Probably ranks with It’s Alive as Larry Cohen’s best known film as director. It has many of his hallmarks – imagination, wit, a sort of exasperated affection for New York and its inhabitants, a feeling of being sloppily put together.
The central idea is a good one – an Aztec serpent is running amok in NYC – and Michael Moriarty is fun as a piano-playing ex-junkie who stumbles upon the creature’s nest and tries to blackmail the city. After that though the ideas seem to run out and the film does drag. It felt as though it needed another character or subplot or something – maybe more of Cnady Clark, or to find out who the local religos are earlier, something like that. I loved Moriarty in his scenes with David Carradine, two very different actors having a good time together. Moriarty’s singing on the soundtrack is a little irritating.
NB Sam Arkoff produced this in the wake of his departure from AIP – along with teen comedy classic Up the Creek (I’m not being sarcastic, I loved that film growing up). He didn’t make much else, which is a shame. Great pity he sold that studio.
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