Q (1982)

Review

"I am the plumed serpent, I fly, and I crawl... I have fallen, but I shall rise again!" - Kahea

With a number of bizarre deaths going down, dude willing submits to being skinned alive, high rise window cleaner has his head removed, police detective Shepard is forced to explore Mayan mythology to find an answer. The answer isn't something he can accept, a huge flying serpent that lunatics are being sacrificing to. Meanwhile small time hood Jimmy Quinn has discovered the serpent's nest, but has more to worry about as his partners are out to get him after a robbery goes wrong.

With New Yorkers sighting the flying monster Shepard is forced to think the unthinkable, an ancient myth has come to life in his City. While the powers that be are forced to agree with Shepard, that there is a monster in the New York air, they are unwilling to go the extra step and link the recent spate of bizarre murders with the appearance of the creature! And to make matters worse for City hall Jimmy Quinn is the only person who knows where the monster's nest is, and he wants to go Doctor Evil and get paid a million dollars for the information plus receive a full pardon for his recent activities!

Larry Cohen, who is viewed as a horror auteur in some circles, had apparently been fired from a movie project in New York City and rather than waste the six night's hotel accommodation he had booked for the project decided to pump out a movie set in the Big Apple. Which could explain the substandard dribble that leaks down our screen; to say Q haven't aged well is an understatement. The movie looks rushed, feels rushed, and I have to say is confused as to character motivations and audience sympathy. Cohen simply didn't think the project through; the movie should never have seen the light of day if we had to be brutally honest.

While the movie certainly reeks of New York City after a two week garbage collection strike, the operative word being "reeks", Cohen fails to capture the essence of the City that other Directors have nailed. Sure we get characters that come across as being from the area, but the movie would have worked better if it had of been set in New Jersey, there's no authentic feel to anyone, these people don't strike me as living anywhere near the Chrysler Building, a core setting for the flick. Rather than being tough New Yorkers, the cast here come across as being the bad guys in a Woody Allen movie that failed miserable at the box office due to them. Cohen completely misses the mark and pretty much the movie is firing blanks from there.

Lead character Jimmy Quinn proves to be pretty much mentally deficient, bad choice of main character as there is no redeeming feature to Jimmy. He does come to some sort of new understanding of his place in the world but to be honest we don't give a rats as he directly caused a number of deaths and is so insipidly played by Michael Moriarty that you are left wondering if Jimmy is going to drip slime at some stage. Yes the character slimed me, I didn't give a hoot what happened to him, and was hoping the flying reptile would put the audience out of its collective misery sooner rather than later.

Thankfully for Moriarty no one else is really gearing up for the Oscars either in the movie. To a large extent the script is so poorly written that character motivations aren't explored overly and when they are it makes no sense in the context of their actions. We have various persons doing things because the script requires it rather than actions naturally flowing from choices or situations. About the only pure motivation that is working is the wing reptile's one, which basically revolves around devouring various random New Yorkers in aerial fashion. Even when the cops finally track down the creature, gee anyone else reminded of a cut price King Kong, they do so through less than noble means and expend more ammunition than a particularly violent war movie; anyone else wondering where the literally hundreds of rounds fired were ending up? Cohen clearly didn't think that one through like most decisions regarding the script.

Cohen simply points and shoots in this one, there's no attempt to capture anything interesting in the movie's environment or to make a statement from the visuals. Given the strict shooting schedule that's to be expected, but to be honest I'm yet to see a Cohen movie that raises the director above the purely B grade level. Everything has a purely per functionary feel to it, though I applaud Cohen for getting out and about in the Big Apple and filming from real locations.

Okay so everyone is wondering about the creature construction, don't blame ya in the least. The creature's look and feel is fairly believable, in so far as we believe in a sort of prehistoric creature that has permutated throughout human history. CGI is in heavy use, and it's really poor CGI, the sort your ginger haired nephew who lives in his mom's basement might have come up with on a particularly damaged Apple computer using free domain software. Jeez saying this movie hasn't aged well is like saying a wine that has corked might have lost a wee bit of flavour.

A surprise addition to our creature feature, and believe me it wasn't required, was a Mayan priest who was going all Dexter on us, though the vast majority of his victims were happily accepting various grisly deaths. While I kind of got where Cohen was going with this idea, needed to explain the creature, it also sort of distracted from the main event and appeared to have been an afterthought used to get around a particular glaring plot thread. If Cohen had of dumped the creature angle he could have nailed a pretty decent police procedure flick in my honest opinion.

Guess I've rabbited on enough about a movie considered a cult classic in many quarters. I was actually quite pleased to have stumbled onto a copy of the flick, I'm a full dance card sort of a dude, and have no lingering anger towards Q. The movie is a B grade monster flick, and when taken in that light does the business though of course it is being completely over rated in some quarters. If after a creature feature then dial on in, don't expect too much and you'll be right, otherwise give it a miss and watch Alien or something instead. Guarded recommendation to the monster squad membership, no one else will be interested.