Halloween Times: Film #3

If I could, I would hire Michael Moriarty to tell me bedtime stories every night.

"when movie reviewer Rex Reed met Q's producer, Samuel Z. Arkoff, Reed told him 'What a surprise! All that dreck—and right in the middle of it, a great Method performance by Michael Moriarty!' Arkoff replied 'The dreck was my idea.'"

Michael Moriarty is amazing as the wonderfully strange, sympathetic (yet volatile) two bit crook Jimmy Quinn. An interesting character within an otherwise paint-by-numbers genre picture that works brilliantly thanks to Cohen's signature sense of humour. Moriarty and Cohen are great collaborators.

Q: How much coke did Michael Moriarty do while making this movie?
A: Too much.

And oh yeah, there's a dragon terrorizing New York and David Carradine and Richard Roundtree are trying to find it or something. But who cares about that?! Let's check back in on Michael Moriarty going insane and taking up 90% of this movie's screen time! Ugh. Watched for BMFcast 120.

In this movie you have: amateurish editing, Michael Moriarty overacting, David Carradine wayyyy underacting, and Richard Roundtree touching a lot of heads. It's fantastic.

This was director Larry Cohen's first time casting Michael Moriarty as his lead and both are in top form here. Such a schlocky creature flick doesn't deserve as good acting as it gets from Moriarty and David Carradine, but even more than the creature itself, they are a reason to watch this.

Cohen directs his own original and inventive and multi-layered script about a flying dragon that sneak-attacks citizens of modern day New York City and the detectives on the case of this mystery and another involving ritual human sacrifices. I think it's best discovering this film for yourself without any more storyline or spoilers.

I do think the well-developed characters and the dark humor coupled with the crude but great-to-behold practical effects and art-deco New York skyscraper locations make Q: The Winged Serpent a treat to behold and a film I highly recommend.

An eccentric and overlong tale of a giant bird monster in new york. There is some fantastic and cheesy stop motion effects. The unlikeable lead actor (who actually gives quite a skilled performance here) gets far more screen time than the monster which hampers the movie's effectiveness.

Still, it's up there with C.H.U.D. as far as "there's a monster in this major city and nobody believes me!" movies go

probably shouldn't have started watching this really late at night & at first everything but the flying monster attacks bored the snot out of me.

I will say though that Michael Moriarty's crook character grew on me & yeah, the monster attack scenes are PRICELESS!

One of my favourite monster movies.

Part of the 1982 Project
Film Q of March Movie Madness

I think this movie was on some pretty heavy drugs, a story that finds a prehistoric deity flying out of its nest atop a manhattan skyscraper to rip the heads of rooftop sunbathers and other assorted victims, which seem to be mixed into a standard cop movie involving a petty loser thief who knows where the beast resides and wants a million dollars for telling. Crazy but always fun.
Oh and a great poster

49/C+

It's like King Kong... only with a Lizard Bird and the dude from Law & Order.

Every time I watch a David Carradine film I can't help but think that when he's not on screen he is off in a closet somewhere asphyxiating himself.

Heard this was one of the best B-movies, but wasn't too impressed, did enjoy it when Michael Moriarty was on screen, he had some funny lines. This also has a scene that inspired Reservoir Dogs.