God Told Me To (1976)

Larry Cohen was undoubtedly one of the auteurs of the B-movie.  A prolific writer and director across a wide range of genres, his films are always very distinctive: they might well have schlocky production values and deal with what seem like staple B-movie ideas, ranging from monsters and aliens to psychopaths and witchcraft, but they all have a sub-text.  The It's Alive! series might, on the surface, be about killer babies, but it also an examination of preconceptions about the boundaries of parental love.  The Stuff might often be derided as a movie about killer ice cream, but it also offers a critique of modern consumerism.  God Told Me Told (1976) is perhaps his best and most audacious film, presenting a tale encompassing false messiahs, mass murder and alien abductions, structured as a police procedure, which is also an examination of the nature of religious faith and conceptions of good and evil.  Central to the movie is the question of whether conventional religion could survive the revelation that God was irrefutably real, as such a revelation would remove the need for religious faith in a deity, which itself is the basis of all religion.  In the case of God Told Me To, this deity takes the form of a long haired hippie type who wanders around New York shoe-less and whose face nobody can seem to describe with any degree of certainty.  Unlike Jesus, who he seems to resemble, this entity is far from peace loving and instead is the only apparent link between a series of killings by ordinary citizens,  where the perpetrators always tell investigators 'God told me too' when asked about their motivation.

Lead NYPD detective Lt Nicholas (Tony Lo Bianco) eventually identifies him as Bernard Philips and learns from Philips' mother that he was a virgin birth, the result of her abduction by aliens.  Philips, Nicholas, learns is at the centre of a cult of wealthy and successful individuals, who believe they will be part of some kind of new order once he becomes ascendant.  A confrontation with Philips results in Nicolas investigating his own past and finding that he too was a virgin birth, the result of an apparent alien abduction.  A devout Catholic, Nicholas finds the basis of his own faith shaken by the implication that, throughout history, prophets and messiahs might, in fact, have been the result of alien, rather than divine intervention.  Suspended by his superiors because of his apparently wild theories and the authorities' reluctance to accept that the killings might have any link to religion, because of the wider social ramifications, Nicholas eventually seeks a final confrontation with Philips, who reveals that he is a hermaphrodite, whose alien genes are dominant, who wants to mate with Nicholas (whose human genes are dominant) in order to create a new 'superior' species with which to populate the earth.  When Nicholas refuses, Philips uses his psychic powers to destroy the building they are in, thereby killing himself.  Nicholas survives, but is arrested for murder - he tells investigators 'God told me to' and is judged insane.

A film juggling such high concepts as these could easily end up feeling pretentious and overly intellectual.  But with its location shooting on the streets of New York, cast of character actors rather than big name stars and police procedural feel, God Told Me To never loses its gritty B-movie feel, deftly weaving its theological musings into an enjoyably schlocky and fast moving tale of mass murders and demonic aliens.  Although, in common with most of Cohen's films, God Told Me To was shot on a clearly limited budget, its set-pieces are handled extremely well.  Particularly impressive are the scenes of a police officer under Philips' influence drawing his gun and opening fire during a St Patrick's Day parade.  (The officer is played by Andy Kaufman in his first credited film role).  Equally memorable is Nicholas' first confrontation with Philips, which takes place in the subterranean furnace room of a building, with Philips framed by flames as he starts to sow the seeds of doubt in Nicholas' mind with regard to both his faith and his personal origins.  Philips is creepily played by Richard Lynch, one of the great B-movie villains of the seventies, in a more restrained performance than was usually required of him and is consequently highly effective as the softly spoken and golden haired messiah of evil.  Tony Lo Bianco, a character actor often to be seen playing crime figures, also gives a highly effective performance as the increasing angst-ridden Nicholas, his career, life and belief system unraveling more and more the further he pursues his investigation.

Not surprisingly, God Told Me To was neither a box office nor critical success when released.  New World later re-released it under the title Demon, no doubt in attempt to cash in on the success of other contemporary religiously themed horror films such as The Exorcist (1974) and The Omen (1976).  Which, perhaps, was a misstep, as, in reality, it had little in common with such films, which tended to present a more reassuring and conventional view of religion and, in particular, the Catholic faith.  The Exorcist, for instance, presents religious faith as ultimately triumphant against the devil and his minions while The Omen, while showing the Anti-Christ having evaded attempts to destroy him by the film's end, still presents a conventional interpretation of the devil as being evil and in opposition to a Christianity representing the forces of redemption.  God Told Me To gave audiences no such reassuring dichotomy between good and evil, questioning whether religion has any basis in reality and presenting a Christ-like figure not motivated by conventional religious concepts of good and evil, suggesting that such things are merely a matter of perspectives rather than moral absolutes.  

In recent years, however, the film's reputation has been reassessed and it is now more kindly regarded by critics and audiences, recognised as a key part of Cohen's canon of work.  It is very typically a Larry Cohen film with all of his hallmarks - a somewhat rough and ready feel and slightly unfinished look.  Indeed, it is probable that this, along with the film's clear B-movie ethos, presenting big ideas in a pulp format, might have put initial audiences off of it, particularly when compared to the slickness of superficially similar studio pictures like The Exorcist and The Omen. But seen today, it is its sheer quirkiness and Cohen's assured and audacious mixing and matching of elements from different genres which makes it so enjoyable.  Cohen's clear determination not to dumb down his ideas, despite the lack of budget and schlocky format, in order to make some kind of slick, more marketable product, is admirable.  Once a late night TV regular here in the UK (along with a number of other Cohen pictures), God Told Me To has sadly become another of those films which isn't that easy to see anymore, but it is well worth tracking down, providing a viewing experience that lingers in the mind long after it has ended.