| Product: |
God Told Me To (DVD) |
| Date: |
06.04.08 (84 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Crazy premise, pretty well made
Disadvantages: A little schizophrenic, perhaps
A review of just the film.
This is an odd little film from 1977. Larry Cohen, the director, was part of the 70s boom in groundbreaking American horror films. He never quite broke through in the way that John Carpenter or Wes Craven did, perhaps because his films are a bit too unusual for mainstream success. His best known film is probably the mutant baby movie It's Alive; God Told Me To is probably his strangest film.
New York is hit by a wave of random murders. A sniper guns people down in the street; a man goes on a knife rampage in a mall; a cop goes crazy and starts firing wildly during a St Patrick's Day Parade. When asked why, the murderers calmly reply 'God told me to.' Lt Peter Nicholas, a man tormented by his own Catholicism, has to try to piece together what's going on.
And what's going on is deeply, deeply weird. You might expect from the synopsis some kind of religious cult/mind control film, and that's partly true, but it goes way beyond that. This is a film where the plot twists are so odd they almost make it worth watching by themselves.
I'm not sure how I'd describe this in terms of genre. It combines lots of genres (horror, for instance, or conspiracy thriller) without completely committing to any of them. While it works on its own crazy terms, the individual component genres are ill-served. There's little visceral horror, no real suspense, nothing particularly thrilling. I think the central idea is meant to propel the film forward and keep us interested, and it does for the most part. Apart from a sub-plot about a crooked cop and a drug dealer, which feels like padding, this races along at a fair old pace. Even the potentially tedious character moments about Peter's love life turns out to have a point later on. The only thing I can really compare it to is the deranged Japanese film Suicide Circle, which may have been influenced by this.
The direction is OK, with some artfully wacky camera angles that are novel enough not to annoy and used sparingly enough not to overbalance the film. The script is good enough for the most part, and it's shot in that lovely, gritty 70s style. It occasionally feels like it's perhaps moving too fast, that it's throwing events at us too quickly; it could do with a few more reflective moments, which I think is down to the editing (some of which seems almost indecently rapid) as much as the plot.
The actors are all good enough at what they have to do. Tony Lo Bianco as Peter has the only really major part and is excellent, yet another cop in a horror film finding himself out if his depth. Sandy Dennis is also good as his ex-wife, and ageing Hollywood golden-age leading lady Sylvia Sidney has an effective cameo.
The violence is energetic but not very bloody. Lots of shootings and stabbings; not much gore. The nastiest moment comes when a man cheerfully describes how he's just murdered his family. There's also some nudity, although in the context it probably isn't likely to arouse anyone. There are a few weird prosthetics of the type later seen in Cronenberg's Videodrome, and those of a strongly religious bent might take exception to the basic premise.
This film's in the public domain. There's a very wide range of extremely cheap DVD versions on offer on ebay. It's a good film, although probably more for people who like them strange, but you shouldn't need to pay more than £5 for this. If you've got a decent web connection you can probably download it from one of the public domain film sites. Well worth a look.
Summary: An undeservedly obscure cult classic
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