GOD TOLD ME TO (on 16mm)
GOD TOLD ME TO
Dir. Larry Cohen, 1976
USA, 91 min.
In English.
16mm
Part of BEST OF SPECTACLE 2025
TUESDAY, JANUARY 13 - 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, JANUARY 31 - 5 PM
In the outrageously radical GOD TOLD ME TO, NYPD Detective Peter J. Nicholas (Tony Lo Bianco) has to deal with some heavy shit when a series of ordinary New Yorkers go on senseless killing sprees, claiming that God told them to. His corrupt fellow cops are skeptical, but Nicholas, a shame-ridden closet Catholic who sneaks off to church every morning behind his girlfriend’s back, has a bad feeling that the violence is, in fact, divine in nature.
Who else but Larry Cohen could make a film that posits God as a murderous bastard who wreaks havoc on a turbulent New York City, and features a messiah of sorts with a stigmata-vagina on his side who talks about his “ancestahs”? God or whatever it is communicates through a cadre of twelve Wall Street types, suggesting that he’s learned a thing or two since the last time he came around to earth and got himself killed. The film’s climax takes place in a burned-out Bronx tenement and involves a variation on sex between men that would make many a Catholic tremble with sacrilegious excitement.
Presented on 16mm.
GOD TOLD ME TO
Dir. Larry Cohen, 1976
USA, 91 min.
In English.
16mm
Part of BEST OF SPECTACLE 2025
TUESDAY, JANUARY 13 - 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, JANUARY 31 - 5 PM
In the outrageously radical GOD TOLD ME TO, NYPD Detective Peter J. Nicholas (Tony Lo Bianco) has to deal with some heavy shit when a series of ordinary New Yorkers go on senseless killing sprees, claiming that God told them to. His corrupt fellow cops are skeptical, but Nicholas, a shame-ridden closet Catholic who sneaks off to church every morning behind his girlfriend’s back, has a bad feeling that the violence is, in fact, divine in nature.
Who else but Larry Cohen could make a film that posits God as a murderous bastard who wreaks havoc on a turbulent New York City, and features a messiah of sorts with a stigmata-vagina on his side who talks about his “ancestahs”? God or whatever it is communicates through a cadre of twelve Wall Street types, suggesting that he’s learned a thing or two since the last time he came around to earth and got himself killed. The film’s climax takes place in a burned-out Bronx tenement and involves a variation on sex between men that would make many a Catholic tremble with sacrilegious excitement.
Presented on 16mm.
