God Told Me To

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Year:	1976
Country of origin:	USA
Director:	Larry Cohen
Genre:	Horror / Sci-fi
Starring:	Tony Lo Bianco, Deborah Raffin
Rating:	5/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075930/
Tagline:	Conceived In A HELL Beyond Our GALAXY Destined To Rule Our World!
Favourite line:	"Sacrifices to your God are nothing new."

Bloody hell, we love Larry Cohen down here at Smell the Cult HQ.

The plot:
It’s the nineteen seventies, and New York City is spiralling out of control. Perched atop a watertower, an eagle spying the mice below, a lone sniper starts taking pot shots at the unfortunate pedestrians in the street beneath him. Scrambling up the tower in an attempt to talk him down, Detective Nicholas manages to speak to the man who tells him ‘God Told Me To,’ before hurling himself to his death.
Now, all around the city, similar killing sprees are taking place and, each time, the same message is declared before the killer ends their own life.
What is it that connects the killers?
Could God really be speaking to them, instructing them to thin the herd?
Or is it just karmic retribution for the terrible fashion sense of the time?

Larry Cohen, eh?
Aaaaah, Larry Cohen.
The man responsible for such undisputed cult classics as It’s Alive, Q: The Winged Serpent and The Stuff, as well as more mainstream fodder – good mainstream fodder, mind – like Phone Booth and Cellular, here delivers on his formula with some conviction. The formula in question? Well:
Take a news story, touchstone event or hot topic of the day.
Spice it up with more violence than reality actually provides.
Sprinkle in a dash or two of the supernatural, to really mix things up a bit and confuse the more conformist sections of the viewing public.
Finally, shoot the whole thing on the cheapest, nastiest film stock you can get your hands on, adding grit and grime to the madness.
Scripted to a level far in excess of most movies in a similar field, Cohen has a wry sense of humour as he delivers the frankly implausible scenarios dead straight, tongue firmly in cheek, though hidden from view, for he knows how over the top all of this is, knows how over-wrought and exploitative he is being, delighting in it the whole time.
Influential far beyond its initial cinema release and little known status, director Christopher Nolan has cited this film as a huge influence on him, and Cohen’s works in general, most noteworthy being the St. Patrick’s Day parade attack from The Dark Knight, lifted pretty much directly from source here though, admittedly, its shot with a few more cameras in Nolan’s version of events, but not necessarily with any more style.
Cohen’s directorial style is frenetic and buzzing with energy, with good use made of crash zooms, Dutch angles and strangely evocative, long-range establishing shots and, in his hands, New York has never looked more alive, as grim as he makes it seem.
A fabulous entry into the canon of cult cinema from one of the genuine auteurs in the field.
Fantastic.