God Told Me To

From Larry Cohen, who brought us It’s Alive and what my friend describes as “the best blaxploitation movie ever,” Black Caesar, comes God Told Me To, one of the strangest and most compelling horror/sci-fi movies I know of.

The movie begins with a beautiful and creepy credits sequence showing these things floating through liquid. It reminded me a bit of the beautiful but equally inexplicable credits sequence from eXistenZ. Then we quickly move on to an average day in 70s Manhattan, where a sniper suddenly begins taking out random people on the sidewalk. This is an awesome scene, which gains a lot of resonance from recent events, creating a very creepy and surreal scene that one could very easily imagine happening. Anyway, Peter, our hero, climbs up the water tower where the sniper is and tries to talk him down. The guy tells him that “God told him to” kill the people, then tosses himself to the ground. And we’re off!

This movie was part of one of those “10-movies on DVD for $20” sets that I bought a while ago, which, case in point, often contain at least 10% gems. I was immediately glad to have this movie on DVD, and with 9 other movies… bonus! Though I hear that there’s now a deluxe edition with commentary, etc. Anyway, Peter is played by Tony Lo Bianco, the protagonist from one of my favorite movies of all time, The Honeymoon Killers.

Anyway, soon the plot point start getting piled on. Peter is super religious; it’s apparently like an addiction with him. He’s dating this woman who inexplicably wears these ludicrous glasses at all times [even in bed], and has a wife who is, shall we say, a bit dour.

There are more inexplicable murders, and the killers all say “God told me to” before dying. One of these sequences takes place during the St. Patrick’s Day parade, where we get extensive coverage of the cops [back when cops had mustaches and weren’t all burgeoning metrosexuals]. One of the cops freaks out and begins shooting. The thing is, this cop is played by ANDY KAUFMAN. You barely notice it, but it’s just one of the interesting factoids about this movie. Another, that we learn from the IMDb, is that what we’re watching is actual footage from an actual parade, shot on the sly by Cohen, who told the police that he was shooting a documentary.

As it all goes on it starts getting stranger and stranger. In fact, if you’re going to watch the movie [which you should], I would recommend not reading until the spoilers end, as it’s good to be surprised by where this all is headed.

SPOILERS >>>
So there begins to be a lot of hugger-mugger about virgin births, and a woman who was transported like 50 miles in a half hour. And you start to think “WTF?? Is this going to be about aliens?” And sure enough, viewer, this is going to be about aliens. You see, apparently the aliens abducted two women who both had “virgin births,” and this got all entangled with earthly religion and now there’s this “entity” living in basement somewhere, who is contacting these people and making them kill others. BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! Only, I’m not going to reveal all that to you, since even though this is the spoiler section, I know that a few of you cheeky readers are perusing this even though you haven’t seen the movie, and I need to step in to protect you… from yourselves.

One of the unique features of this movie is that the entity in the basement has A PUSSY IN HIS RIB CAGE, which he invites our intrepid hero to fuck. You know, that’s just not a scene you see every day.
<<< SPOLERS END

It all gets very complicated and quite labyrinthine at the end. I thought maybe it was just me, who couldn’t follow it because it was late and I was falling asleep, but I was glad to see on the IMDb that other people had a lot of trouble sorting out the intricacies of all the revelations piled on at the end as well. I’m not totally sure it’s worth sorting out all the way, but one can get enough from one viewing to piece together the basics.

As a bonus, the movie abruptly becomes a blaxploitation movie for about 10 minutes toward the end. It’s like getting a little bonus genre in there, which is always delightful. As if we didn’t have enough genres in here, though.

The movie is well directed and sustains a good mood of mystery and tension. Plus, it’s just not quite like any other movie I know of, which makes it worthwhile to me as well. If you like it creepy and weird, this movie is where it’s at.