sniper rifle starts killing people on the streets of New York. The killer is cornered and Peter tries to talk him down from the tower where he's been shooting. However the guy jumps...just after saying that God told him to kill these people. Soon, other such crimes begin springing up all around---and each killer attributed this to God telling them to kill. In each case, oddly, they also seem very calm...and Peter is perplexed. Where this goes next is NOT where normal folks would expect and I am sure many would find it all sacrilegious as Peter begins to realize the killings are being orchestrated by a modern day Jesus...another Son of God born of a virgin. But it gets MUCH weirder!I liked the first half of the film much more than the second. The second portion is strange and a bit confusing. This isn't necessarily all bad, as the filmmaker, Larry Cohen, does take a lot of risks and makes a truly unique film that is much like "The Omen" meets a detective film! My only complaint is just how odd and unsatisfying the ending was for me.By the way, if you do watch, look for Andy Kaufman playing a murderous cop early into the movie.

God Told Me To (1975) Directed by: Larry Cohen Starring: Tony De Bianco Yes! I've been trying to track this one down for a long long time, and immediately upon spotting it coupled with some film called Pranks on the usual Vipco rip-off label I snatched it up and ran home and watched The Case of The Bloody Iris (review soon).Then I watched this film, which doesn't really belong in the horror genre as such. It's almost like a David Cronenberg, David Lynch type affair, although I think God Told Me To was around before both of those directors had made their mark.God Told Me To was made by Larry Cohen, who appears on this site in the form of two inferior, later flicks: Q The Winged Serpent and The Stuff. Both those films are a laugh, and suitably trashy, but God Told Me To has an extra sense of weirdness and general lunacy which makes it, for me, his best film.A lone gunman on top of a water tower in New York starts wasting people with a rifle. After killing fourteen people, cop Tony De Bianco manages to get near enough to try and talk him down. Upon being asked why he's killing folk, the young man cheerily replies 'God Told Me To' and throws himself off the building.This isn't an isolated case, however. Someone else goes crazy in a supermarket, whereas a cop (played by Andy Kaufman!) starts shooting people during the St Patrick's parade. One guy picks up a shotgun and wastes him family, pleasantly describing what he's done to Bianco in what makes for quite a chilling scene. When asked why they did it, every one of them answers 'God Told Me To'.Bianco begins investigating and finds that indeed all these people had been in contact with someone God-like, but no on can remember his face. Has God returned to Earth? Who is the businessman who warned the cops of the impending attacks? And what's Bianco really got to do with it all? There's no need to go on with the plot, because it would just waste things. Most of the appeal of God Told Me To is sitting on the couch scratching your head, wondering where the film is going to head to next. It's by turns a thriller, a horror, and bit of sci-fi. The ending for me was pretty satisfying, and I can't wait to watch it again (something I rarely say on this site).Some people might have a problem with Cohen's direction, however. He seems to a lot of stuff in one take, and his editing is a bit shaky at times. As this is a low budget flick the special effects are awful too, but none of these points made the film any worse for me. It could for some people, however.Strange that Cohen would go on to direct one of the worst films ever in the late eighties. Anyone else watched Return to Salem's Lot? He wrote Maniac Cop around the same time though. Which was good.But he also wrote Phone Booth, which was a bit dodgy.