Q (Q: The Winged Serpent) (1982)

I first learned of this in The Horror Movie Survival Guide, that cheeky but very informative book that acts as if movie monsters were real and advises you on what steps to take should you run into them. While this monster didn't get an in-depth profile all its own, the book's various categories have numerous examples sprinkled amid the major ones and "Q," or Quetzalcoatl, popped up in the section on "beasts." It was a very brief summation, but the premise sounded intriguing: a giant, Aztec bird0like god terrorizing New York City. After reading the book, I went and looked up everything I could find on every film it mentioned that I didn't know of (and there were a lot), and learned the basic gist of this one's story. Q herself was also featured in a similar book, A Field Guide to Monsters, which I bought in 2006, and was the first time I ever saw an image of the monster, which looked pretty cool. I didn't see the movie until 2011, when I bought Blue Underground's 2003 DVD release, along with some other horror films, off of Amazon. And I have to admit, the first time I watched it, I didn't really like it at all. I felt like I'd been scammed and got a campy cop/crime flick, with some horror elements thrown in and a very unlikable protagonist at the center of it all, when I was promised a monster movie. When I watched it again in order to first do this review, I figured, "Okay, I went in with the wrong mindset. Maybe now, knowing what the movie really is, I'll like it this time." But no. Still didn't care much for it. And after watching it again on Tubi for this updating, that opinion still pretty much stands. I know it has a cult following, as do just about all of Larry Cohen's films, and there are definitely things about it that I can praise, but this isn't my idea of a fun monster movie.

There have been a series of bizarre and gruesome deaths in New York City lately, and they've all occurred high up in the city's skyline. Numerous people, from window washers and construction workers, to even a woman suntanning on a roof and a man enjoying his rooftop swimming pool, have been found either decapitated or completely mutilated, their body parts and blood sometimes raining down on the pedestrians below. At the same time, the police department are investigating other gruesome deaths involving bodies that have been found either completely skinned or had their hearts removed. In the midst of all of this, Jimmy Quinn, a small time crook and former junkie, gets caught up in the robbing of a jewelry store, despite telling the gangsters that he's just a driver. After running out on them and losing the bag of money, he runs to the Chrysler Building to meet with his lawyer, only to trip the alarm while trying to get into the locked office. While evading a security guard, Quinn stumbles upon a gigantic nest and egg in the building's spire, as well as the remains of various people. He manages to slip away without being seen and only tells his girlfriend, Joan, of what he saw. Detective Shepard speaks with a curator at the American Museum of Natural History and learns of the human sacrifices made by the Aztecs to their god, the winged serpent Quetzalcoatl, which are similar to the grisly murders they've been investigating. Quinn, meanwhile, uses his knowledge of the monster's nest to kill two of the gangsters when they come for him, only to be arrested in connection with the robbery. Overhearing Shepard, Sergeant Powell, and Captain Fletcher discussing the ongoing killings and sightings of the monster, he decides to use what he knows to his advantage and blackmail the department into giving him whatever he wants in exchange for the nest's location, regardless of there being lives on the line, especially since there's an egg.

When I first went into this movie, I had not seen any of Larry Cohen's other films. Obviously, I knew who he was, and also knew of some of his other movies, like the It's Alive films, The Stuff, and God Told Me To, but they were never very high on my pecking order, as none of them ever sounded all that interesting to me. Now that I've gotten a bigger sampling of his work with this and the It's Alive films, I'm beginning to realize that his style just isn't my thing (I also don't remember thinking much of his Masters of Horror episode, either, although I'd have to watch it again to be sure). Now, I like tongue-in-cheek movies, but his kind of tongue-in-cheek doesn't gel with me, as it feels quirky just for the sake of it. I will say that I do admire what he was able to pull off with such a small budget, as there are a number of impressive shots and scenes that feel like they're out of a big budget, A-level movie. I also like the story that Cohen did Q simply because another movie he'd written and was planning on directing was clearly heading for disaster and he decided not to waste the trip to New York or his hotel room. With that, he was shooting within days of leaving the other movie. It kind of reminds me of how Roger Corman would come up with a film simply because he had some time and money left over or, in some cases, purely on a bet. Speaking of Cohen himself, when I watch interviews with him, he seemed like a very personable, friendly guy who loved making movies and had some great stories to tell. And as far as his writing work goes, I do enjoy the Maniac Cop films and I also remember liking Body Snatchers, though I haven't seen it in a long time. But directing-wise, he just doesn't do it for me.

Just about everybody who loves this movie praises Michael Moriarty's performance as the film's ostensible lead, Jimmy Quinn, and I will admit that Moriarty does a good job at creating this character. The problem is that this guy is not likable whatsoever. At first, he just seems like a small-time crook who wants as little trouble as possible, given how he tells these gangsters that he's only going to be the driver for their heist. He is brazen enough to demand a 20% cut upfront, though, and when they tell him it's 12.5%, he hints that he may not do it at all, which doesn't sit well with them. He does try to get an honest job as a jazz pianist at the bar where his girlfriend, Joan, works, but the bartender isn't impressed. Though I agree with the bartender and prefer the music on the jukebox rather than what Quinn plays and sings, Detective Shepard throws him a bone and tells him he thought it was okay. And in the first hint of the kind of person he is, Quinn, on his way out, asks, "Yeah? What the fuck do you know?" He then takes the job as driver, and is forced by the thieves to join them in the robbery and carry a gun, telling him, "You take an equal share, then you take an equal chance." During the shootout, he walks out of the store with the bag of money and tries to run out on them, only to find they took the car's keys with them. He then attempts to get away by crossing the street, only to get hit by a cab and lose the bag. Desperate, he uses a payphone to call his lawyer's office, then makes his way to the Chrysler Building. That's where he makes things worse for himself when he attempts to get into the locked office, triggering the alarm and getting a security guard on him. Quinn climbs and hides in the very top of the building, where he finds the monster's nest and egg, as well as the grisly remains of one of her victims. Though freaked out, he's not too scared to try to take a gold bracelet from the skeleton before escaping. He goes back to the apartment he shares with Joan, and then you see that he treats her like dirt, yelling at her to shut up and give her a drink when she asks what happened to him; you also learn that he's beaten on her before while drunk. He does tell her what he saw but she, naturally, doesn't believe him.

Two of the gangsters track Quinn down to the apartment and, though he tries to escape, catch him, demanding he give them the money. When they don't believe him when he tells them he lost it and start beating him up, he leads them to the top of the Chrysler Building, where the Quetzalcoatl devours them, much to Quinn's delight. He's then arrested by two cops who recognize him from the robbery, and at the station, is abused and berated by Sergeant Powell. But then, he eavesdrops on Powell talking with Shepard and Captain Fletcher

about the killings and Shepard's theory about the monster. Feeling that the city and police department owe him, he decides to make use of what he knows and hold it over their heads. Until they give him exactly what he wants in exchange for the location of the nest, he's going to keep his mouth shut and let other innocent people die. And this is where Quinn becomes totally reprehensible, proving himself to be a selfish schmuck. He absolutely horrifies Joan when she comes to visit

refusing to give up his opportunity to be somebody "important" for the sake of others, even telling her that he won't care at all if more people die before the police agree to his terms. In true narcissistic fashion, he says, "It won't be my fault. It'll be theirs if they don't give me what I want." What he wants is $1 million, immunity for any crimes, and rights to all the photographs pertaining to the monster. All throughout this part of the film, especially when he meets with the heads of the police

department to discuss his terms, he's at his most unlikable, acting like a complete jagoff and declaring to Powell when he goes to beat him up over the people he's let die, "I'm pissing all over you and there's nothing you can do about it!"

On the one hand, I understand why Quinn takes this opportunity, as he's been crapped on his whole life, from being hustled and abused by big-time crooks to, as he says, having other cops plant stuff on him. He's also very insecure and lost, at one point telling Joan, after he's rattled off everything he's been through within the last 24 hours, that he wants to cry but refuses to, saying, "I'm supposed to be a man," then adds, "Christ, I don't know what I'm supposed to be. You know, everything I touch on the outside turns to shit." But like Joan says

later on, when Quinn gets some power, he's just despicable. When Shepard takes him to a small diner, attempting to make him spill where the nest is, he continues acting like a schmuck, saying that Joan turned on him and, "What is a white chick doin' with a con like me, except she wants to rehabilitate me. She wants to control me. She can go and shake her tambourines somewhere else." He continues to be indignant when Shepard blames him for the monster's killings that he could've stopped. And when some news reporters barge in

on them and Shepard makes them leave, Quinn is irked because he wants his photo in the paper, before daydreaming about all the publicity he's going to get. He then tells him, "You're just jealous, Shepard. Jealous. What can I say? You know, the only way you guys get your picture in the papers is when you get shot." He continues this when he finally leads them to the top of the Chrysler Building, and has to be goaded into actually earning his $1 million and showing them exactly

where the nest is. When they only find and destroy the egg, with no sign of the mother, Shepard tells Quinn he's not going to get his money. Quinn, naturally, is enraged at this, and he goes back to Joan's apartment, where he throws furniture around, screaming about it. That's when she decides she's had enough and tosses him out, which he has the audacity to be surprised and angry about.

At the end of the movie, after the Quetzalcoatl has been killed and he's staying a motel, the embittered Quinn looks out the window and says, "I saved you all. I saved the whole fucking city. And what do I get for it, huh?" That's when Kahea, the man who was performing ritualistic sacrifices to the monster, attempts to make Quinn into one, but Quinn refuses to save the prayer necessary for it to count. Fortunately for him, Shepard, on a hunch, shows up and guns Kahea down. On his way out, Quinn says he's going to get a job so he can get back with

Joan on better terms, admitting that he treated her bad, but after all the crap he's done and having to follow him for the whole movie, it's too little too late for me to now suddenly be on his side. Besides, like I said, just moments before, he was still thinking the city owed him.

If David Carradine's character, Detective Shepard, had been the actual protagonist, I probably would've enjoyed the movie a whole lot more, despite there not being much of the monster. He doesn't have that much to do with his role but he makes the most of it, coming across as a jaded and cynical, but at the same time, likable and funny cop. He establishes this right from the beginning, when Sergeant Powell is searching for the first victim's head and Shepard comments, "Won't be much left of it. You ever drop a cantaloupe from forty stories?" He then suggests, "Well, I figure something fell out of one of the windows from the floor up above and hit him. Sheared his head clean off. Like a big shard of glass or something like that." Powell tells him, "There are no broken windows up there," and Shepard groans, "Ah, shit! Maybe his head just got loose and fell off. Look, whadda' you want from me?" When he later overhears Jimmy Quinn's piano playing at the bar, he's the only one who tells him it was alright, and when Quinn rebuffs the compliment, Shepard just says, "Yeah, what do I know?" In attempting to solve the bizarre murder where the man was found completely skinned, Shepard visits the American Museum of Natural History, where he learns about the Aztecs ritualistic sacrifices to their god, Quetzalcoatl. At first dismissive of what the curator tells him, remarking about the books he offers to give him, "Well, good. I need something to put me to sleep at night," when he really considers it, he decides he may want to delve into the subject. He spends most of that night looking through those books, even when he's sitting in bed with his wife, commenting, "Wouldn't be the first time in history that a monster was mistaken for a god." He then adds, "Guess that's why I have to kill it. If I can kill it, it's not a god. It's a good old-fashioned monster." After the body of another sacrifice is found, this one with his heart removed, and more people see and fall prey to Quetzalcoatl, Shepard realizes that this is indeed not some criminal that he can simply arrest. Eventually, he has to go through the ordeal of explaining to Captain Fletcher that there's a giant flying monster in New York City, as well as make Powell understand that it's connected to the ritualistic murders. Showing them his report, he explains his theory that the creature nests in Midtown and flies in line with the sun so people can't see it. It's actually only when Shepard suggests that the sacrifices brought it back to life that Fletcher and Powell are dismissive of him, but that doesn't last too long, considering what Quinn tells them.

Once Quinn has made his demands clear but isn't giving up where the nest is until they're met, Shepard takes him to a diner for some coffee. He attempts to get him to admit where the nest is, again complimenting him on his piano playing, telling him what Joan wanted from him, and also blames him for the death of the man at his rooftop pool for not revealing the nest's location sooner. By insinuating that he doesn't have the nerve to kill someone directly, he gets Quinn to confess to luring the gangsters to their death. Shepard almost

gets him to say where the nest is, until Powell walks in and ruins it. Carradine's best bit of acting is when, after Quinn's payment has been assured, Commissioner McConnell tells Shepard to bury his report because, as far as he's concerned, there's no connection between the monster and the sacrificial killings. He even threatens him with a sanity hearing if he doesn't comply and Shepard, in a rage, rips his report apart. He then leads the assault on the nest at the Chrysler Building, commenting when he sees the egg, "Jesus, look at that fuckin'

omelette... Fry up about 500 pounds of bacon. We're gonna have us some breakfast." After destroying the egg and killing the hatchling, Shepard tells Quinn that he won't get his money since they didn't kill the mother. And when Quinn threatens to sue them, Shepard dares him to. He sticks around, thinking the mother may return, which he's right about, and he and a SWAT team manage to kill her. At the end of the movie, when Quinn is attacked by Kahea, Shepard comes in and

saves him. Kahea, however, takes a number of shots to put down, which Shepard comments on once he finally is dead. He tries to convince Quinn to go back to Joan but when Quinn says he's going to get a job first, Shepard is incredulous, especially when he says he's going to be a pianist. Quinn says he's pretty good and Shepard remarks, "Yeah, what the fuck do you know?", before putting a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door.

Richard Roundtree is an actor who I always kind of pitied, as after the Shaft movies, his career had a lot of highs and lows, ranging from small parts in really great movies, like Se7en, to fairly big parts in awful movies, like the Shaquille O'Neal superhero flick, Steel. He doesn't have much to do here in his role of Sergeant Powell; in fact, I thought he was kind of wasted here. In his investigations of the bizarre deaths along with Detective Shepard, Powell is the typical more hot-headed cop who doesn't take Shepard's theory about human sacrifices very seriously, mainly because he doesn't trust the people at the museum. He's also incredulous about Shepard's claim that there's a connection between the monstrous bird flying around Manhattan and the killings, especially when he says the monster was "prayed back into existence." Powell also, admittedly, mistreats Jimmy Quinn when he's brought in after being arrested and refuses to say anything about his role in the robbery without his attorney present, even telling him, "That Constitution doesn't mean a goddamn thing in a prison, you got that? I think you miss the place, don't you? I think you miss it. You like it up there. You like the treatment, don't you? That's why all you guys go back, isn't it?!" Thus, when Quinn comes up with his deal, he especially rubs it in Powell's face, making him angry to the point where he tries to attack him. After being reprimanded, Powell storms out, disgusted that the department has to make a deal with this guy. He also messes up Shepard's attempt to make Quinn reveal the nest's location when he walks into the diner, intending to be the bad cop and get him to spill the beans after fifteen minutes alone with him. During the third act, while Shepard is at the Chrysler Building, attempting to kill Quetzalcoatl and destroy the nest, Powell, with the help of an undercover cop, tracks down Kahea, whom he fingered as a likely suspect, while he's attempting to perform another sacrifice. He chases Kahea across a rooftop, only to fall victim to Quetzalcoatl when she swoops down and picks him up in her talons, before dropping him to his death.

Besides Shepard, my favorite character is Quinn's girlfriend, Joan (Candy Clark). A tough-talking but good-natured girl, she's good enough to look out for Quinn, trying to make him stop dealing with gangsters and giving him a place to stay, even though he's a crook and an abusive loser. Knowing he's had a hard life and is an ex-junkie, she says she thinks there's a good person somewhere in Quinn. That opinion changes when she visits him after he's been arrested. Already horrified to the point of tears at his admission that he lured the two gangsters who came after him to their deaths, when Quinn becomes power-hungry and flat-out says he doesn't care if more people die before he gets what he wants, she walks out on him, telling him, "I think I liked you better as a small-time crook." She finally kicks him out of her life when, after losing his deal, he trashes her apartment in anger. She brings up how the bodies of the gangsters in the nest could get him in more trouble, only for him to yell, "Then you're on their side, huh?!", and she tells him to get out, saying there's a park bench out there that'll fit him just fine. When he asks her if she means it, Joan says, "I always thought, 'Well, what the hell? This guy hurts so bad, he's been kicked around so much, that you could forgive him almost for anything.' But I saw you, Quinn, when you thought you had some power and it wasn't pretty. And I don't wanna share in that." I really love how she realized Quinn is a douche not worth any sympathy and washed her hands of him. I would also like to think that, after everything he did to her, she wouldn't have gotten back together with him, even if he did get a job.

One actor who has a small part here but I recognize regardless is John Capodice, whom I've seen in a number of things, even if it's minor parts, like Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Jacob's Ladder, Ace Venture: Pet Detective, Independence Day, and many others (I think the first time I ever saw him was when he played "Chubbie" on an episode of Boy Meets World). Here, he plays Doyle, one of the gangsters who enlists Jimmy Quinn as part of the jewelry heist, and later, along with another one named Webb, comes for him after he runs out it. Not believing him when he insists that he lost the briefcase with the money, they viciously beat on him, prompting him to lead them to Quetzalcoatl's nest, where she devours them.

Since it takes up about as much time as the monster's killings, I actually expected there to be a big revelation regarding the identity of the Aztec high priest behind the human sacrifices to Quetzalcoatl. In fact, I thought there was going to be a twist with it being someone associated with the Museum of Natural History, given how Powell suspects as much, considering everyone there to be a bunch of freaks. But, in the end, it turns out to be a random guy we've never met formally, Kahea (Shelly Desai), and all we learn about him is that he was a medical student at Columbia University and tends to meet his victims at the Museum of Natural History, where he coerces them into willingly giving their lives to Quetzalcoatl. During the third act, he's tailed by Powell and some other cops and stopped before he can perform another sacrifice, but manages to get away. At the end of the movie, Kahea shows up at Quinn's hotel and takes him hostage, since he's the one who revealed the nest's location. He intends to "redeem" use him as another sacrifice to the winged serpent but, much to his chagrin, Quinn refuses to say the prayer necessary to complete the ritual. Fortunately for Quinn, Shepard barges in and shoots Kahea dead, although he doesn't go down without a fight, despite getting shot in the head and multiple times in the torso. In fact, shepard has to shoot him five times before he finally does die.

One of the highest compliments I can give Q is that, despite its low budget of just above $1 million, it's quite well-made. Visually, it has sort of that Grindhouse-style look, coming off as washed-out, rather than scratchy or dirty, as with most of those types of movies. One of Larry Cohen's biggest accomplishments in terms of the cinematography is the way he shoots Manhattan, with a number of breathtaking aerial shots of the skyline taken from helicopter, many of which are

meant to be the monster's POV as she flies about the city and swoops down at her victims. The same goes for the many shots of the city streets and those looking both up and down the height of the buildings, as he was clearly intent on mining everything out of the setting that he could. Speaking of which, it's amazing some of the real locations he was able to film at, chief among them being the actual Chrysler Building. As expected, it cost a pretty good chunk of change to shoot there,

around $15,000, but he made good use of it, particularly the roof and the interiors of the spire, and the scenes there are effectively atmospheric, as you get shots looking out of it and across the city, and you can hear the breeze outside and the sounds of traffic down below. The only thing Cohen couldn't do there was shoot the scenes with the actual nest and egg, as the props wouldn't fit. Therefore, those were done at another location, namely an abandoned police station, and I thought the production design for the nest was simple but

effective, with all the bones and partially devoured corpses of the victims scattered about, along with the twigs that make up the nest itself and the nicely-designed egg. Going back to actual locations, Cohen and company were able to make use of the actual Empire State Building for the movie's opening, where a perverted window cleaner is decapitated by Quetzalcoatl (that guy actually was the building's window cleaner at the time). And in the scene where Jimmy Quinn tries to get a job as a piano player at a bar, they shot at an empty club that Cohen's crew found. Not gonna lie, I really enjoy hearing those kind of guerilla filmmaking stories, and Cohen had plenty of them.

One way to look at Q is as what you get when you take a classic, 50's-style monster movie and drag it through 1980's exploitation sleaze. The movie's very opening, with the window washer acting like a creep and sexually harassing the woman whose office is behind the window, establishes its tone as a rather trashy one. In fact, just about every one of the monster's victims is tied to something that's somehow unsavory: she snatches up a woman who's sunbathing while topless and being spied on

by a guy at another building using a telescope; she does the same to a construction worker who complains about his co-workers stealing his lunches, which he's right about, as one of them says, "You know, his wife makes a damn good tuna sandwich. I'm gonna stop by and see her and tell her about it one of these days,"; and the guy who gets grabbed up in his rooftop swimming pool had some bikini-clad women around him, one of whom he's watching do push-ups, before he gets sick of it and jumps into the pool. Also, while he doesn't go

into it to the extent that, say, William Lustig did in Maniac, or Frank Henenlotter in Basket Case, Cohen does delve into the seedier side of New York that was prevalent in the 80's, exemplified not just in those characters I mentioned but also the character of Jimmy Quinn himself, the gangsters he tends to do business with, and the low-rent hotel he's staying in during the third act, as well as the rundown-looking police station and how some of the cops, like those two who arrest Quinn and Sergeant Powell, can be needlessly rough and

abusive. And Cohen, hardly one to ever miss a chance to comment on politics and corruption, touches on it in how Commissioner McConnell forces Shepard to get rid of his report linking Quetzalcoatl with the sacrificial killings.

Speaking of which, the movie makes something of a comment on the human need for deities to worship, with how the Ancient Aztecs' blood sacrifices are carried into modern day by Kahea, who sees Quetzalcoatl in the same manner they did and manages to coerce others into willingly giving their lives for it. When they find the second such victim, whose heart has been removed, Powell, after Shepard explains it to him, comments, "Luckily, all we have to do nowadays is take the

wafer and drink the wine. That's what I call being civilized." A professor whom Shepard consults with on the subject goes very deep into the notion of why someone in the modern day would worship Quetzalcoatl, telling him, "What else is God but an invisible force that we fear? For centuries, we've tried to make it into our image. Give God two legs, a pair of hands, lips, eyes. Perhaps it's only our vanity. I mean, we're only living in one small second of time in the history of mankind. Look at the tablets of Ancient Egypt, the Babylonians, go

all the way back. The figure of that serpent keeps turning up all the time. The flying serpent in places as far away as Egypt, Mexico, deep in the interior of China." Regardless of this attitude, though, he still says he'd like to have the creature stuffed and put on display in the museum after it's killed.

Regardless of that aspect of the story, Quetzalcoatl's exact origin is left ambiguous. While it's suggested that her sudden appearance in Manhattan could be a result of the human sacrifices performed by Kahea, at the same time, there's also the possibility that she might be one of the last of an ancient race of flying reptiles and is simply seen as a god. Many of her killings seem to coincide with one of Kahea's rituals, but that could also be mere coincidence. Regardless of whether or not she's supernatural, she's intelligent enough to nest in the top of the Chrysler Building and fly in line with the sun to avoid being seen. She attacks anybody she encounters on the city skyline and takes their remains back to the nest, both to feed on herself and, obviously, to bring back food for her young. Though seemingly simple-minded, she also seems to be stalking Powell and the others when they tail Kahea, suggesting there may be some sort of connection between them.

When we finally do see Quetzalcoatl in all her stop-motion glory, the creature is very well designed and executed. I really like her look, which is a combination of a snake, a lizard, and a bird, with greenish-gray, scaly skin, a body akin to a lizard, a long, snake-like neck, bird-like talons on all four feet, and a beak and feathered wings. The animation was the work of Randy Cook and David Allen, two really good, latter day stop-motion artists, and it's about on par with Ray

Harryhausen's stuff (particularly impressive is a shot of just the monster's shadow against the buildings when she's flying). However, there are moments where people who interact with Quetzalcoatl are also created through stop-motion, particularly during the third act, and those don't work as good. What's more, the compositing work, provided by Peter Kuran, another good visual effects artist in his own right, is on the mixed side, no doubt a result of the budget. Most of the shots of Quetzalcoatl flying over and in front of actual

footage of Manhattan look really good, though there are some that are a bit faded. When she flies off with Powell and then drops him, there's a very brief moment where you can see her reflection on some glass below. And some of the blue-screen effects used to put actual people in the same shots with her are painfully obvious and dated. As far as practical creature effects go, while the big prop of its foot, used in close-ups of it carrying somebody off, comes off as clumsy and awkward (it works a bit better in shadow), the puppet effects for the baby when it hatches out of the egg are nicely-handled and also kind of disturbing.

The gore effects are also quite well done, with decapitated bodies, raining body parts and blood, blood-filled hardhats, and some half-eaten remains, all courtesy of Quetzalcoatl. But far more gruesome than anything she does are the acts committed by Kahea, which include completely skinning a man alive and removing the hearts of others, both of which you see in action, as well as the aftermath (the former is equally nasty). And the final confrontations with both the monster and her hatchling are plenty bloody, including when the stop-motion former is gunned down, and the same goes for when Shepard manages to kill Kahea.

When I first did this review, I complained how, even though Q is marketed as a monster movie, with the title creature appearing all over the poster and home video artwork, and the trailer focusing on it, it's much more interested in the character of Jimmy Quinn and the cops, while the monster herself is barely a presence and feels like an afterthought until the third act. I also complained that, when I go into a monster movie, I want to see the monster doing its thing: killing people left and

right, causing a lot of property damage, etc., and I felt this one was sorely lacking in that regard. Now, while my biggest problem with the movie is still where its priorities lie, I want to be more constructive in my criticism this time. Knowing just how low the budget was, I get that the number of times the monster is onscreen is all they could afford, so Larry Cohen was smart in his decision to build suspense and anticipation by keeping Quetzalcoatl offscreen for a long time and focusing

instead on the human cast, whom he felt were all terrific. I do agree that that could've worked... had he, again, focused on Detective Shepard. I don't mind a monster movie that focuses on the human characters if they're characters I actually give a crap about, which is how I feel about David Carradine's performance as Shepard. But no, instead, we're focusing on this unlikable shitheel who, when he's not cowering from the gangsters he works with, is verbally abusive to his girlfriend, constantly acts like a schmuck to everyone else,

becomes a real piece of work when he feels he has some power, making it clear that he doesn't care if anyone else dies before he gets what he wants, and has done nothing to redeem himself by the end of the movie. Like I said, I agree that Michael Moriarty gives a good performance as Quinn (I don't think it's Oscar-worthy as some, including Cohen, feel, though), but he never makes him an asshole whom I feel drawn to, regardless; instead, I just want to kick Quinn's ass. I don't care to spend

so much time following him around the city, trying to get a job as a piano player, hiding up in the Chrysler Building, discovering the nest, going back to Joan and acting like a dick to her, and leading Doyle and Webb to their doom. I'd much rather have more moments with Shepard, such as the nice one with him and his wife when he acts playful to her in bed, squawking like a bird.

There's also something about the movie's tone that I find to be off-putting but I don't know quite how to describe it. I tend to like campy horror films and creature features like this, and Cohen seems to have never made a movie that was 100% serious anyway, but this film's quirkiness, particularly in some of the scenes with Quinn, like when you hear the song he was playing earlier on the soundtrack as he's running from Doyle and Webb, and when you see the undercover cop disguised as a mime

during the third act, as well as the oddball humor that comes from a lot of the characters, sometimes down to just the way they look and react to things, doesn't do it for me. Even as much as I like him, some of Shepard's dialogue and mannerisms fall into that trap as well. The film also goes for instances of non-linear editing, mostly in how it cuts between descriptions of how the first human sacrifice was skinned alive to the deed being done, and it can be a little taxing on the brain. Speaking of which, the way that first victim is revealed is

done in such a jarring manner, with it cutting from Quinn having lunch with the gangsters to a hotel maid walking in on the body, and then to the detectives on the crime scene. And when Powell and the undercover cop are preparing to tail Kahea and his intended victim, it keeps cutting to a shot of someone, who you only see from the waist down, hailing a cab. It thought it might've been one of them doing so, but neither of them are dressed like this person, so I don't know what that was

about. By the time we get to the third act and the final battle with Quetzalcoatl at the Chrysler Building, I'm so frustrated with the experience of watching this movie that, even though we've finally gotten to what I wanted from the beginning, I don't care anymore and wish it would end. I'm probably not making any sense here, and given how beloved a filmmaker Cohen was, I'm likely on an island with some of my criticisms, but like they say, you can't win them all.

For much of the movie, we only hear and get brief glimpses of Quetzalcoatl when she goes on the attack. The opening kill of the Empire State Building window washer is done through her POV as she swoops down at him, with a loud crunch in-between shots to the businesswoman's reaction, and we then see his decapitated body slumped against the window, spurting blood all over the glass. Following the discovery of the skinned victim in the hotel room, the film cuts to a woman on a rooftop preparing to sunbathe while listening

to the radio (her taste in music sucks, by the way). However, the airborne POV flying through the skyline and circling the building indicates Quetzalcoatl's presence, and we get our first look at her, including a close-up of her huge beak, as she swoops down at the woman. As the pervert who was spying on the woman watches, the monster flies off with her, and some blood rains down on freaked out pedestrians on the streets below. But when they look up, they see nothing because of the blinding sun. Following that is when Jimmy

Quinn's job of being a getaway driver for a jewel heist goes south, when he tries to bail on the gangsters, only to stumble into Chinatown, get hit by a cab, and lose the briefcase of money. Then, he heads to the Chrysler Building to meet with his lawyer, only to get the security guard on his tail when he trips the alarm while trying to get into the locked office. He runs up to the very top of the building, hiding from the guard, who gives up and goes downstairs when he can't find him. Quinn

climbs up a ladder, into the building's spire, and when he spots another ladder, he climbs right up into the tip out of curiosity. That's when he finds the nest and egg, the latter of which he touches and knocks on to make sure is real, as well as sees the enormous hole in the roof where Quetzalcoatl comes in. Climbing back to the lower level, he goes to relieve himself, when he bumps into the half-eaten remains of the woman who was snatched from the rooftop. Initially frightened, he

attempts to remove a golden bracelet from the skeleton, but when it won't come off, he decides to leave it, as he doesn't have the stomach to do it the hard way. He makes his way back down, hearing Quetzalcoatl screech above, and leaves the building. There's an eerie lingering shot afterwards of pigeons pecking at the remains in the spire, as well as the nest.

After Quetzalcoatl kills a construction worker, sending his hardhat falling to the ground, filled with blood, we see her shadow against some buildings, while pedestrians down below freak out again when chunks of the man's body fall down into the street. Some time later, Kahea performs another sacrifice, this time removing a man's heart, and Shepard and Powell find the corpse down by the river. Following that is when Quinn is tracked down by Doyle and Webb, and he takes them to the Chrysler Building under the pretense of bringing

them to the money. After they knock out the security guard, he leads them up into the spire, then sends Doyle up to where the nest is. While Quinn distracts Webb with some mindless yammering, Doyle climbs up and is shocked when he sees the nest. Before he can react, Quetzalcoatl lunges at him and snaps his head off. Hearing the commotion, Webb, brandishing a gun, climbs up to investigate, thinking Doyle has slipped out with the money some other way. Once up there, he sees the nest, and Quetzalcoatl moves in on him. In shadow,

we see her talons go after him, and it cuts back to Quinn as he hears her ripping Webb apart. Quinn climbs back down, cheering Quetzalcoatl on the whole time, as well as telling himself that what happened isn't his fault. Immediately afterward is when Quetzalcoatl takes the man from his rooftop swimming pool. The movie then focuses on Quinn's arrest and his blackmailing the police department for a while, before we get to the scene where he accompanies Shepard as he leads an

assault team up to the top of the Chrysler Building. Climbing up to the nest, Shepard finds both it and the egg after coming upon Doyle and Webb's decapitated corpses. Getting up onto the grill above the egg, he fires on it with a machine gun, when the baby inside suddenly breaks out of the shell, writhing around and roaring. Shepard fires upon it, then yells for the others to get up there and help him. They all unload upon the hatchling, seemingly managing to kill it rather easily. Shepard tells

Quinn to come up, which he agrees to do, but only as a "witness," and when he sees the shattered egg, he makes some cracks about its worth to him. Suddenly, a talon swipes at him from inside the shell and Quinn recoils, as the cops briefly open fire again. Shepard explains that it was just a reflex action, while Quinn heads back downstairs.

As Quetzalcoatl herself flies overhead, Sergeant Powell and some others, acting on a tip from the cop disguised as a mime, tail a man whom they believe to be the one behind the human sacrifices. They follow him and another potential victim from the museum to the Liberty Warehouse, where the man takes his shirt off and lies down, waiting for Kahea to do the deed. The cops enter the building, which they find is full of Aztec sculptures and artifacts, and come upon the two of them just as Kahea begins to cut through the man's very hairy

chest with a scalpel. The man sits up, demanding they be allowed to do this in peace, but one of the cops fires on him, killing him instantly. Kahea, meanwhile, runs for it out a back entrance and heads up to the roof, where Powell and the undercover cop are also heading on an exterior stairwell. Kahea lays out one of the cops inside with a crowbar before heading out onto the roof, where he ducks down and runs amid the skylights. All of the cops then make it up to there and, as they

search, they find that another of their own has been knocked out by Kahea. Powell is startled when a bird-shaped kite flies into his face and tosses it aside; unbeknownst to him, Quetzalcoatl flies by overhead. The undercover cop is so horrified at this that he becomes like a real mime, unable to scream, as the monster comes down at Powell. She grabs him in her talons, flies up, and then drops him to his death, before flying on.

She heads back to the Chrysler Building the next day, where Shepard and his men are waiting. The sound of her screeching signals her approach and the various members of the SWAT team take their positions in the baskets on the spire's exterior. She appears and, while Shepard prepares his own machine gun, the others open fire. She swoops down at and then circles the building while being fired upon, as Shepard takes his own position up in the spire. He nearly empties his magazine when Quetzalcoatl comes in for another pass and yells

yells for another, while the monster swoops by and sends one of the men falling to his doom. Despite having some bleeding wounds under her wing and in the side of her head, she flies down, grabs onto the spire's exterior, reaches through a window with her beak, and grabs and throws another officer to his death. She takes back to the air and repeats the same pattern, this time landing near one of the baskets and tossing out the officer there. The others continue shooting and Quetzalcoatl, again, takes to

the air, now absolutely riddled with bloody bullet-holes and her screams echoing throughout the city. The officers initially think they've won, but as Shepard tells them to hold their positions, Quetzalcoatl sticks her head right through the opening behind him. He swings around and is joined by some others in firing upon her, forcing her to fly off. While Shepard and the others breathe easier, the mortally wounded flying serpent slams into the side of a smaller building's cone, causing a panic on the streets below. Her strength gives out and she falls to her death. However, at the end of the movie, after Shepard has saved Quinn from Kahea, another egg is revealed elsewhere and hatches right before the credits roll.

One of the absolute weakest parts of the movie for me is the score by Robert O. Rogland, who did the music for other schlocky movies like The Thing with Two Heads and Grizzly. I can't comment on his work there, as I haven't seen those movies, but his music here didn't leave any impression. I can say that it was definitely old-fashioned and not unlike something you would hear in 50's monster movies, but otherwise, it was so uninspired, and never scary or even exciting. It was just kind of there. The most memorable pieces of music related to the film that I do remember are that little jazz number Quinn plays and sings while trying to get a job at the bar, and the bluesy song, Let's Fall Apart Together Tonight, that the owner plays on the jukebox instead. As I said earlier, I prefer the latter, as I don't care at all for Michael Moriarty's singing or scatting (his piano playing is nice, though), and I found the use of that song over the one scene to be really off-putting.

I know I likely made some enemies by criticizing such a beloved cult classic but, whenever I've watched Q: The Winged Serpent, I've come out of it more frustrated than anything. The movie has plenty going for it, chief among them good performances, great use of the Manhattan setting, some nice thematic subtext if you want to look for it, and a monster that's cool and well-executed, but said monster takes a backseat in her own movie to an annoying asshole who I wish wasn't the focus of the film, there are moments where the low budget does come through, the music score is nothing to write home about at all, and I'm just not into the film's quirky tone. If you're one of the lovers of this movie, that's cool, but this isn't the kind of movie I wanted and I don't see myself ever watching it again.