Back in the early 1980's, the VHS market allowed my family to enjoy movies that never made it to Ellwood City, about an hour from Pittsburgh. Our hometown video store, Prime Time Video, was packed with films that fascinated me. I wish that someone had footage of all of the movies on shelf. I know we definitely rented Ruggero Deodato's Raiders of Atlantis and this bizarre piece of cinema about an Aztec god loose in Manhattan. What a time to be alive, when you could walk down the street and wander row after row of horror movie choices!Q The Winged Serpent has Boris Vallejo artwork on its poster and VHS box, which made it leap into my hands. As a kid, I hated the parts with humans. As a grown-up, I'm so intrigued by them.The Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, a feather winged dragon, has found its new pyramid on the Chrysler Building. The film starts by showing us how it finds and devours the heads of its victims in gory detail. Meanwhile, an Aztec cult is leaving sacrificed victims in its wake as Detective Shepard (David Carradine, Death Race 2000) and Sgt. Powell (Richard Roundtree, Shaft) try to keep up.The film cuts to a failed diamond heist that leads Jimmy Quinn (Michael Moriarty, who owns this film with a manic Method performance) to the title monster's nest. He uses his new knowledge to move away from crime (and jazz piano playing) as he extorts the city for the location of the creature's egg.Shephard finds out the location on his own, ruining Quinn's plans. The cops conduct an attack that takes out a baby Q as the creature returns home, wiping out nearly everyone (don't take Shaft, Q!) until it's shot over and over, falling dead to the streets below. The cop also saves Quinn as a crazed Aztec priest almost sacrifices the crook to his gods.That said - the magic of the past in man's modern world is not gone. The film ends with one last egg hatching.Q is a great movie even without the monster. In Will Harris' great oral history of the film, David Caradine said: "I thought if he had left the monster out of it, between me and Michael Moriarty, there was a real great story there between the detectives and the sleazebag heroin addict/petty-thief character. That's where the power in the movie is. That's where the heart of it is... and not in the chicken that ate New York!"And this is a movie that rose from tragedy! Cohen had just been fired from I, the Jury and didn't want to waste the hotel room he had already paid for. He wrote the script, hired actors and was done with pre-production in just six days!Like all of Cohen's films this is a movie that outdoes its small budget and looks like a million bucks. It has heart - and plenty of other organs - and verve and panache and any other hyperbole you'd love to bestow upon it.

As if New York doesn't have enough problems already, a flying serpent is on the loose picking people off as a feed.Jimmy (Michael Moriarty) is a thief, and one day he discovers a giant bird's nest at the top of the Chrysler building. Around the same time, police is looking for who killed the window washer, a construction worker, a man in bed, and a woman on the rooftop. Shepard (David Carridine) is a cop who's on this case and starts to suspect that something flying is the culprit of all the killing. When Jimmy gets caught, he uses the information he has to spring a deal with the cops.Unlikely story that a giant serpent can roam New York city and not get detected by thousands of people, but that's the plot. As far as giant monster flick is concerned this movie is crap, crap, crap because there's aren't much of a scene involving the Q itself, and all it does is fly around and pick people off of here and there. Otherwise, it's just one long boring sequence of nonsense that goes on between Jimmy and the police.Stingy is what I'd categorize this film under. Unlike Steven Spielberg, director Larry Cohen lacks the spirit to entertain and excite its viewers with visuals of the main antagonist. Don't waste your time on this one, as there's no delivery, and lots of tease. The main character of this film seems to be the greedy thief (and not the Q) that the director seems to identify a lot with.

"Q: The Winged Serpent" is cheesy fun at it's finest. The plot: Oh No! Quetzlcoatl, A Winged Serpent is terrorizing New York City! Only one man can take him down: An Ex-Scat player named Jimmy Quinn (Moriarty). For 1982, the stop motion effects are decent. Moriarty is excellent as usual. He puts a lot of heart and soul into Jimmy. You want him to be safe from "Q". There's a scene where Jimmy plays a impromptu piano solo that's funny and brilliant at the same time. Only Larry Cohen can make this movie... and get away with it.Watch Q tonight! For more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com

A monster movie that is like those of the 1950's, but so different as to make it interesting too. This monster movie has more cops trying to find things out and uncover the truth of the Aztec cult than it has monster flying through city moments. Still, it has the unexpected in it and an interesting enough story to off set the fact the title character really is not in this film much. The final scene though is more of the type found in your typical monster movie as the creature must be brought down. Michael Moriearty is in this film as he was in a few other horror movies during the 1980's. The rest of the cast is good as well. The monster is okay, but really not all that memorable, which may explain why they felt the need to make it appear as little as possible. Some good bloody scenes in this one, but nothing to gory, most of the kills had more to do with sacrifice than the monster itself. Still, for a different type of monster movie that has more mystery but an actual monster too this is the movie for you. What I mean by that, usually when a movie features this much detecting and stuff the monster ends up being staged, fake, or a hoax.