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A prehistoric serpent-type Aztec god soars high above New York attacking various people. Ex-con Jimmy Quinn (Micheal Moriarty) is the only living person who knows where it resides. And it's up to Detective Shepard (David Carradine) and Sergent Powell (Richard Roundtree) to find the creature in this cheese-fest. This is one of those films that you have to check your brain at the door for. Unlike most of Cohen's directorial efforts there's not even a hint of social commentary in here. Mindless entertainment B-movie fluff, but really GOOD mindless entertainment B-movie fluff.

My Grade: B

Blue Underground DVD extras: A humorous commentary by Larry Cohen; Teaser; Posters and Stills gallery; Larry Cohen bio DVD-ROM: Q Memorabilia

Q the Winged Serpent is basically a cheesy low-budget '50s monster movie updated to the blood & nudity era, still low on budget and high on cheese. The story has the Aztec flying serpent god Quetzalcoatl coming to modern-day New York and biting off heads and such. It's a pretty creative film, effectively written and directed by Cohen, with a good cast and shot on location in New York City. Michael Moriarty shines as a petty thief who stumbles upon the monster's nest and tries to use it to his advantage. His eccentric performance is a delight to watch as he never sits still and seems to be making his lines up as he goes along. David Carradine and Richard Roundtree are also good, albeit in more traditional ways, as the two detectives investigating the killings. Candy Clark has a small role as Moriarty's girlfriend but she makes the most of it. Everyone who shares scenes with Moriarty seems to be either amused or frustrated by his acting. We don't see the monster much but, when we do, the special effects used are solid if not overly impressive. The King Kong climax is great fun. It's my favorite Larry Cohen movie, a solid horror flick but with quirky humor that sets it apart from being just another monster movie.

Q - The Winged Serpent is a trash movie classic, and it also represents one of the masters of that cinema niche's finest hours. Larry Cohen directs this movie, which follows the standard monster movie formula, and is blended well with a theme of mass hysteria and a gritty New York setting. The plot for the movie is, of course, very simple and it sees two sets of murders being investigated by David Carradine's police detective. One set of murders is made up of ritualistic killings - people being flayed, having their hearts cut out etc. The other bunch of murders is more mysterious, and it sees things such as people having their heads bitten off, or being lifted from high rooftops, as if by a giant bird. Maybe there is simply a giant bird on the loose; or maybe those ritualistic killings have reincarnated an Aztec god known as Quetzalcoatl (or just 'Q' for short), which is currently nesting in one of New York City's high buildings…

The special effects in 'Q' are definitely the film's main talking point. While they're not very 'special', they sum the movie's trash status up nicely, and the scenes that see the winged serpent swoop down and take people off rooftops are an absolute riot. The creature is also very well designed. Nowadays, special effects seem to want to be as far removed from convention as possible, so much so that it's getting to the extent that it's more of a cliché to change things than it is to leave them how they were. It is refreshing, therefore, to see that Larry Cohen has stuck the design to the classic dinosaur style. It's abundantly obvious what Cohen wanted to do with this movie, and that shows when it comes to the story surrounding the antics of the giant flying lizard. The story surrounding it has it's moments, but it's clearly just something to fill up the time between the snatch and grab killings. It doesn't matter, though, because the monster ensures that the film is always interesting and if you like your trash classics, you'll sure like this!

Cohen is pretty goddamned erratic for an auteur. I mean, I don't think I've ever seen a movie with worse continuity; I don't think the constant lapses in screen direction are an homage to Godard; the character motivation is a mess. The newspaper headlines even have spelling mistakes for crying out loud. And every gruesome effort is made to avoid showing the titular winged serpent on screen. So why is this movie so cool? First of all, because it doesn't give a sh*t; second of all, because its subject matter takes us on an unprecedented and mesmerizing tour of the rooftops of NYC. And third of all because of that cast! I can't fling my stock epithet of 'stupid detectives' at Richard freakin' Roundtree and David by-the-Jesus Carradine, now can I? And I've never seen anything like Michael Moriarty's lead performance as a born-to-lose ex-junkie loudmouth opportunist with ego to burn. He's so mesmerizing you don't care about all the nervous cutting away from the sub-Harryhausen goings-on upstairs. In fact when you realize that Moriarty in Q equals Haze in Little Shop equals Miller in Bucket of Blood, the accretion of glaring imperfections starts to look like another form of loving tribute.

When the Empire State Building was being constructed, another high-rise skyscraper, the Chrysler Building was its rival. As far as I know, this is the only film to pay homage to the Chrysler Building.

The Q stands for Quetzacoatl, a winged serpent from Aztec mythology. Outside of that, the Aztec connection isn't that great. But the idea of a monster living in seclusion in New York, feeding on sunbathers and the like, is rather bemusing.

The film is a rarity: a police-procedural monster film. The only other that comes to mind is Them!, with the giant ants. This one is truer to form, though not as taut.

Entertaining. A good rainy-day film.