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 on murder sprees, claim divine inspiration, and the plot only gets weirder from there. Think The French Connection meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers, rewritten by an alien with Catholic guilt and a grudge against the NYPD.
Released in 1976, Cohen’s film is low-budget, high-concept, and completely deranged — in the best way. It’s about as subtle as a brick through a stained glass window, and yet it’s more thought-provoking than most prestige dramas trying to win Oscars. What starts as a gritty cop thriller about seemingly random acts of mass murder becomes a cosmic nightmare involving virgin births, telepathy, mutant messiahs, and maybe — just maybe — God Himself with a lightsaber for a penis.
The Setup: He Had a Reason… God Told Him To
It opens with a bang. Literally. A peaceful New Yorker climbs a water tower and starts picking people off with a rifle during the St. Patrick’s Day parade. His last words before the police gun him down? “God told me to.” Welcome to the movie, folks.
That single line becomes a mantra as other inexplicably ordinary people — a husband, a cop, even a bodybuilder (played by actual muscle-man Andy Kaufman in a rare dramatic role) — commit horrific crimes and calmly explain their actions by citing divine orders. If it sounds like a satire of religious extremism, that’s because it is — but it’s also a full-on horror movie, a sci-fi head trip, and a police procedural that keeps losing its grip on reality.
Tony Lo Bianco: The Cop with Too Many Questions
Holding it all together is Tony Lo Bianco as Detective Peter Nicholas, a devout Catholic who’s caught between his faith and the mounting evidence that something not of this Earth is calling the shots. Lo Bianco plays it dead serious, which only makes everything around him seem more unhinged. He spends most of the film with a furrowed brow and a trench coat that’s seen better days, looking like Al Pacino’s exhausted cousin who stumbled into the wrong genre.
As Peter follows the clues — visiting crime scenes, interrogating unhinged witnesses, and snooping around fertility clinics — the film starts to unravel in the most glorious way. Cohen doesn’t spoon-feed the mystery. He ladles it out in chunky, steaming spoonfuls of “what-the-hell-am-I-watching,” and you either keep slurping or you tap out. Me? I finished the bowl and licked the spoon.
Cohen’s Theological Hallucination
This is Larry Cohen in full guerrilla-filmmaking mode — filming illegally on New York streets, shoving cameras in real parade crowds, and making the city feel like a ticking time bomb. He taps into ‘70s paranoia and injects it with LSD and holy water. You’re never quite sure what’s real, what’s divine, or what’s just Cohen chuckling behind the camera.
Cohen’s worldview is clear: institutions are cracked, religion is weaponized, and belief is a dangerous thing when mixed with alien DNA. The film’s central mystery — what exactly is whispering in the ears of these killers — leads Peter to a revelation so weird it makes Rosemary’s Baby look like an episode of Touched by an Angel.
Without spoiling too much, let’s just say that our “messiah” is a glowing hermaphroditic alien-human hybrid with mind control powers, born from a virgin, now living in a condemned apartment and luring disciples to madness. Oh, and his father may have been a beam of cosmic light. Cohen doesn’t just jump the shark — he baptizes it, anoints it as the antichrist, and sends it rampaging down Fifth Avenue.
Grit, Grime, and God Complexes
One of the joys of God Told Me To is how seriously it takes its insane premise. There’s very little winking or camp — Cohen believed in his madness, and that conviction makes the movie both compelling and bizarrely moving. This isn’t schlock pretending to be art. It’s schlock that is art, whether it likes it or not.
The visuals are pure ‘70s grit: smoky alleys, flickering fluorescent lights, and NYPD precincts that look like they’ve never been cleaned. There’s no glossy cinematography to hide behind — just handheld cameras, raw sound, and a city on the verge of religious or existential collapse.
There’s also a surprising amount of psychological depth. Peter isn’t just a cop chasing clues; he’s a man unraveling at the seams. His Catholic guilt isn’t window dressing — it’s a core theme. He questions God, faith, and the very nature of good and evil, and when he finally meets the entity behind the chaos, it’s not the God he prayed to. It’s something stranger, lonelier, and terrifyingly powerful.
Glorious Insanity and That Score
The music, by Bernard Herrmann (yes, that Bernard Herrmann, of Psycho fame), is jagged and ominous — sadly one of his final works. It gives the film an air of prestige it doesn’t really earn, but desperately needs. Herrmann’s score hums like an anxious prayer set to violins and distant thunder. When the murders start, the music screams. When the revelations come, it whispers.
And the ending? Let’s just say it doesn’t exactly tie everything up in a bow. Cohen offers answers but leaves you with more questions. That’s his style — he doesn’t give closure, he gives sleepless nights.
Final Thoughts: God, Guns, and Gonzo Genius
God Told Me To is not for everyone. It’s messy. It’s low-budget. It occasionally feels like Cohen stitched together three different screenplays using duct tape and a bottle of NyQuil. But somehow, it works. It’s audacious, provocative, and unforgettable. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a priest screaming conspiracy theories in Times Square — unnerving, oddly convincing, and too loud to ignore.
This is a movie that asks big questions about belief and wraps them in scenes of psychic homicide and alien mythology. It’s the kind of horror that lingers because it doesn’t just scare you — it bothers you. It sticks under your skin like a splinter of divine doubt.
So if you’re in the mood for something brave, bizarre, and totally batshit — trust me: God Told Me To.
Rating: 9 out of 10 glowing messiah crotches.
Because only Larry Cohen could make you fear both God and groin in the same scene.
