Larry Cohen once again wades into the muddy waters of exploitation and emerges with something far stranger and more watchable than it has any right to be. Special Effects (1984) is a trash-noir daydream filtered through a cracked lens, smeared in sleaze, soaked in paranoia, and held together by the slow-burning sorcery of Zoe Lund’s … Read More “Special Effects (1984) – Sleaze, Smoke, and Zoe Lund’s Hypnotic Eyes” »
Larry Cohen’s career has always danced on the edge of brilliance and bad taste, like a drunken magician with a switchblade. When he’s on—It’s Alive, God Told Me To, The Stuff—he’s a maestro of high-concept pulp, a king of subversive B-movie madness. But 1984’s Perfect Strangers feels less like a wild swing at genre convention … Read More “Perfect Strangers (1984) – Cohen Misses the Mark in a Hitman-Loves-Mom Misfire” »
If you’ve ever sat through a monster movie and thought, “You know what this needs? A neurotic getaway driver, an Aztec death cult, and David Carradine in a trench coat acting like this is Hamlet,” then congratulations—you might be one of the few perfectly warped minds ready to appreciate Q: The Winged Serpent. Directed by … Read More “Q: The Winged Serpent (1982) – When Quetzalcoatl Crashes Manhattan Like a B-Movie Godzilla on Acid” »
Let’s get this out of the way: Full Moon High is a comedy. At least, that’s what it claims in its police report. Written and directed by Larry Cohen—who, to be fair, gave us the delightfully weird It’s Alive—this 1981 lycanthropic farce feels less like a movie and more like what happens when you give … Read More “Full Moon High (1981) : When Werewolves Should Just Stay in the Grave” »
If you ever watched Rosemary’s Baby and thought, “What this needs is more mutant infant murder and fewer intelligent conversations,” then It Lives Again might be your kind of playpen. Directed by Larry Cohen, this 1978 sequel to It’s Alivecranks up the paranoia, turns the parental dial to eleven, and drops the viewer headfirst into … Read More “It Lives Again (1978): Mutant Babies, Deadpan Doctors & Crib-Side Carnage” »
There are movies that make you question the meaning of life, and then there are movies that make you question what Larry Cohen was smoking when he wrote them. God Told Me To falls firmly into the latter camp — and I mean that as high praise. This is a film where people randomly go … Read More “God Told Me To (1976): Divine Madness in the Age of Muzzle Flashes and Martian Junk” »
Only in the 1970s could a film like It’s Alive get made, let alone released in theaters with a straight face and a poster featuring a demonic baby carriage that looks like it might roll over your soul. Directed by the delightfully unhinged Larry Cohen, this is a movie about a killer newborn. Yes, a … Read More “It’s Alive (1974): A Monster’s Birth and a Cult Classic’s Conception” »
There are sequels… and then there’s Hell Up in Harlem, which feels less like a continuation and more like an apology written in crayon on the back of a cocktail napkin. Released the same year as Black Caesar, this follow-up answers the question nobody asked: “Hey, what if Tommy Gibbs didn’t die and just kept … Read More “Hell Up in Harlem (1973): The Godfather Part II This Ain’t” »
Let’s get one thing straight — Black Caesar is not a good movie. It’s not even a so-bad-it’s-good movie. It’s more like a half-dressed mess of a film where everyone involved looks like they thought this was a rehearsal for a better movie happening down the street. And poor Fred Williamson? The man spends the … Read More “Black Caesar (1973): The Godfather With Cramps and a Jockstrap” »
There’s a special place in cinematic purgatory reserved for movies that mistake uncomfortable silences and existential rants for art. That’s where Bone lives — squatting awkwardly between satire and pretension like a grad student who just discovered Nietzsche and won’t shut up about it. Directed by Larry Cohen — yes, the same Larry Cohen who … Read More “Bone (1972): The Home Invasion That Feels Like a Philosophy Lecture You Didn’t Sign Up For” »
