Despite some bad acting and questionable editing, this certainly qualifies as a cult movie. As if the story, which turns the Christian religion on its head by updating it and tossing in an extraterrestrial angle for good measure, weren't enough to qualify it as an oddball treasure, it features the enigmatic Andy Kaufman in a small role as a police assassin. His scene is brief, but reminds me uncannily of the Joker/ mayoral assassination scene in "The Dark Knight." Anyway, not all of the story works, yet it needs to be seen in order to be appreciated for its "only in the seventies" allure. Check it out....

In the end, it has nothing to do with God. Back up to the beginning of the film... Peter J. Nicholas is a New York detective he begins to investigate a series murders where each of the murderers would confess what they did willingly and when asked why the answer is "God told me to". During one of the investigations he hears the story of a woman who was abducted by aliens, he finds this woman, goes to see her and the truth is revealed about her alien abduction and the "God told me to" series of murders. God has nothing to do with these murders in New York.Spoiler: Nicholas meets the woman abducted by aliens to speak with her. She was impregnated by the alien/false God, gave the child up for adoption. Nicholas is that child today - part man/part alien (or false God).There is an shiny golden alien (or a false God) with long golden hair that Peter meets who says "I can bear your child. Together we can start a new species." That is a clue as to what is going on here.Several murders took place, each of the murderers confessed to their crimes saying "God told me to". Each were happy, pleased that they have appeased their God (or what they think is God).In the end: That spaceship abduction showed me it as aliens and not a God. A God would not need a spaceship nor would it have a need to create a new race with a half man - a God would create the way he/she creates. ALIENS wanting to take over and create a new species (that would be half alien). Why speak the name of God? It's easier to say "God told me to" than explain the truth... in a way, Aliens could be their Gods.Pretty good movie - I enjoyed watching.8.5/10

After reading Robin Wood's great book Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan, I found myself checking out some of the more praised titles in the book. 70s horror films are interesting as they exist in a period of time between the Universal and Hammer Horror studio monster movies and the cookie-cutter box office slasher movies. And so, much like Martin Scorsese and Brian De Palma going for broke in this period of the counterculture auteur-driven marketplace, horror movies were also throwing out wild unconventional ideas.It seems that time has been rather kind to Wes Craven and George A. Romero but Larry Cohen has got the bad end of the stick, despite God Told Me To being every bit as sociological and revealing as the formerly mentioned. This movie in particular has the non-convention of not having a villain, instead showing a psychotic case of various killings, with each killer giving the reason that god told them to do it. The narrative falls away as it reaches a conclusion but the deliberate pace and atmosphere is such insanely powerful stuff that it ends up not even mattering.

In B-movie schlockmeister Larry Cohen's follow up to the cult classic 'It's Alive' a devout New York City detective tries to find out who is mysteriously persuading random citizens to go berserk in the name of God. Attempting part slow burn suspense in the vein of 'Rosemary's Baby', part religious meditation a la 'The Exorcist', Cohen simply doesn't have the talent as a screenwriter to overcome his exploitation origins. Instead, the pacing is painfully slow and there are few scares and very little suspense. The periodic descents into blaxploitation cliché don't help matters. The performances are sound, and it's always a pleasure to watch the late, great Sandy Dennis, but by the time we get to the gloriously over-the-top last act and the appearance of the bizarre man/woman antagonist with a vagina in his/her chest it's not enough to salvage what is ultimately a pretty boring movie.