Hello and welcome to Camp Kaiju Monster Movie Podcast.
We're your hosts, Matt Levine and Vincent Hannum.
And we are talking about all of our favorite monster movies, The Good, The Bad, and The
Downright Campy and asking if they stand the test of time.
Traditional Kaiju creature features, space invaders, and everything in between, all strange
beasts are welcome here.
Camp Kaiju is sponsored by Zach Linder and the Zach Pack, powered by Coldwell Banker
Realty, your source for real estate, home rehab, fixing and flipping for investor clients,
and residential buyers.
Reach out to the Zach Pack today for real estate services, follow the Zach Pack on social
media, and contact the Zach Pack for investment opportunities.
Link in the show notes.
On December 25th, 1953, a child is born, a virgin birth.
Tomorrow all civilization will tremble under his almighty power.
He must be obeyed.
Who are Moses and Jesus really?
Accept me no questions.
Sacrifices to your God are nothing new.
Are you going to tell me all those people are meant to die?
Why did you attack all those people?
God told me to.
Thank you all so much for hanging out and listening to Camp Kaiju with us.
Vincent, so good to talk to you again tonight.
How are you doing?
I'm good.
Although I acknowledge it is election night here in the US of A for our international
listeners, Sweden.
We know you're out there.
It's a night here, November 5th.
Obviously, this recording will drop a couple of weeks from now, so it may be a very different
world by the time this is hitting your ears.
But either way, cheers to you, Matt.
Cheers to democracy.
I can't think of a better toast on this somewhat nerve wracking evening.
Cheers to you.
Cheers to all of our listeners out there.
Depending on what transpires later tonight, Sweden might be sounding mighty nice in a
couple of hours for a little permanent relocation, but we'll see what happens.
I won't suffocate you all with my political views.
I won't get too much into that, but yeah, we'll see.
We'll see what happens later this evening.
Yeah, yeah.
But this is not a politics podcast.
It's a monster movie podcast.
Matt, how are you doing?
Doing well.
You know, October is over with, sadly.
But as we were just saying, you can watch horror movies any time of year.
It doesn't just have to be October.
So even though there's like a special thrill to it around Halloween, I'm excited to talk
more monsters with you, watch more horror movies.
And you know, there's a lot of good stuff coming out.
Yeah, excited for all that good stuff.
It has been nearly a month since our Wolfman episode.
There's a lot to catch up on.
Totally.
But first and foremost, we just want to thank you again for hanging out and listening to
the podcast.
Please rate and review wherever you listen.
You can also send us listener comments at CampKaiju at gmail.com, on our Facebook page
or our Instagram page at Camp underscore Kaiju.
If you'd like to be a featured voice on the show, leave us a voicemail at 612-470-2612
telling us about all of your favorite monster movies and memories.
We can't wait to hear from you.
Last but not least, please check out our website, CampKaijuPodcast.com for more reviews and
special content.
Also, just want to mention that we have some awesome merchandise at CampKaiju.threadless.com,
some sweet t-shirts, some stickers, some other fun stuff on there.
You can also become a patron at patreon.com slash CampKaiju for discounts, priority comments
and access to any live events, which hopefully we will be having in early 2025.
More to come on that.
I would love to get that train going again.
And real quick before I forget, Matt, on CampKaiju.threadless.com, there is a t-shirt featuring the films, the horror
films of James Whale, which I have put on the shop.
So if you want a free shirt, let me know.
I'll order that for you.
Oh, man.
I did not know that there was a James Whale t-shirt in the works.
He's one of my favorites and I absolutely would love a free one.
Or I mean, you know, I may be a member of the podcast, but I still want to support it.
So I'd be happy to pay.
But if I have the Inside Connections here, I would love a free James Whale t-shirt.
There you go.
Other Inside Connections patrons, let us know.
We're happy to give you something.
Just a token of our generosity here.
It's Thanksgiving time.
It's the holiday season.
We're working on some end of season four announcements.
Maybe we'll have a holiday party that we'll invite patrons to, like a Zoom happy hour
type thing.
So thank you for your support and stay tuned.
Indeed.
And on that subject, we do just want to thank our patrons at Patreon.
So thank you once again to Jason, Chris, Sean, our anonymous patron, and Peggy.
We really appreciate you.
Yeah.
So what has happened since our last recording?
Halloween happened.
Happy belated Halloween.
Did you have a costume this year?
You know what?
We did not go trick or treating just because Ada is 11 months old, but we did have a fun
little photo session in our house.
She has a cute little bear costume.
And the moment we put it on her, I thought she was the gremlin from the episode Terror
at 20,000 feet from the Twilight Zone.
The William Shatner one.
And so I just dressed up in a suit and tie and we took some photos recreating some of
the shots from that episode.
That's amazing.
I cannot wait to see those, man.
It sounds like that was kind of an unintentional costume.
She just happened to look like the gremlin from the Twilight Zone.
She's a lot cuter than that gremlin, but no less terrifying.
Yeah.
And, you know, honestly, I find that gremlin kind of cute from the Twilight Zone.
But Ada's, you know, regardless, a million times cuter, but got to love that gremlin.
That's awesome.
I think I'll maybe I think I'll share that photo maybe on our on our Patreon page just
as an exclusive for our members there.
That's awesome.
I can't wait to see it.
How about you?
How was your Halloween?
It was good.
Watched a lot of horror movies.
I did not really do a costume this year.
I kind of slacked off a little bit, but it was good.
I watched a movie on Halloween night called Angst, which is an Austrian horror movie.
It's not fun.
It's extremely disturbing and bleak.
And I, you know, maybe could have chosen some more uplifting Halloween fare, but it's great.
I mean, it's very it's scary.
It's disturbing.
Like I said, the camera works incredible.
So highly recommended.
But yeah, I watched Angst and right around the same time, I tried to catch up on some
classic horror movies.
So I watched the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, finally rewatched Creature
from the Black Lagoon from beginning to end, which I hadn't seen in like 30 years, probably
when I was a kid.
Dawn of the Dead.
Finally saw that one.
The second movie in the Living Dead series.
So yeah, just a lot of good horror movies.
That's awesome.
I would love to hear your thoughts on those.
There's not enough time, people on our program, but maybe future episodes.
Totally.
And maybe some reviews on our website, too.
So keep an eye out for those.
There you go.
We have a website.
Which we perhaps could do a better job of promoting.
I'm putting that on me.
But I you know, it is there.
So check it out if you if you want to read some more reviews up there.
I watched some.
I watched a ton of movies, but just some some quick ones that stand out.
I got through number five of the Nightmare on Elm Street series.
I have a lot of thoughts maybe on a future episode.
We talk about those films.
Yeah, I'm currently working my way through Universal's original Invisible Man series.
And I watched some Larry Cohen movies, including not just God Told Me To, but Q, The Winged
Serpent and It's Alive.
So that's a great.
Oh, sorry.
No, we're definitely going to talk more about Cohen's filmography on this episode.
Indeed.
Yeah.
God Told Me To is the movie, the highlight movie that we'll be talking on talking about
on this episode.
So definitely a lot more to come on that and about Larry Cohen in general.
Excited to talk about him for sure.
Some news in the world of monster movies.
First of all, I just want to say RIP to Terri Gar.
Of course, she wasn't just in monster movies.
She was in a lot of great movies over the years.
Tootsie, for example, Hair.
She was sorry, Head is actually the movie I was thinking of.
The monster movie I was thinking of, Young Frankenstein, my favorite Mel Brooks movie.
She's incredible in that.
She's so funny, one of a kind.
So rest in peace to Terri Gar.
That film is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.
Amazing.
And I mean, you know, this seems like an obvious thing to say, it's just not dated at all.
It's still like as funny as ever.
Like one of my favorite comedies of all time, Young Frankenstein.
Yep.
And like a week before Terri Gar died, I saw that Paul Morrissey died, the avant-garde
director who worked with Andy Warhol on a movie we featured, Flesh for Frankenstein.
But there was also a Dracula movie in there as well.
So yeah, another creative legend in his own way.
Rest in peace, Paul Morrissey.
Yeah, I feel like the news of his passing was kind of overshadowed a little bit.
You know, there have been some unfortunate, obviously, celebrity deaths recently and maybe
was kind of overshadowed by some others.
But I love Flesh for Frankenstein.
That was so much fun talking to you and Frank Olsen about that.
The other, you know, the Blood for Dracula movie that you just referenced, I don't love
quite as much.
But I mean, it's a great double feature.
So Paul Morrissey made some of the sleaziest horror movies in the 1970s.
Rest in peace.
So many great monster movies have come out around this time in the history of cinema.
So I just want to shout out Seed of Chucky from November 2004.
I really love the Chucky movies, especially the later ones like Bride of Chucky and Seed
of Chucky.
I think by that point in the series, they were fully leaning into their, you know, the comedy
aspects, just how over the top they are, even a little bit of satire in there.
Seed of Chucky is not really scary, but it's really funny and it's a surprisingly great
family dysfunction movie.
So that's that's my recommendation.
Seed of Chucky came out around this time 20 years ago.
That's actually my next like tent pole slasher franchise I want to cover.
Last year I did Friday the 13th.
This year was Nightmare on Elm Street.
I think next year I'm going to do the Chucky movies.
That's awesome.
I you know, the first one's really good.
The second and third ones are pretty bad, but then they pick back up after that and
they get really great.
So I think you're going to like them.
I love it.
Of course, I plan out what movies I'm watching a year from now.
We have to as a true film lover does.
It takes planning, y'all.
My pick is a movie I actually just watched in October for the first time.
Interview with a Vampire from November 1994.
This is adapted from the Anne Rice novel from the 70s.
It stars Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt as two vampires.
Louisiana pageant vampires.
And this movie is campy as all get out.
It is extremely queer, which is is unique for its time period in the early 90s.
It's a strength of the movie, but how it handles those themes is wildly over the top at times.
I loved it.
I would recommend it for any of the any of you interested in such a film.
I should rewatch that one.
It's been a long time.
I did just read Anne Rice's book for the first time about a year ago, and it would be interesting
to see how the movie and the book measure up.
The movie also in addition to Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise has Antonio Banderas, Christian
Slater, Kirsten Dunst.
Amazing cast in that movie.
Yep.
Do you want to talk about upcoming monster movies that come out soon?
I just came I just came across the news.
I've been living under a rock apparently, that a new Predator movie is being released
next year by Disney, and it is called Badlands.
It's apparently set in the future.
The plot details are not widely known, but it is on the release calendar for next year
directed by Dan Trachtenberg, who did pray the previous film in the series.
And then just a couple of weeks ago, Toho has greenlit the next Godzilla movie from
Toho Studios, their follow up to Godzilla Minus One.
The same director will be leading this one to Kashi Yamazaki.
So hey, Godzilla cannot be stopped, y'all.
He is he is the king.
Yeah, still going strong 70 years later.
Amazing.
Yeah, 70 years this month.
So lots of big anniversaries.
Definitely.
That's, that's a good lead in to some of the stuff that we have coming up on Camp Kaiju
in our upcoming episodes, we'll be talking about Godzilla Minus One just in time for
for the news of the next movie.
So excited to talk about that.
Coming up shortly after that is Attack the Block, a movie I've wanted to see for about
a decade and haven't watched yet.
So really looking forward to that.
Frank Olson will be joining us for that episode.
Should be a lot of fun.
And then did you want to mention the other thing coming up on Camp Kaiju as well?
Yeah.
Our next episode that you'll hear after this one is actually a special interview episode
with author Sean Pryor.
And he reached he and his team reached out to us to promote his new book called Kaiju
Unleashed.
Gorgeously illustrated, takes a lot of stills from a lot of movies.
But Sean Pryor gives us the film history of Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah, King Kong,
and Gamera.
I can't wait to see it, man.
It's really detailed and we're excited to talk to Sean.
Absolutely.
And you know, that book, I mean, I'm excited to see it.
I haven't actually seen it yet, but that just sounds like heaven for us, for you and me
and for anybody out there that loves Kaiju movies.
So really excited to check out that book.
Yeah.
So stay tuned, everybody.
It's going to be just a special episode that we're excited to share with you.
So much good stuff coming up on Camp Kaiju.
Tonight, though, we are going to be talking about God Told Me To, directed by Larry Cohen
from 1976.
I have to be totally honest.
I brought this movie to the podcast, not really knowing anything about it.
I had seen some Larry Cohen movies before.
I really love It's Alive.
I think that movie is great.
I like the stuff, although I think that movie has some flaws.
Recently, just a couple days ago, I watched Cue the Winged Serpent, another Larry Cohen
movie.
I just happened to spot it on a couple of lists of the most underrated horror movies
of all time.
And I was like, oh, this sounds fascinating.
I definitely want to talk about this on Camp Kaiju.
It is not what I thought it would be.
It'll be an interesting conversation tonight.
I was watching this movie and again, I had also never heard of it, which is the beauty
of this show.
But the whole time I'm watching it, I'm like, I bet Matt loves this movie.
He won't reveal anything, but you know, I'm like, it's messy.
It's confusing.
It's I don't know, all those things that I like to tease you about.
So I would be interested to hear your thoughts.
I did not hate this movie as if I may have given you that impression.
I do think it is a messy movie, to use your term, but an interesting movie nonetheless.
You know, on paper, this sounds like the kind of movie I would like.
In practice, maybe not so much, but we'll get into that shortly here.
As always on Camp Kaiju, you know, if you love this movie, we don't want to, you know,
sound too harsh or anything.
So if you however you feel about God told me to, if you're one of the relatively few
people that has seen this movie, I think it's still kind of unknown a little bit.
But however you feel about it, please feel free to let us know.
Give us your opinion on social media, email, voicemail, however you want to reach out.
We would love to hear what you think about God told me to.
It's coming from the deep, dark recesses of the mind of Mel Brooks.
I love him.
Young Frankenstein.
This guy means business.
Starring Gene Wilder as Dr. Frankenstein.
That's Frankenstein.
Peter Boyle as the monster.
Marty Feldman as Igor.
My grandfather used to work for your grandfather.
I'm sure we'll get along splendidly.
Oh.
Forst Leachman as Frau Blucher and Madeline Kahn as Elizabeth.
What do you want to do to me?
I'm not afraid of you.
Kill the monster.
See Mel Brooks, young Frankenstein.
Yes, I think we could all use a good laugh.
But don't see it alone.
Don't miss Young Frankenstein, personally directed by Mel Blazing Saddles Brooks in black
and white.
No offense.
The last time, he took a bride.
But this time, in order to become the parents of a human baby, they'll need just the right
woman, Jennifer Tilly.
Production is underway on the new horror flick, Chucky Goes Psycho.
You know, I should have played Aaron Brockovich.
I could have done it without my Wonderbra.
In planned parenthood, timing is everything, so you'll have to hurry.
This shouldn't be a problem for you.
This fall, Chucky's back and he's delivering us some evil.
Come to papa.
What the hell is going on in here?
She came on to me.
No wonder her career's in trouble.
Seed of Chucky.
That's my boy.
For ten centuries, it has waited to be awakened, to be worshipped again like a god, to fill
the skies, to cast its shadow over the earth, to release its fury.
Today in New York City, the winged serpent rises.
The winged serpent rules.
The winged serpent.
David Carradine.
This thing has been prayed back into existence.
Michael Moriarty.
It was big and there was something in it that looked like an egg, but it couldn't have been
an egg.
There aren't any eggs in here that are that big.
Man against the fantastic flying forces of a lost age.
Do you like saying a prayer?
Man against the winged serpent.
Today in New York City, the winged serpent rules.
The legend has come alive.
Before we dive in, if you are new to this movie and you're wondering if you should check
it out, hey, you should, but what is it about?
It's about a New York City cop who is investigating a string of murders and all these killers.
What they have in common is that they all claim that quote, God told me to commit these
violent acts.
And the cop, he is a devout Catholic.
So this like upends his world.
And as he is connecting the dots, the mystery is getting deeper and deeper.
And you know, spoilers are not aliens are involved.
There are alien abductions.
Maybe it's the second coming of Christ.
Who knows?
This movie gets weird real quick and it is worth a watch at least once in your life.
Strongly agree with that for sure.
Even if you know, it's a little frustrating at times.
And worth a watch for sure.
And you know, like the spoiler alert is like because even aside from the aliens, there's
another plot twist after that involving the main character.
Even if you know the spoilers, this movie will still like boggle the mind.
It is so bizarre.
But before we get into that too much, let's talk about the writer, director and producer
Larry Cohen.
He got his start in television writing for shows like The Invaders and The Fugitive.
He I think in the three films I've seen of his It's Alive, God Told Me To and Q. He brings
that sensibility to his screenplays.
There's a very street level, street savvy feel to them.
He's a fan of police procedurals.
He's a fan of detectives.
And at least Q and God Told Me To are all about law enforcement trying to solve these
crimes.
And slightly related, I've also been watching a lot of The X-Files lately.
So I also am a fan of the supernatural police crime procedural.
So Larry Cohen, he knows how to craft that kind of story.
He also directed a couple of blaxploitation movies in the 70s, Black Caesar and Hell Up
and Harlem.
And in the 90s, he began to focus more on writing.
He penned the Maniac Cop series, shout out Naomi Osborne, and Body Snatchers, Cellular,
and a movie I saw in the theaters called Phone Booth with Colin Farrell.
And I remember as like a 10 year old really digging that movie.
And here I come to find out it's Larry Cohen.
So my life just came full circle here.
Yeah, it's cool.
He wrote the script for that, I think kind of a long time ago when Phone Booths were
more of a thing.
And by the time they got around to making that movie, like they made it the last phone
booth in New York City, which is kind of a fun point in that movie.
But yeah, it's a good movie.
Like it's directed by Joel Schumacher.
It's kind of like a simple B movie setup, but it's really suspenseful, well constructed,
which I actually would not say about some other Larry Cohen screenplays.
But it's like a very tight narrative construction and phone booth.
So yeah, surprisingly good movie.
I haven't seen Cellular, but I've heard similar things about that.
It's supposed to be pretty good, too.
Yeah.
And he only died, I think, in 2019.
So not too long ago.
Working right up to the end, I think.
Yeah, I think mostly as a writer.
Yeah, he directed some other movies in the late 80s and early 90s.
I think he did a Salem's Lot sequel.
He made a movie called The Ambulance.
And then I think he did like a TV episode of that Masters of Horror series that was
on Showtime a while back.
But towards the end, mostly screenplays that he was working on.
I love that.
Yeah, one of a kind.
It's just a totally unique voice in American horror cinema.
Yeah, yeah.
Don't sleep on Larry Cohen, everybody.
Yeah, I mean, I just want to shout out It's Alive one more time.
That's one of my favorite horror movies of the 70s.
And I don't know if you felt the same way, Vincent, but that's just such a powerful movie
about, you know, anxiety over parenthood and just like, you know, what if it goes wrong?
What, you know, how do you handle that?
Of course, it's kind of like a schlocky monster movie, but there are some adult dramatic themes
to that movie, too.
No, I first came upon It's Alive in great through the through the horror movie writer
David J. Skal.
And he, I think, really wonderfully captured the the essence behind It's Alive.
It struck a chord in the early 70s with its themes of these women taking medications and
pills and they didn't know what was inside and and the babies coming out deformed.
And this was a real scourge.
And Larry Cohen with that film really struck a chord in American society at the time.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And I think, you know, God told me to is trying to do a similar thing.
We'll we'll get into whether or not he's successful in just a little bit here.
Yeah.
OK, sorry.
Thalithomide, thalidomide, thalidomide.
The use of thalidomide was a tranquilizer that was marketed to women in the 50s.
And it was devastating to to the fetuses of pregnant women.
And these children came out deformed.
So It's Alive kind of taps into that fear.
I was not really totally aware of that history.
That just makes it even more, you know, unsettling and profound.
Yep.
But God told me to.
Yeah, God told me to.
I, you know, equally sort of unsettling themes in this movie.
So more to come on that soon.
But just finishing up a little bit with some of the cast and crew of God told me to first,
I just wanted to shout out the music by Frank Cordell, who scored many films in addition
to concerto's choral movements, a lot of other music that he composed, really strong soundtrack
in God told me to.
It's an interesting backstory, though, because Bernard Herrmann, the great composer who scored
so many of Alfred Hitchcock's movies, was supposed to do the music for God told me to.
He had also done the music for It's Alive, the previous Larry Cohen movie.
The story goes that Bernard Herrmann, he did the soundtrack for Taxi Driver by Martin Scorsese
the very day that he finished recording the music for that movie.
He met up with Larry Cohen.
He watched the rough cut of God told me to.
He kind of envisioned what the music was going to sound like.
He started putting some thoughts together and he died that very night.
Yeah.
So Bernard Herrmann obviously could not do the music for God told me to.
And Larry Cohen had to kind of find a replacement at the last moment.
Yeah.
Again, Frank Cordell's music is really good here, but you have to kind of wonder what
Bernard Herrmann's score would have sounded like.
The film is dedicated to Herrmann.
I did see that at the end of the credits.
Indeed.
Yeah.
And I think, you know, Herrmann and Cohen, I think we're both known for being kind of
difficult to work with, kind of tempestuous personalities, but it sounds like they got
along really well.
So, yeah, it's kind of it's touching that this movie is devoted to.
Cinematography in God told me to is by Paul Glickman.
I couldn't really find too much information about him, but I think this movie looks good
in its grungy, unique sort of way.
Not all the time, but again, we'll talk about that a little bit more later.
So the film was executive produced by Edgar Sherrick and Daniel Blatt.
However, both of them insisted that their names be taken off the credits when they saw
the finished version.
I don't really know if that's because they thought it was too offensive or they thought
it was below their expectations, but in any case, they wanted their names off the credits.
I just wanted to talk just very briefly about Edgar Sherrick.
He was a longtime TV producer who created ABC's Wide World of Sports in 1961.
Kind of an interesting connection.
But then he became a fairly well respected movie producer in the 1970s.
He produced Take the Money and Run by Woody Allen, Sleuth, Heartbreak Kid, The Stepford
Wives and White Dog, which is from the early 80s.
Really fantastic movie.
So legitimate producer, Edgar Sherrick.
His name is not on this movie, but he was behind the scenes for God Told Me To.
Talking about the cast a little bit, we have leading this film, Tony LoBianco as Detective
Peter Nicholas.
LoBiano just died this year, actually, in June.
His career started in the theater and he was in other crime dramas, The 7-Ups and The French
Connection and that's where I knew him from.
So yeah, that's great.
Edgar totally fits in with this genre.
Yeah, for sure.
Deborah Raffin is Peter's girlfriend, Casey.
We have Sandy Dennis, Peter's ex-wife, Martha.
Sorry, Matt, if any of these credits, I don't mean to skip over them if you felt strongly
about talking about them.
No, not at all.
I would want to shout out some movies for the next person on our list, though.
100%.
That is Sylvia Sidney, ladies and gentlemen.
She plays Elizabeth Mullen, the woman who is impregnated by an alien and gives birth
to Peter.
Oh, that's a big twist in the film.
Peter, LoBianco, Peter is also the child of an immaculate alien insemination.
Some light stuff there.
But anyway, Sylvia Sidney, you immediately know her from Tim Burton's films, Beetlejuice,
Mars Attacks, but she also played in movies in the 30s.
Hitchcock's Sabotage, Fritz Lang's Fury, You Only Live Once, and a film called Merrily,
We All Go to Hell.
So I love seeing her in this film.
I didn't realize she was in it, but immediately I leaned forward because she has such a screen
presence even when she's being dramatic and she's very dramatic in this film.
Yeah, just captivating.
Yeah, tough role.
She's in one scene and she has to do not only a lot of plot exposition, but, you know, I
mean, her character has suffered a very, very brutal traumatizing experience.
It's a tough role, tough scene.
And she, like you said, she has amazing presence, really incredible in this movie.
Yeah.
Who else do we have?
Rounding out the cast, Richard Lynch as Bernard Phillips, the androgynous alien presence who
compels people to commit murder.
This character is also the child of a, quote, virgin birth whose mother was abducted by
an alien force.
But Richard Lynch, he often played villains thanks in part to his distinct facial scars.
This was a result of a incident in 1967 in which he set himself on fire under the influence
of drugs.
Yikes.
He burned over 70% of his body.
Honestly, and I'm not being funny, I couldn't tell in this movie because of the way he is
lit with that special effect, that glowing special effect.
Maybe that was purposeful on the filmmakers part.
I don't know.
But that either way is unfortunate for Richard Lynch.
Yeah.
We really only see him in glimpses in this movie.
And that's, you know, that backstory is kind of an interesting connection.
There's just some stuff in this movie about, you know, long haired hippies in the 70s and
kind of paranoia, social paranoia over that and like tension between the police force
and like, you know, the flower power generation or whatever you want to call it.
So I think Richard Lynch was kind of part of that generation a little bit, obviously
in some bad ways and some unfortunate ways.
But just an unexpected kind of real life connection there.
Yeah.
So the last credit we have here is Andy Kaufman, who was big at this time as a comedian.
But actually, he wasn't quite big at this time.
This was his first film role.
He plays the cop who starts shooting people during the St. Patrick's Day parade.
I only know Andy Kaufman through like Saturday Night Live references in the 70s and 80s.
But he was popular at the time.
And it's a fun little cameo for people who know who he is.
Yeah.
Unexpected little piece of trivia there for Andy Kaufman fans.
So getting a little bit into the production backstory of God Told Me To, this was Larry
Cohen's follow up to It's Alive.
He was inspired to make this movie by the Bible and in particular by the fact that God
in Cohen's opinion is the most violent character in literature, like one of the most violent
characters.
The story of Abraham being ordered to kill his son, Isaac, is that right?
Is that his name?
I have to admit, I'm not super familiar with the Bible, but that was kind of one of the
big inspirations for this movie.
Cohen was also inspired by a German book that was popular around this time called Chariots
of the Gods, which is kind of a work of metaphysical sci-fi, maybe nonfiction if you want to give
it the benefit of the doubt.
But the book hypothesizes that the technologies and religions of ancient civilizations were
the result of visitations by ancient astronauts who were welcomed as gods.
So definitely between the Bible and Chariots of the Gods, we can see how the backstory
of this movie is kind of a weird combination of religious themes, but also alien invasions,
which are maybe not alien invasions, but abductions in this kind of alien presence.
It's a weird combination that I don't think totally works, but that backstory kind of
makes a little more sense.
The film was shot on location in New York City, like many of Larry Cohen's films were.
The lead role was originally supposed to be played by Robert Forster, who I think would
have been great, but he dropped out after several days.
He actually cited Larry Cohen's intense directing style.
Forster said something like, you know, Cohen is one of those guys who just yells at people
on set all the time.
So after a couple of days, Forster was like, I don't think I want to do this, even though
he had actually appeared in one of Cohen's plays before called The Nature of the Crime.
So after Forster left, Tony LoBianco stepped in.
And then Bernard Herrmann, as you said, died right before filming started.
Conductor or composer Miklos Roscha passed on doing the score.
I've seen this following quote around.
He famously claimed God told me not to and he passed on this film and Frank Cordell signed
on.
This is interesting.
The alien abduction scenes in which women are sucked up into an alien spacecraft and
impregnated by a ball of light.
This used stock footage from the British sci fi TV series called Space 1999.
Which I really want to see now because that footage in this movie is insane.
It looks so strange and like mystifying, bizarre, unsettling.
I don't know exactly what images are taken from this TV series, but I need to track it
down because those parts of God told me to are really crazy.
Really trippy and visually enthralling.
So it's interesting that that's not even Cohen's footage.
It's from a different title entirely.
Yeah.
There are some other like some cutaway closeups during those scenes to like a vaginal orifice.
There's just no other way to say it really.
And like a weird kind of like substance coming out of it, which sounds gross.
You have to see it to believe it.
I would imagine that sentence before.
What's that?
Sorry.
You've never said those words before.
No, no, I probably will never say them again, but who knows?
Unless I'm talking about this movie again.
It's very possible.
I would imagine that those shots were specially created for God told me to.
But who knows?
We'll have to track down Space 1999 and find out.
Yeah.
The film was sold to Roger Corman's New World Pictures, which released the film.
It did not perform well initially and was re-released under the title Demon.
But apparently this didn't do anything to change its box office fortunes the second
time around.
It did get negative reviews upon its first release, Roger Ebert awarded it one star and
called it the most confused feature length film I've ever seen.
It has since, however, been celebrated as a cult oddity.
Rolling Stone magazine and Time Out both proclaimed it as one of the scariest and most under recognized
horror films ever.
I would say the truth perhaps is in between Roger Ebert's review and this kind of glowing
reappraisal, but we'll talk more about that later.
I agree.
Yeah, lots to say later.
We won't front load it here.
We've got to give you all something to stick around for.
Exactly.
After this sponsor break from our trusted advertisers, Camp Kaiju is sponsored by Zach
Linder and the Zach Pack powered by Coldwell Banker Realty, your source for real estate,
home rehab, fixing and flipping for investor clients and residential buyers.
Reach out to the Zach Pack today for real estate services, follow the Zach Pack on social
media and contact the Zach Pack for investment opportunities.
Link in the show notes.
Before we get back to God Told Me To, Vincent, do we have anything in Minya's mailbox today?
Yeah, we have an email from Kaiju Nick, who, if you remember, emailed us his thoughts on
Godzilla versus Megalon.
So Kaiju Nick, thanks.
I'm going to read just a little bit of your email here related to the Wolfman.
So he says, Dear Camp Kaiju, like many monster kids my age, my history with this great movie
started not with the movie, but with a book about the movie, The Wolfman from the Crestwood
House series of monster books.
And then Kaiju Nick is so great, he gives his own breakdown of this book.
He gives us the good, the bad and the campy.
I'll just lead with the good.
There are loads of awesome pictures and information in these Crestwood House monster books.
Before the days of VCRs, before cable TV and movie channels, young Kaiju Nick's mother
would take him to the library for his very important monster research.
The librarian must have thought to herself, why is our monster section always so empty?
Who could be checking out all these monster books?
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, that's so cool, though.
Kaiju Nick, thank you so much for sending that in.
I you know, I kind of regret getting into monster movies a little bit later in life.
It wasn't, you know, I didn't like devour them when I was a kid, like like you and Kaiju
Nick did.
Of course, I love them now.
And I've loved movies in many different ways ever since I was a kid.
But it's just so cool to read about, you know, going to a library and like you can't wait
to get your hands on the next monster book.
That's so cool.
I love it.
Yeah.
And these Crestwood books, I know what he's talking about just through the buy and buy
on their long out of print.
But they are a series from least according to Amazon, the late 70s, early 80s.
And it would just be like one book dedicated to the the movies of King Kong or Creature
from the Black Lagoon.
A lot of the all the Universal Classic Monsters are featured.
They're all out of print, like I said, but if you can get your hands on them, maybe in
a thrift store or something, please do so.
They're they're just full of pictures and awesome information.
But as Kaiju Nick does say, a lot of this information is inaccurate in these books.
OK, again, just we're we're too young to really know this.
But but we do know that before the Internet and it was so easy to fact check people, a
lot of these writers were talking about movies that they themselves hadn't even seen.
So rumors get passed in on to other writers and slowly becomes fact.
And then people are going off of urban legends and myths.
And now we know many of these things are debunked.
But but yeah, what a what a fascinating little journey for monster kids.
For sure.
Yeah.
I mean, those books sound like maybe they're great collectors items, but not to be taken
as reference books, perhaps.
Yeah, right.
Well, and well, if you know, if anybody out there does get your hands on a I'm sorry,
Crestwood, right?
Yeah.
If you get your hands on one of those books, let us know.
We would love to hear about it.
And thanks again to Kaiju Nick for for sending that email.
Yeah, thank you.
Yeah.
Everyone else, send us your thoughts, comments about any of this stuff.
We'd love to feature your voices on the show, especially voicemail if you want to give us
a call.
But yeah, thanks either way.
How Vincent, how's Peter Laurie doing?
He's actually doing really well.
I got a note from him.
He sent it through his I guess you can call it his support animal.
But he has a friend named Pierre.
Here's a mouse who channels messages back and forth between my office and Peter's recording
booth with little notes tied on to his back.
Pierre's back.
Anyways, Mr. Laurie is doing great.
He sent a message saying he wants to have a friendship with us.
He wants to get to know us more.
So maybe at the happy hour at the end of the season, we can we can share a drink with him.
OK, yeah, I'm a little nervous about that.
You know, he kind of gives me the creep sometimes.
But but he's doing a great job with these reviews.
I guess we have to let him out at some point, right?
Yeah, yeah, we have to own up to that.
He's doing he's doing a killer job this week.
He's going to be talking about the 1920 version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Starring Lon Chaney, senior at No, John Barrymore.
Oh, how could I have gotten that wrong?
You're wrong.
All right.
I must have read one of those factually incorrect reference books.
That's a Crestwood book.
Well, hopefully, you know, Peter Laurie will gain his freedom from the recording booth
and and join us at the at the holiday party soon.
Yeah, stay tuned.
We can work that one out.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, I will probably still keep my distance, though.
Before Karloff and Lugosi stocked the screens, the movies were no less monstrous.
These frightful fingers lurked in the expressionist shadows and danced in the macabre moonlight.
Oh, they laughed.
They cried.
They fooled the sensibilities of honest, decent folk.
For in the age of silent pictures, these gruesome ghouls nonetheless cried out with a savage
humanity that took the breath from all who witnessed their devilish delights.
We're in the silence.
No one can hear you scream.
Hello, ladies and gentlemen.
This is your host, Peter Laurie.
Welcome to Silent But Gaitly, where I review monster movies from the silent era.
You may know me from such pictures as Invisible Agent and The Comedy of Terror, two comedies
that really showcase how funny and goofy I can be.
Oh, Pierre, you want to hear a joke?
Okay.
What is Robert Louis Stevenson's favorite childhood game?
Mr. Hide and Seek.
Pierre, when Bela Lugosi hosts this segment, then Bela Lugosi can make his own jokes.
Until then, I have one, two, three more episodes of Silent But Gaitly to go, and then I will
pass the torch to Mr. Lugosi.
Do not cry, my little mouse companion.
You must remain among the living and spread the word of underrated horror pictures.
And speaking of which, this week on Silent But Gaitly, we are discussing the 1920 adaptation
of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
This movie stars the legendary John Barrymore.
The screenplay is by Clara Barringer, who based her script off the 1887 stage play,
which in turn was based on Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 novella, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde.
Barringer's take on the story is influenced almost as much by Oscar Wilde's The Picture
of Dorian Gray.
Perhaps there are only so many ways to play, old people being corrupted by their own villainous
alter egos made manifest to spiral into murder and madness.
At the time, reticle reception was mixed, but it was a popular movie for Paramount.
At one viewing in New York, an over-eager crowd smashed a door and windows trying to
get into the cinema.
Most of the praise was lavished on Mr. Barrymore, whose transformation into the monstrous Mr.
Hyde was achieved through physical contortions and ghastly make-up.
Indeed, his appearance was so frightening, the critic for film magazine, Photo Play,
warned that mothers should avoid this movie for the safety of their prenatal health.
This movie's ghastly appeal would inspire Paramount to return to the story in 1931,
when Fredric March played the lead and even won an Oscar for his unhinged insanity.
Nevertheless, John Barrymore's rendition should not be overlooked for fans of monster
movies.
Next time on Silent But Deadly, we discuss another deranged dingbat, everyone's favorite
hunchback Quasimodo.
In 1923's The Hunchback of Notre Dame was Lon Chaney.
Of course, thank you Pierre for reminding me.
Please, please you let Matthew and Vincent know that I will indeed accept their invitation
to join for a happy hour.
Perhaps I will even prepare a short comedic routine for them and their guests.
Knock, knock, who goes there?
It's alive.
Can you hear me?
It can't be saved, it's gotta die!
It's alive.
Why are you so anxious to be the one to do it?
It's alive.
Doctor!
Stay the time here!
It's alive.
Now, nobody knows how this thing happened.
It's really a matter of speculation and I think perhaps that's for the best.
After all, if we find out that the cause is medication that we manufacture and it was
administered over a long period of time, won't it?
What do your interests recommend?
Absolute destruction of this thing.
Back to God Told Me To, as the title suggests, God Told Me To and the storyline of the movie,
religious zealotry obviously is one of the themes of the film.
People committing violence and atrocities in the name of their god or their religion.
There's even a quote in the movie where somebody says, people who are too goddamn religious
make a lot of trouble for everybody.
There are a lot of different ways that this theme appears in the movie.
One of the sub-themes of that is the need for faith, especially during difficult emotional
times or different social conditions, the need for faith either in a god or just in
something to believe in, faith in community, faith in social activism, whatever that faith
might be.
Peter is a devout Catholic, as we talked about before, so he has this faith.
He has this religious faith.
He's a true believer and that's why when the kind of villainous, sort of Christ-like figure
of Bernard Phillips, the androgynous child of an alien being, finds out about Peter,
Peter's not really threatened.
They don't want to, like Bernard does not want to kill Peter because he's a true believer
and that makes him too valuable to the cause.
This theme is also kind of repeated when Peter leaks the story to the press.
His police superiors tell him that, you know, they should keep this under wraps so they
don't start hysteria.
Peter is frustrated by this.
He's suspended by the force, so he leaks the story to the press and not surprisingly, mass
hysteria does ensue.
Residents of New York City are afraid, they're shocked that all these murders are being committed
in the name of God and it leads to riots on the streets.
It leads to more violence between the police and protesters.
So there are numerous ways in this movie that religious fanaticism leads to violence.
That's probably the main theme of the movie.
I would argue, however, that like by the time we find out that it's actually not God or
even really anything religious, although you could say that Bernard is a Christ like figure,
like I said, when we find out that it's an alien presence instead of a God like presence,
I feel like that kind of dilutes that theme a little bit.
You know what I mean?
The movie's not really about religion anymore.
At that point, it's about aliens.
Like it's hard to sort of like balance those two things.
Right, right.
And it is kind of difficult to put into words, but I think that that is related to why I
felt a little perplexed, but also underwhelmed by this film.
Just in that the first like those religious themes are so strong.
They're so tight that you're right.
It doesn't, there was a way to blend it more intricately in with the alien abduction idea,
because I do like that potential parallel of, and you mentioned this earlier in the podcast,
but exploring the origins of religion as a cosmic force.
I mean, the History Channel's Ancient Aliens loves to talk about this stuff.
Like now this stuff is in the, it is talked about a little bit more mainstream than it
was in the 70s.
I see where Cohen's going with that theme, but like you say, I don't think, I think it's
too disjointed.
Yeah, totally agree with that.
I think if the film had been able to infuse those two themes, you know, like an alien
presence and the sort of pervasiveness of religion on this planet, that would have been
really fascinating and effective and powerful.
But, but as it is like halfway through this movie, I was like, wait a minute, is this
a satire of religion?
Is it about fanaticism?
Is it an, you know, an alien sci-fi thriller?
Is it one of the other things that we'll talk about in a minute here?
It's just kind of all over the place.
And you're right that sometimes I do like that sense of messiness and the idea, like
the sense that like there are so many ideas that the movie can hardly like contain all
of them.
But here it's, I would say it's pretty frustrating.
It's kind of disappointing that like the movie starts with such a fascinating theme and then
in my opinion, kind of abandons it halfway through.
I think where it kind of jumps off the tracks a little bit is when Peter himself gains psychic
abilities, then it's like, oh, now we're having fun with his ability to influence people and
get people to hurt people just like the Bernard character, but like, how does that, how does
that choice support this idea of religion as a cosmic divinity or fanaticism?
It just seems like a lark that we go on.
Yeah.
You know, is, is Peter a Messiah figure now?
Is he a disciple of Bernard?
Like where's the tie in?
There's no tie in apparently for me, I guess if it's there, I missed it, but yeah.
No, I agree for sure.
And you know, I do think the theme of faith, which again, Peter represents because he is
a true believer.
He's a devout Catholic and that's why he's so troubled by this, by the serial killings
early on in the film.
You know, when we find out that he is one of these alien beings himself, it's not about
faith anymore.
He doesn't have to have faith in anything because he, he himself represents that cosmic
force, you know?
So you know, I mean, this could have been like a really fascinating analysis of faith
and the need for faith in the modern world, but that's another theme that I think the
film just kind of drops because it goes for this like plot twist instead.
Yeah.
One last thing I want to say about that is, you know, the movie largely depicts religious
devotion and to like, to an extreme of fanaticism, but I don't get that from Peter.
I just get like the sense he's a good guy trying to make his way in the world.
He has some, some personal demons, but as a religious person, he's just, you know, working,
working through it.
So I found him very relatable, kind of an everyman in that sense.
And there's a, there's a exchange in dialogue he has with his superiors on the force and
they're trying to keep all this, you know, tamp down the religious aspect tamp down.
And they say to him, people who are too religious make a lot of trouble for others.
And I just found that an interesting nugget of prejudice against people who might be more
faithful in their religion than others.
You know, I can't help but wish that the movie had kind of focused on that tension, which
I think in 1976 in New York would have been extremely, you know, urgent.
I guess, like again, a very kind of socially turbulent time where you have like conservative
and radical elements kind of like fiercely coming together in big cities, you know?
So yeah, you had this theme of like, you know, the police superiors are kind of anti-religion
to a certain extent.
You have Peter who still has this Catholic upbringing that's very much a part of his
personality.
And that kind of tension could have been really powerful, but I think by the, yeah, at the
point we find out that he himself is one of these like cosmic beings, I think that becomes
less interesting instead of more so in my opinion.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, he should have like a real crisis of faith almost that isn't there.
Yeah.
Because Brian, he'd be almost like, is there a God or is it, are we just worshiping aliens
this whole time?
Like, I feel like his world would unravel.
And maybe it does a little bit, but not to the extent I would have liked to have seen.
Totally.
I think we, I think we get a sense in that, of that in the scene where he kind of bids
farewell to the two women in his life, his ex-wife and his girlfriend.
That is my favorite scene in the movie.
It's really extremely well acted, very well written.
There's like a lot of emotional depth to it.
And at that point I was like, all right, maybe this is going somewhere, you know?
Like he is so like, unsure of who or what he is and like unsure of like a cosmic force
or pattern or whatever, that he does seem totally lost in that scene.
But then, excuse me, there's still like 20 minutes left in the movie after that.
And it goes way off the deep end after that point.
So I think like maybe there are moments where Cohen tries to get at that, but then he goes
in a different direction and kind of kind of ruins that a little bit, in my opinion.
Maybe not ruins, weakens.
Yeah, waters down.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, the biggest one for me, and I see you've got some other notes I'd love to hear your
thoughts on, is the, as I saw it, anxiety around unorthodox sexuality.
So in this movie, it's two things.
It's the quote virgin births.
And there's a doctor and you know, there's people who don't understand who you don't
or confused by that, but also more predominantly the I don't want to get too hung up on language,
but I do want to be conscious of my language here in the movie, they use the word hermaphrodite,
which is dated at this point.
I believe intersex is the generally preferred term for those born with sexual organs of
both male and females.
But the Bernard character is such a person.
There's a lot of fear around the Bernard character and the way his intersexuality is portrayed
is interesting to me because I don't think Larry Cohen intended it to be any sort of
prejudice or offensive depiction of such a person.
But with that said, I just can't help but think of like, oh, the monster is an unclassified
quote unquote sexual entity.
It's like, I'm not an intersex person, but if I were, I might have opinions about that.
Totally agree.
It does not day well at all.
I was going to save some of this for my bad category because it's not the only unfortunate
representation we have in this movie.
But I do think that the film presents this intersex character as scary or creepy or other,
like just because it does not like abide by these, you know, like binary gender norms.
There's a line in the movie where one of the doctors is saying that as a baby, he couldn't
tell if Bernard was male, female or something else entirely.
And that's kind of meant to be like a dun-dun-dun moment in the movie, you know, and it's like,
oh, that's that does not come off very well.
Like, and you know, Bernard, it would be one thing if the movie kind of had some sympathy
for Bernard and kind of presented him as this victim because he didn't have a choice.
Like he was birthed by this alien being and he kind of is a victim himself.
But the movie kind of does present him as this, if not villainous or evil, then at least
like, you know, otherworldly force.
And I don't think that's a very good representation.
But yeah, you're right that that is like a big theme in the movie for sure.
Yeah.
Thanks for saying that a little more articulately than than I.
Oh, I don't know if I did.
I mean, it's, you know, it's tricky to talk about in this movie because not only was it
made about 50 years ago, but also it's like, you know, this movie is so messy and so all
over the place.
It's like Larry Cohen, what are you trying to say?
Like, I wish that, you know, I don't always like a movie to like sort of just like give
you the theme on a silver platter, but I do wish it were a little bit more coherent in
this case.
Co-inherent.
Nice.
Anything that leads to a bad director pun is all right by me.
That does kind of lead into what I think is the more effective theme in this movie, which
is like dysfunctional families in general.
Pretty much any family relationship in this movie is severely dysfunctional and messed
up.
You know, you have Peter and his brother, quote unquote, Bernard.
I won't give away like the very end of this movie because it is kind of shocking, but
like there's a pseudo incestuous kind of like plot twists there.
That's very bizarre between those two characters.
You have Peter and his mother, Elizabeth, who they have an extremely difficult conversation
in the in the home that she lives in.
Bernard's mother attacks Peter as soon as he tries to interrogate her.
You have Peter's difficult relationships with his ex-wife, who suffered three miscarriages
because of him, and with his girlfriend, who he just sort of abandons all of a sudden.
You even have the man who is compelled to kill his wife and his children.
I mean, every family relationship in this movie is very difficult, to say the least.
You even have a line where Martha, the ex-wife, says of Peter, he was always frightened of
having children and irrational fear.
And the first thing I noticed or thought of is like, oh, that's basically the theme of
It's Alive.
Let's carry it forward into this movie.
And then the second thought was, is that a totally irrational fear?
It's a wonderful thing to be a parent and a wonderful, amazing, loving thing, but also
full of anxiety and uncertainty.
Am I going to be a good father and stuff like that?
So that to me is the more effective theme in this movie.
Yeah.
And I think maybe because it does reflect the culture in American life in the 1970s.
Perhaps the fallout of the counterculture of the 60s.
We had disillusionment in institutions and the family unit, the traditional nuclear family
was falling apart.
And I think faith in traditional religious institutions were also compromised in that.
This movie made me think about cults and specifically the Jonestown Massacre, which was 1978.
So it was after this film.
But I think that all lives in the same world.
It also made me think about the son of Sam killings in New York City, where that killer,
I was just going to say where Sam said, but I'm not going to call him Sam, David Berkowitz.
Good old Sam.
Where David Berkowitz claimed that, I think it was his dog told him to kill these people.
Those killings were happening at the time of this movie's making.
So maybe Cohen was aware of that.
But whether it's in film or real life events, there was a huge, I think, degradation in
American life.
Absolutely.
And I also just wanted to raise the Manson family murders, which, you know, I mean, like
that kind of, you know, he started his following in like the late 60s.
So that was definitely a huge scandal at the time as well.
Maybe not a coincidence that it was called the Manson family, but it was like the most
like, you know, sorted, twisted family you could possibly have.
But I think you're totally right.
I think like at this countercultural moment where, you know, it was at the tail end of
this kind of, for lack of a better term, I'm just going to say flower power again, like
the kind of like countercultural movement.
You had this sense that like everything was breaking down a little bit, that these forms
of traditional morality could not really be relied on anymore.
And I think that's what God told me to is getting at.
And it's extremely messy and like frustrating way.
Yeah, yeah.
More to say later.
Totally.
Yeah.
I mean, there are a lot of other themes in this movie, too.
You know, you have anxiety over mass shootings, which, you know, I think had happened a little
bit like before 1976, but certainly were more prominent afterwards.
But it kind of in retrospect, like this is it taps into that fear of like how easy it
is in the United States for zealot or a madman to buy a gun and just take out his, you know,
carry out his agenda in public or whatever.
That theme has only become more dire over the years.
And this movie kind of taps into that in an early stage, I would say.
Yeah.
Targets came to mind for sure.
Yeah, that first scene is harrowing.
That's in my good later on.
But some really taught thrills in this movie.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
Cool.
Well, yeah, let's let's get into our breakdowns then the good, the bad and the campy.
There's a lot for each category with God told me to.
Do you do you want to start first or should I start with the good stuff?
Yeah, I'll start just real quick.
You know, things that stood out to me were we're the beginning.
The first maybe third of this movie as the killings mount and Peter is looking into them.
It's a great crime drama.
A lot of good thrills, a lot of good action.
The one scene where Peter confronts the father who is just talking about killing his family
without remorse.
It's a really haunting monologue delivered so nonchalantly.
Really terrifying, honestly, when you realize that you don't have to play a killer like
a big wild haired freak that often in real life, the killers are the unassuming individuals
in our lives.
And I was like, oh, that's like I said, haunting.
Yeah, the abduction sequences, as we talked about, were weird and trippy and and very
memorable.
Obvious Sydney rocks.
Yeah.
So like there was a lot in the beginning of this movie that really stuck with me.
Yeah, totally agree.
The first third to maybe even like the first half of the movie, I was pretty much on board.
There's a lot that I liked about it.
There's a lot of there are a lot of twists and turns in that first half of the movie
that work and then some twists and turns that don't after that.
But it is very compelling.
You know, the footage of New York City in 1976 is so vivid and colorful.
And you really do feel like you're on the sidewalks and on the streets like in this
city at this time.
A lot of handheld camera work.
It just it looks really great.
You know, it's it was shot on a low budget.
So some scenes maybe don't look so good.
But but even those kind of add to like the raw, rough aesthetic, which is very effective.
I think the performances are really great.
I think Tony Lo Bianco as Peter is very committed.
You know, he brings a lot of depth to the role.
Again, a guy who is questioning who he is and like what like.
At least at first, it seems like his philosophies are just falling apart.
And I think he does a really good job of conveying that anxiety and then just the wealth of thematic
material in this movie.
I think there's some bad stuff about it, which I'll get into soon, but it's extremely ambitious.
And I think just like the amount the amount of themes that we talked about in the previous
section are a sign of how complex this movie is.
And you know, maybe Cohen doesn't stick the landing, but I always appreciate it when filmmakers
like go for broke, give it all they got.
And it's better to try and fail than not try at all.
So there is just like a dizzying amount of ideas and themes in this movie.
Yeah.
So this movie is only 90 minutes.
So you're right.
I'm all the way through the movie.
I'm with you.
But that's like 45 minutes into the film.
And it was at that point where I was like, you know, I was appreciating the slow burn
before, but now I feel like time's almost up and I haven't seen anything supernatural.
Yeah.
And I went into this movie expecting some sort of other other worldly being.
So I think the burn is too slow.
I think especially compared to Q and It's Alive, I think Cohen, I think, you know, should
he have, I don't know, I think he could have dropped those supernatural seeds earlier and
given us some insight into what's going on.
There was some, and maybe it's because the film is only 90 minutes.
I feel like certain moments were rushed.
I didn't quite make the connection with Peter when he apparently realized he was also an
alien as he goes to seek out his adoption records.
And at first, it wasn't clear to me that it was his adoption records he was looking for.
Totally agree.
Yeah.
So it was just like, so like, I feel like I just missed some through lines.
You know, part of it might be on me because I thought this was going to be a monster movie
and it's probably not really so much.
So maybe I chose the wrong Larry Cohen movie to bring to the podcast, but I love that you
did though, because you know what, we can only go up from here talking about It's Alive
and Q and any others.
I love this.
I love that it opened the door for me to see more Larry Cohen movies.
Yeah.
Last thing I'll add is I feel like the girlfriend and wife characters and that subplot were
underutilized for me.
I didn't have like they were kind of abandoned towards the end of the movie.
Yeah.
I was like, well, there goes the most interesting characters.
Yeah.
You know, we're totally in agreement here.
Like I said before, that scene where he's like in the midst of his realization of who
or what he is, and he has to say goodbye to both of them.
That's a really good scene.
But then like the rest of the movie, they're kind of just like ancillary characters.
Yeah, it's disappointing.
Yeah.
So I totally agree with everything you said.
I think like, you know, this movie doesn't really know what it is.
Like Cohen maybe started with a concept when he wrote the screenplay and just like made
it up as he went along.
And it doesn't really hold together because of that.
I think like the movie's numerous themes, which often are pretty bleak and heavy.
I mean, you know, the flashbacks of women being forcibly impregnated, like that's extremely
bleak stuff.
And that like does not really mesh very well with the crime elements or with the kind of
fantastic sci fi elements of the story, in my opinion.
Sometimes you can pull off that combination, but I don't think this movie is really able
to do that.
And that kind of leads me to what are my biggest issues with this movie.
And I do want to say that, like, normally I'm not the kind of person who is like looking
for what's the word, red flags or like, you know, I'm not trying to like virtue signal
or anything like that.
Like I, you know, this movie was made in the 70s.
Some things about it are not going to date very well.
But I do think this movie, I would argue, is both transphobic and racist.
And I know that sounds harsh.
Like we talked about the transphobia a little bit.
I do think the Bernard character is supposed to be creepier on settling because, you know,
their gender is a little bit indeterminate, ambiguous, androgynous.
That part of it certainly doesn't date very well.
But then we also have this subplot that we haven't even talked about at all yet, where
one of Peter's fellow cops, who is a black man, seems to be a corrupt cop.
He does like kind of back table or like under the table dealings with this drug dealer named
Zero.
Zero ends up killing this black cop character who I don't think even has a name.
It's the end of the movie after Peter realizes that he is an alien with psychic powers, goes
to this kind of pool hall, which seems to be, you know, in the ghetto somewhere.
I mean, this kind of harkens back to Larry Cohen's first two black exploitation movies,
Black Caesar and Hell Up in Harlem.
So Peter goes into this pool hall and he indirectly forces Zero to kill all of his like minions
or whatever and then kill himself.
And I feel like the movie is asking us to accept that because first of all, these characters
are criminals and drug dealers.
And like, I feel like the movie is asking us to be like, oh, it's okay.
He can kill all of them like it doesn't matter.
And of course, they're also characters of color.
And I feel like, you know, the movie is also asking us to be okay with that, to still have
some empathy for the Peter character because the characters that he indirectly kills are
insignificant, not as important.
I really, really, really hated that ending, partially because of like those stereotypical
representations, which if not racist, are at least sloppy and unconvincing because we
do not buy it all that Peter and this black cop character are friends.
Like the movie has never shown us any kind of connection between them.
So that was the scene where I was like, I don't think I like this movie.
Like it's poorly constructed and has some, not just dated, but I would say maybe hateful
representations.
And I know, again, that sounds harsh, sounds over the top.
That's usually not the kind of like judgment that I try to do.
But yeah, there's a lot in this movie that didn't sit well with me.
I'm with you 100%.
At the very least, it's just it's like, again, this is a beat that I'm missing.
It's a through line.
The fact that Peter and his black partner are supposed to be close and somehow Peter
knows about the drug dealer Zero and where to find him.
It's like, OK, is there a scene missing where all that was laid out?
You're making me do mental leaps here, Cohen, that you haven't earned.
Yeah.
So like that on its surface.
But like you say, it's coming out of the black exploitation tradition of the 70s.
We could talk about a white man directing these films.
But that was the genre at the time.
For better or for worse.
But in this movie, and God told me to, it feels obligatory, cliched and not done any
justice.
I just don't buy it.
And like, by that point, it's like, wait a minute, what happened to your themes about
like religion and like faith and like fanaticism?
Like by that point, all that just goes out the window.
You know, it's very disappointing.
That's what I mean.
It's a lark.
Like we just go on a tangent now.
That's apart from the more cohesive themes we were told this movie would be about.
Exactly.
And there's barely even a monster in it.
But maybe that's my fault more than Larry Cohen's.
But you know, so again, a lot of a lot of good and bad.
What about campy?
Any campy stuff you want to bring up?
The whole last like 10 minutes of this movie is camp central.
It is so over the top.
Folks, this is where you're getting your money's worth.
I mean, offensive or not, I've just never seen anything like this on a screen before.
The potential incest that happens.
Vaginal orifices the size of my television screen.
I was like, what is happening?
I was on an acid trip on it and then everything burns down and there's fire and brimstone.
And then the movie ends with the Peter character looking at the camera.
He's under arrest.
He's going to jail.
And the movie freezes on his face and gives us a little title like what happened to him?
Like where is he now?
Text at the bottom.
Which to me is so cliche.
Like you see that in comedies like Animal House.
But to see it take done seriously, I was like, what?
I expect like a Benny Hill music to play at that point in time.
Totally.
Yeah.
And he's looking directly into the camera, right?
There's a freeze frame and that's how it ends.
Yeah, a little ridiculous.
Yeah.
How about you?
No, that was on my list of campy also for sure.
The only other thing I really had in the campy category were like the shots of the women
in flashbacks, which are in kind of this cool like black and white style.
I mean, stylistically, I think they're really well done.
But there are these shots of like women kind of like floating up into the spaceship and
they look cool.
I'm not really criticizing them, but they definitely have kind of like a campy old school
sci fi vibe to them, which again does not really mesh very well with what is about to
happen to those characters after they're abducted.
But those shots, which are kind of all done like in camera on like practical special effects
can be in in like a very stylish and effective way, I think.
Yeah.
Aside from that, there's not there's not too much camp here because like it's just so kind
of bleak and unsettling, I think, you know.
No, it's true.
I was really struggling until the end when things just blew up in my face.
I do want to mention this is just an interesting this does blow my mind.
So go on this journey with me in God told me to.
I believe it's Peter's mother's character, the Sylvia Sydney character, or it might have
been the other mom, one of the moms that were turning home from the World's Fair in New
York.
This is like 1936 or something.
And they make reference to a large sculpture called the Trilon and Paris sphere.
OK.
Now the night before I watched God told me to, I watched an episode of the X-Files where
that same sculpture, the Trilon and Paris sphere figured as a plot point.
And it was just one of those things where it's like I've never heard of this, but now
I've heard of it twice.
Now I've heard of it three times because I googled Trilon and Paris sphere.
And what comes up is the Trilon cinema in Minneapolis where you work and it's film magazine
called the Paris sphere.
Indeed, which I used to co-edit.
Yeah, that's uncanny.
And you know, the Trilon is named after that sculpture in the New York World's Fair as
is Paris sphere named after that, too.
That's an uncanny coincidence.
I don't know.
Like, again, my brain just went on this trip.
I was like, what the hell is the Trilon and Paris sphere?
Because now I've heard of it three times.
I don't know if those sculptures are still around anywhere.
Like in New York?
They're not.
No.
It's too bad.
I was going to say you're going to have to make a, you know, an exodus or not an exodus
journey there to.
Pilgrimage.
Yeah, that's the word I was looking for.
But sadly, you cannot do so.
Yeah, so that was a fun connection to make.
Yeah, weird.
I'm trying to recall what episode of The X-Files that is, because that's my favorite TV show.
I feel like I must have seen that episode.
Season two, episode 12.
It's a woman cop.
She's pregnant and she's having nightmares about a killer.
But it turns out she's the one committing the murders.
Yeah, that sounds familiar now.
Yeah, it's a pretty good episode.
Is the this is really this is very tangential.
Is the woman cop is her name BJ in the episode?
Yes.
Yeah.
I remember that episode.
And Mulder makes a really groan worthy comment about that.
Yep.
That's exactly why I recall that episode, which maybe is not great.
But I but it yeah, now it's coming back to me.
Wow.
Well, what a strange coincidence, man.
Yeah.
Thanks to God told me to for bringing that all together.
Seriously.
Well, I think it might be time for our rating.
As usual, on Camp Kaiju, we do have four ratings that we give that we give movies on here.
Number one, it's a timeless classic.
It definitely stands the test of time.
Number two, there may be some antiquated moments, but overall, it's great.
It stands the test of time.
Number three, it may be historically significant or just fun, but it does not stand the test
of time.
Number four, it is not worth revisiting and definitely does not stand the test of time.
Okay, I'll go first since it's your pick.
I'll give you the last word.
All right.
I think there are some if not fun, some good moments where I was engrossed in the film.
It did not stick the landing, but even the ending bonkers.
So I'm going to say it does have some worthwhile moments, but it does not ultimately stand
the test of time for me.
I don't need to revisit this.
And honestly, if you want to watch a Larry Cohen film, I can tell you at least two others
that are just better movies.
They're more they're constructed more cleanly, efficiently, and just yeah, just less offensive
too.
Word for word, I agree with everything you said.
I would also give it the same rating.
I do think it's historically significant in some ways.
It's a fascinating depiction of New York in the 1970s.
It is interesting for a while.
It does have themes that are so fascinating.
You want them to be more, you know, smoothly constructed, smoothly put together.
But overall, it's a very frustrating movie and it culminates in some, yeah, some depictions
and representations that just really leave a bad taste in your mouth and you can call
it presentism if you want.
But you know, I mean, those parts in the movie and just how kind of sloppy it is in the end
prevent it from from really being all that great.
So this movie does not stand the test of time.
But like you said, Vincent, I would say three other Larry Cohen movies that I've seen are
worth watching instead of this one.
So Cohen's great, just maybe not this one.
Still check it out.
It is one of a kind.
Those are, but you may not want to watch it again after that.
Beautiful, beautiful note to end it on.
All right.
Well, thank you all for listening to this episode.
We'll see you next time for our special interview with Sean Pryor about his book Kaiju Unleashed
and then join us for Godzilla minus one.
Dun dun dun.
Thank you again for hanging out.
Please rate and review wherever you listen.
You can also share this podcast with a friend.
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Finally, please check out our website, CampKaijuPodcast.com for more information.
Camp Kaiju is recorded in Minneapolis, St. Paul with Mignas mailbox music by Ben Cook
Feltz.
Thanks again, friends, and until next time, stay campy.
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Why did you attack while I was coming home?
God told me to.