Movie: "Q: The Winged Serpent"

[teenybuffalo]

Eat 'em!  Eat 'em!  Crunch, crunch!

The Hemulen and I finally found time to sit down and watch Q: The Winged Serpent (1982).  I loved it.  It's cheese-tastic, both intentionally silly and unintentionally halfwitted, and sometimes brilliant.  It flaps back and forth between being a stupid B-movie and a very sharp and well-written B-movie.  Most of

Comments

[rezendi]

This sounds awesome, in its way. I must track it down sometime.

[teenybuffalo]

You will not regret it if you do. That first ten minutes wandering around the Chrysler Building make it worthwhile right away.

[handful_ofdust]

Q is kind of amazing, for all the reasons stated. As for Michael Moriarty, he did several other films with Larry Cohen (The Stuff, Return to 'Salem's Lot), but is probably best-known for having played Ben Stone, the first EADA on Law & Order, over the show's first three seasons. Then he underwent some sort of mental meltdown, declared himself a "political exile" and moved to Nova Scotia, where he drank for several years solid until moving on to Vancouver and becoming a Canadian citizen. He still shows up in stuff shot here now and then--he was the Deep Throat equivalent on Psi Factor, for example, our CanCon X-Files rip-off--and doesn't look too awful anymore, though he went through a phase where he was horribly swollen. But he's never quite re-attained his Jimmy Quinn-level mojo, which is a real pity.

[sovay]

Then he underwent some sort of mental meltdown, declared himself a "political exile" and moved to Nova Scotia, where he drank for several years solid until moving on to Vancouver and becoming a Canadian citizen.

Just something about this phrasing makes it sound as though Canadian citizenship is the natural consequence of a protracted bender in the Maritimes.

[handful_ofdust]

Well, I guess it was for him.;)

[sovay]

The cop flatters and pets the petty thief until he almost admits the exact location of the monster, but Quinn is holding out because he's never, ever felt important before, and all the attention is making him feel like the king of New York City.

That does make the film sound worth watching.

Have a roundtable with people who made the thing! "'The Chicken That Ate New York'? That could've been the title!"

[moon_custafer]

I can also recommend The Ambulance, by the same production team. Which begins with a comic book artist (Stan Lee shows up later as his boss, before Stan Lee was doing cameos everywhere) harassing/flirting with a woman on the street. Just as she starts to like him, she collapses. A weirdly old-fashioned-looking ambulance shows up with suspicious alacrity and takes her away. Our protagonist tries to find out which hospital she's in so he can bring her some flowers, and discovers no one matching her description was brought into any hospital in NYC that day. Eventually he comes to suspect a fake ambulance is kidnapping people. He's right, of course, but no one will believe him, except maybe a beautiful police detective (don't recall the actress), a crazy police detective (James Earl Jones, madly chewing gum and scenery), and the world's oldest cub reporter (Red Buttons).

As with Q this showcases Gritty 1980s New York -- there's a bit where our guy runs from the people who are trying to kill him for knowing too much, only to stumble onto

[handful_ofdust]

I love the fact that The Ambulance was essentially made because Cohen's car had died and his friends chipped in to buy him the titular vehicle, at which point he was like: "Hey, I could make a whole movie about this!"

[sovay]

Cohen's car had died and his friends chipped in to buy him the titular vehicle, at which point he was like: "Hey, I could make a whole movie about this!"

That's great. I hope he went on driving it after production wrapped.

[negothick]

Great post. Deserves a wider readership! Now I MUST see this movie.