What a great title! 1976's GOD TOLD ME TO is a
little gem from low budget director Larry Cohen who made a career out of
cranking out solid high concept thrillers. They were never great, never bad and
always entertaining.
Cohen seems like the kind of guy who thought
of the phrase, "God told me to" first and then constructed a movie
around it. The flick's about a homicide detective (Tony Lo Bianco) who
encounters several seemingly random mass murders in New York. When asked why
they went on killing sprees, each perpetrator says, "God told me to"
just before they die.
So now we have a cool title and an intriguing
premise and things get even crazier from there. Cohen's a director who's not
afraid to go in crazy directions. He's also not afraid to shoot on the fly,
capturing great scenes in and around New York City without bothering to get
permits. This guerilla style leads to lots of shaky handheld shots, but that
just adds to the immediacy of the thriller – you really feel like you're there
with the detective.
The other thing that stands out in this production is the acting. Usually with low budgets you get some wooden acting, whether it's because they didn't have much time to work on the movie or any number of other reasons, who knows. Not so here – Lo Bianco is great as the lead, but there's also a killer scene midway through for Sylvia Sidney as an old woman with a dreadful (and unbelievable) secret that has left her traumatized, and Richard Lynch as a sinister but Christ-like cult leader.
The other thing that stands out in this production is the acting. Usually with low budgets you get some wooden acting, whether it's because they didn't have much time to work on the movie or any number of other reasons, who knows. Not so here – Lo Bianco is great as the lead, but there's also a killer scene midway through for Sylvia Sidney as an old woman with a dreadful (and unbelievable) secret that has left her traumatized, and Richard Lynch as a sinister but Christ-like cult leader.
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