Q (1982 film)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"It's name is Quetzalcoatl... just call it Q, that's all you'll have time to say before it tears you apart!" --Q tagline |
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Q – The Winged Serpent (1982) is an American film written and directed by Larry Cohen and starring Michael Moriarty, Candy Clark, David Carradine and Richard Roundtree. The film follows a petty swindler (Moriarty) who accidentally intrudes in a case involving a winged deity monster that poses a threat to New York City. He is the only person who has information that can help the police to stop the creature.
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Plot
The Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, a winged, dragon-like lizard, takes up residence in the art-deco spire of the Chrysler Building, with frequent jaunts in the midday sun to devour various helpless New Yorkers on the rooftops. The resulting bloody mess confounds detectives, Shepard and Powell, who are already occupied with a case involving a series of bizarre ritual murders linked to a secret neo-Aztec cult.
Jimmy Quinn, a cheap, paranoid crook who wishes to be a jazz pianist, takes part in a botched diamond heist. Attempting to hide from police after the robbery, he stumbles upon the creature's lair atop the Chrysler building. Quinn abandons his attempts to settle down and leave his life of crime, deciding to extort from the city an enormous amount of money in exchange for directions to the creature's nest, which houses a colossal egg.
Quinn makes a deal with the city, $1 million for the location of the nest. He leads Shepard and a paramilitary assault team to the top of the Chrysler Building where they shoot the egg, killing the baby inside. Because the creature itself was not present in the nest, the city reneges on its offer to Quinn, taking back the $1 million and leaving him broke once again. Later, after killing Powell, the creature comes to the tower. After the showdown, the creature, riddled with bullets, falls onto the streets of Manhattan. Finally, Shepard shoots the Plumed Serpent's crazed priest (who had been committing the ritual murders) as he tries to kill Quinn to resurrect his "god". Ultimately, a second large egg hatches in a different location in the city.
Cast
- Michael Moriarty as Jimmy Quinn
- Candy Clark as Joan
- David Carradine as Detective Shepard
- Richard Roundtree as Sgt Powell
- James Dixon as Lt Murray
- Malachy McCourt as Commissioner Nick McConnell
- Fred J. Scollay as Captain Fletcher
- Peter Hock as Detective Harold Kipps
- Ron Cey as Detective Hoberman
- Mary Louise Weller as Mrs. Pauley
- John Capodice as Doyle
- Tony Page as Webb
- Shelly Desai as Kahea
- Lee Louis as Officer Banyon
Production
Q – The Winged Serpent was shot on location in and around New York City's Chrysler Building and uses the interior of the building's tower crown as a primary location. Though the owners initially refused to secure the building to the movie's production, they finally relented and agreed after they were offered $18,000 fee. The overall production budget was over $1.1 million. The film's special effects for the flying serpent were done using stop-motion animation by Randall William Cook and David Allen.
According to writer-director Larry Cohen, Michael Moriarty's character Jimmy Quinn was not a failed piano player in the script, but when Cohen discovered Moriarty wrote and played music, he used it: "I wrote the extra scene where he auditions and fails to get the job. After that we just kept building on that".
See also
