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Apocryphally Weird

58*. GOD TOLD ME TO (1976)

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AKA Demon; God Told Me To Kill

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” – Proverbs 3:5-6

DIRECTED BY: Larry Cohen

FEATURING: Tony Lo Bianco, Deborah Raffin, Sandy Dennis, Sylvia Sidney, Sam Levene, Mike Kellin, Richard Lynch

PLOT: NYPD detective Peter Nicholas investigates a series of spree killings in which the perpetrators all seem to act with no provocation or explanation, each justifying their actions by saying “God told me to.” Nicholas, a devout Catholic, is infuriated by this claim, but equally plagued by their certainty and his shame over his own sins and infidelities. His investigation leads him to an unearthly suspect, an individual with stories of alien abduction, virgin birth, and Nicholas’ own family history.

Still from God Told Me To (1976)

BACKGROUND:

  • Cohen was a genre chameleon whose c.v. includes the blaxploitation gangster flick Black Caesar, the giant-beast-in-New-York movie Q: The Winged Serpent, and the consumerism horror-satire The Stuff, and his previous film It’s Alive, the tale of a monstrous baby that our own Alfred Eaker called “one of the best horror films of the decade.”
  • Cohen planned to engage Bernard Herrmann, who provided the music for It’s Alive, to compose the score for the new film. According to Cohen, Herrmann watched a rough cut and afterwards discussed his plans with the director over dinner. Unfortunately, Herrmann passed away in his sleep that night. (The film is dedicated to the composer.) Cohen’s next choice, Miklós Rózsa, turned down the job, saying, “God told me not to.” Frank Cordell eventually scored the film.
  • Cohen first cast Robert Forster in the role of the detective. Forster worked on the film for several days before tiring of the director’s methods and leaving the production.
  • The policeman who goes on a shooting rampage at the St. Patrick’s Day parade is portrayed by Andy Kaufman, in his film debut. Cohen crashed the actual parade to film without a permit, and said later that he had to intervene with onlookers to protect Kaufman when the comedian taunted them.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: In their final showdown, the glowing, androgynous Bernard tempts Nicholas to join forces and spawn a new race of beings on earth. As proof of his bonafides, Philip pulls up his tunic to reveal a pulsing vagina located squarely in the left side of his chest. It’s a startling sight (and a curious location at that), but it clears the bar for shock value, and ensures that Nicholas is definitively unconvinced to join the cause.

TWO WEIRD THINGS: Abstract alien abduction; ribcage vagina

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: God Told Me To builds upon the intriguing decision to take the rantings of homicidal lunatics seriously, and to consider the possibility that God really is commanding the insane to do their horrible deeds. Upon this simple subversion, Cohen piles up a child’s treasury of conspiracy theories and paranoid tropes, including shadowy cabals of power, police corruption, ancient astronauts, hermaphroditism, mind control, and angel/devil dichotomies. It’s a mad melange of wild ideas and outlandish plot twists that guarantees you never quite get your footing.

Original trailer for God Told Me To (1976)

COMMENTS: “It’s based on a true story!” Larry Cohen told the Village Voice about God Told Me To in 2018. “No, seriously, it’s a picture about religion, and the violence people do in the name of religion — which feels really relevant today.” Of course, Cohen was far Continue reading 58*. GOD TOLD ME TO (1976) →

List Candidates

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: THE SHROUDS (2024)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , ,

PLOT: An entrepreneur who’s obsessed with his dead wife invents a graveyard which allows the bereaved to watch their deceased love ones’ bodies decompose in real time; when some of the graves are vandalized, he’s led to investigate a mysterious conspiracy.

Still from The Shrouds (2024)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Starting from a typically Cronenbergian premise–straddling the line that separates the just barely plausible from the utterly implausible, but presented as if it were perfectly natural—the august director takes a deep dive into human depravity and loss, accompanied by plentiful hallucinations. (Walkout report: there was one other person in the theater with me when the film started; I was alone when the end credits rolled, although I didn’t notice when the other guy left.)

COMMENTS: “How dark are you willing to go?,” asks the improbably named Karsh of a first date, before taking the at-first-game lady on a walk to see a live feed of his wife’s decomposing corpse. Needless to say, he doesn’t get a second date.

When vandals attack Karsh’s hi-tech necrovoyeur cemetery, his business model is jeopardized. He seeks out the culprits with the help of his nerdy ex-brother-in-law and an A.I. assistant who looks suspiciously like his deceased wife, with paranoid suggestions offered by a sister-in-law who also looks suspiciously like his late wife. His investigations suggest abnormal growths on dead tissue, and the possibility that a cabal of international hackers are behind the whole thing. Meanwhile, Karsh has disturbing erotic dreams—all the more disturbing because he finds them comforting—about his deceased love. While probing into the mystery, Karsh also revives his sex life, after years of post-marital celibacy. More impossible, or nearly impossible, events follow, the plot becomes muddled, and The Shrouds wraps on a hallucinatory note.

Now an octogenarian, Cronenberg, who lost his own wife eight years ago, is still able to invent delicious perversities—Karsh’s sexy amputation nightmares, conspiracy theories as aphrodisiacs—even as he seems less and less interested in conclusive narratives. The conspiracies of The Brood (1979) or Videodrome (1983), as bizarrely unlikely as they may be, at least gave you a sense of who the enemy is and their motivation. In Shrouds and Crimes of the Future (2022), the menace is inconclusive, leading to a situation where the audience gets involved in the mystery only to be left hanging at the end. It is clear enough that the thematic enemy here is grief, jealousy, and death itself; but on the narrative side, the antagonist remains murky to the end.

Cronenberg leaves us with plenty to think about, however, including the question of why all of Karsh’s precious memories of his wife revolve exclusively around her body. Is this a personal flaw of Karsh’s, or an honest philosophical recognition that the ultimate reality is the material? Like the motives and identity of The Shrouds’ antagonists, it’s left to you to decide.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Watching The Shrouds dribble its way through a third act that’s as anticlimactic as it is knotty, we can only lament all the weird, intrepid endings Cronenberg might have found for a story about the destiny of flesh – none of which, alas, he actually chose.”–Tim Robey, The Telegraph (festival review)

Capsules

CAPSULE: JACKER 2: DESCENT TO HELL (1996)

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DIRECTED BY: Barry Gaines

FEATURING: Phil Herman, Barry Gaines, Ben Stanski

PLOT: After being thrown off a cliff Mike, the carjacker-cum-serial killer from Jacker, becomes an invulnerable supernatural entity.

Still from Jacker 2: Descent Into Hell

COMMENTS: Where to start with Jacker 2? Well, maybe start with Jacker, the senseless story of a serial-killing carjacker who likes to put blood in his Wheaties and who easily outwits some of the stupidest cops in the world, who can’t figure out he killed his girlfriend because they never think to check the handwriting on her suicide note and can’t figure out he killed the investigating detective’s sister despite his basically threatening to do so in front of a group of police witnesses. It features dingy VHS camcorder videography often lit by streetlights, some less-than-thrilling taking-an-elevator-to-your-apartment scenes, lobotomized acting, sound that ranges from inconsistent to inaudible, and a reasonable amount of violence, but almost no gore or special effects. (To be fair, the script for Jacker was written in a reported four days.)

Jacker 2 picks up exactly where Jacker left off, and most of Jacker‘s characters—including the dead ones—show up again. This fact might give you some reason to watch Jacker, but the main reason to watch Jacker is because it makes Jacker 2 look so much better by comparison. Although the sequel’s story is even more nonsensical—a positive, since the whackadoodle plot is the only real reason to watch this—everything else is much improved. There are a greater variety of creative camera shots, more effective attempts at deliberate comedy, sleazier sex scenes, goofier supporting characters, better (though still not good) sound, occasional lighting for scenes, more non-sequiturs, a bigger ketchup budget, and a trip to Hell (which, as you might have suspected, is actually a basement in New Jersey)—complete with demonic costumes that might have looked silly except for the fact that you can barely make them out through the heavy yellow filter and solarization haze. The editing is actually impressive, given the low quality of the raw footage they had to work with. While Jacker 2 likely would have earned a “Beware” rating if I had seen it first, in contrast to Jacker, it’s a near masterpiece—the Citizen Kane of New Jersey-shot microbudget invulnerable supernatural carjacker flicks.

Of course, it’s a rough ride for the average viewer accustomed to movies with more polish, but Jacker 2 is—if not actually good—at least memorable. The 90s no-budget shot-on-video aesthetic is a real one (heck, Harmony Korine even deliberately aped it). In fact, with all of its technical deficiencies, the biggest complaint against the film is that, at 105 minutes, it’s way too long. Trim out a few of the carjackings that went nowhere, and it would almost be a strong little indie.

Falcon Video was (is?) a New Jersey-based team of zero-budget horror film makers who originally sold most of their movies through mail order. They take turns directing, writing and producing films, but Phil Herman (who stars as Mike the Jacker, wrote both films, and directed the first one) is the central figure. They’re a fascinating collective: a group of friends who break out the camcorder and make feature films in their spare time while holding down day jobs. We should all be so lucky. There are lots of references to Falcon Video and other FV films spread throughout Jacker and Jacker 2, including a running joke that whenever someone’s TV is on, there’s an FV production onscreen.

Semi-star alert: Marilyn Ghigliotti had a major role a few years earlier in cult classic Clerks (she played Dante’s girlfriend, Veronica), but accepts a much smaller role here; talk about climbing down the ladder! (Don’t worry, Marilyn rebounded and is doing just fine today, having accumulated 42 IMDb credits and counting.)

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…it doesn’t just repeat the earlier movie’s formula but adds horror and the supernatural to the mix in a way that comes across as properly creepy, and it’s clear to see the filmmakers made the most out of what little they had. And the result … may not be a masterpiece, objectively speaking, but if you’re into shot-on-video movies from the era, there’s a good chance you might like this one.”–Michael Haberfelner, (Re)search My Trash

Jacker / Jacker 2: Descent to Hell [Blu-ray]

Jacker / Jacker 2: Descent to Hell [Blu-ray]
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It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: WITHOUT WARNING (1980)

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DIRECTED BY: Greydon Clark

FEATURING: Jack Palance, Martin Landau, Tarah Nutter, Christopher S. Nelson

PLOT: An alien hunter is on a killing spree in a small western town, but a pair of teenagers finds they must contend with a sinister truck stop owner and a shellshocked army veteran as much as the murderous monster.

Still from without warning (1980)

COMMENTS: Greydon Clark is a self-professed bargain-basement moviemaker. There’s a reason he titled his autobiography On the Cheap: My Life in Low Budget Filmmaking. (For that price his paperback is going for on Amazon, he probably could have made a whole film.) But that doesn’t set him apart from the many B-movie honchos who ply their trade. No, Clark’s superpower was that he knew how to cast stars. Faded stars, but stars nonetheless, who were willing to put in a couple days work in exchange for a small paycheck and one more moment as the biggest name on the set. In return, Clark got to use their reflected glory to give his movies a sheen of credibility and Hollywood glamour. Such Tinseltown luminaries as Joe Don Baker, Alan Hale, Jr., Jim Backus, Peter Lawford, Pat Buttram, and answered the call of a Greydon Clark production at one time or another. So when it came time for the monster-in-the-woods cheapie Without Warning, you could count on a cast list just as lavish: Larry Storch, Ralph Meeker, Neville Brand, and all signed on for a day or two. It’s that special touch that separates Clark from his contemporaries.

Two of those casting coups are actually the marquee attractions here. Jack Palance and Martin Landau, more than a decade away from taking home Oscar gold, are here to chew up half of the budget and all of the scenery. Once on the set, they clearly weren’t directed so much as unleashed. Palance has his particular brand of discomfiting fun, shouting down his scene partners with wide-eyed, raspy mania. You can’t point a flashlight at your face and tell the kids with a mad laugh, “Hey, I ain’t the crazy one” and not take some joy in your work. Meanwhile, Clark deliberately named Landau’s character Fred Dobbs after Humphrey Bogart’s paranoid fortune seeker in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and Landau has clearly decided to adopt that mania and ramp it up to the 4th power. The film is giddy fun whenever the two men share the screen, and the pairing has the unexpected effect of making Palance seem cool-headed and grounded in comparison to Landau’s bubbling cauldron of PTSD- fueled mania. 

I’m talking about the actors a lot, and frankly, it’s because the story isn’t all that much. You’ve got a series of mildly gory killings, and you’ve got a pair of teen couples who march blindly into harm’s way. (One of those doomed horny teenagers is none other than David Caruso in one of his first film appearances.) It’s very much your standard horror flick. Clark does try to make the movie a little less by-the-numbers with some savvy choices. The fact that the killer in the woods turns out to be an alien hunter out to collect pelts is novel for its time. (Clark joyfully notes not only that his tale precedes the strikingly similar Predator by seven years, but that they hired the same actor–giant Kevin Peter Hall–to play the equivalent role.) He also gifts the hunter with a sci-fi weapon that looks like a street taco with oozing tentacles, an organic-looking prop that introduces a gross novelty to the proceedings. (Palance carves into the mustard-spewing little creatures with gusto.) And he even manages a neat bit of misdirection with Nutter’s Sandy, a Final Girl with a rare sense of logic and self-preservation. She’s not exactly a feminist icon, but she faces down her boyfriend’s machismo and Palance’s aggression with surprising determination.

There’s a lot of genuine behind-the-scenes talent slumming it here, too, including cinematographer Dean Cundey (future Oscar nominee for Who Framed Roger Rabbit), makeup artist Greg Cannom (future 4-time Oscar winner), and most notably, legendary monster-maker Rick Baker as the uncredited brains behind the alien hunter’s mask (which bears a striking resemblance to this guy). And it is their work that helps the film float a few feet above its humble origins.

Without Warning is by no means a hidden gem. It’s almost entirely devoid of suspense, extremely predictable, and the parts that once reveled in the grotesque now feel almost quaint. But this plucky little film punches above its weight class, succeeding at enough things to be pleasantly diverting. Greydon Clark may not have had a great film in him, but all things considered, this one’s not bad at all, and that’s something.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“This cult favorite isn’t a particularly good movie but it has enough wacky elements and a few moments of genuine tension that have made it a lovable low budget gem… easily the best movie about an alien trophy hunter bagging human prey with the use of flying, plasma-slurping alien flapjacks.” – Brian Bankston, Cool Ass Cinema

(This movie was nominated for review by Brad. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

Without Warning (Special Edition) [Blu-ray]

Without Warning (Special Edition) [Blu-ray]
  • From Greydon Clark, the legendary cult director of Satan’s Cheerleaders, Angels Brigade, The Return, Wacko, Joysticks, Final Justice and Uninvited
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