In Praise of Larry Cohen’s GOD TOLD ME TO

SHOCK sings the gospel about Larry Cohen’s 1976 film GOD TOLD ME TO.

There’s no one quite like NYC based writer, director and all-around genre film visionary, Larry Cohen.

Cohen is, of course, the man behind such fare as blaxploitation action classic BLACK CAESAR, the terrifying and outrageous IT’S ALIVE films, the riotous Q: THE WINGED SERPENT, the gleefully ridiculous THE STUFF and many, many more sly works of deranged, socially aware filmmaking that betray their low budgets, compensating with big ideas and craftsmanship.

But among Cohen’s storied canon, perhaps no film is as starkly effective as his 1976 existential sci-fi/horror chiller DEMON or, as its commonly known as, GOD TOLD ME TO. It’s a film like no other and a picture that only Cohen could make work.

The setting is present day (well, 1976 present day) New York City. As the film opens, the audience is treated to guerilla style shots of real Manhattan streets as random people suddenly drop to the ground, feigning death while authentic passerby double-back in shock. Such permit-free filmmaking stunts might raise ire today, but Cohen didn’t worry about such things then, he simply dove in.

In the context of the narrative however, these plants are really innocent victims of an unseen sniper, nestled somewhere up high and seemingly randomly taking out citizens with skilled aplomb. Enter Detective Nicholas (Tony Lo Bianco, THE FRENCH CONNECTION) who arrives on the scene after cops locate the shooter on the top of a tower. Fearless, Nicholas climbs the tower to confront the killer, a mild mannered pleasant fellow who shows no remorse for the grim killing spree. And when, after some de-fusing discourse, the kindly Detective inquires as to why he committed the crimes, the shooter simply says, “God told me to”, before diving off the tower to his death.

Nicholas is a Catholic struggling with his faith and tormented by a nagging feeling of unfulfilled purpose. His is a kind of mid-life crisis that is agitated by both this murder/suicide and the ensuing spate of similar crimes, each of the perpetrators all beaming beatifically, “God told me to”.

Lo Bianco gives what would be the defining performance of his career, brilliantly conveying a man who cannot fathom why a father would ruthlessly butcher his wife and small children or why a decorated policeman (a very young, pre-TAXI Andy Kaufman) would go on a homicidal rampage during the St. Paddy’s Day Parade, all in the name of serving a God that he himself now sits at odds with. With his handsome, dark features, the actor’s misery and moral down-spiraling is palpable and you stay with him as his investigation gets darker and weirder, culminating in a revelation that is as outrageous and improbable as it is imaginative and bold.

GOD TOLD ME TO is a New York movie, a Cohen joint, through and through, capturing the urgency of the city as well as the hustle and desperation that pushed beneath the surface of the city during this period. The director paints a portrait of a world teetering on the edge of sanity and salvation, perfectly housing a story that ultimately deals with the cosmic war between good and evil, the eternal battle for the souls of mankind.

This is, as the title and themes suggest, very much a theological horror film but it is bigger than that, galactic in fact. Unlike most theological horror films of the period, pictures like THE EXORCIST, THE OMEN and THE SENTINEL, GOD TOLD ME TO ultimately abandons the confines of a single religion and this is the film’s most genius device. A Muslim or a Hindu or a Buddhist watching THE EXORCIST might thrill to the craft and shocks, but the underlying Catholicism would be somewhat lost and its effect lightweight. But here, Cohen has loftier narrative and conceptual pursuits, ones that defy denominations and culture and directly attack what it means to be a human being, subject to vice and struggle.

Wrapped up with a Bernard Herrmann-esque score by Frank Cordell, GOD TOLD ME TOO is Cohen’s ultimate masterpiece, as heavy and vital a work as it was 40 years ago…maybe, even more so.

Really, there is no other horror film quite like it…