| Q: The Winged Serpent | |
|---|---|
 original movie poster for Q |
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| Directed by | Larry Cohen |
| Produced by | Larry Cohen |
| Written by | Larry Cohen |
| Starring | Michael Moriarty Candy Clark David Carradine Richard Roundtree James Dixon Ron Cey |
| Music by | Robert O. Ragland |
| Cinematography | Robert Levi Fred Murphy |
| Editing by | Armond Lebowitz |
| Distributed by | United Film Distribution Company (UFDC) |
| Release date(s) | October 29, 1982 (USA) |
| Running time | 93 mins |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $1,200,000 (estimated) |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Q (also known as The Winged Serpent and as Q - The Winged Serpent) is a 1982 horror film written and directed by Larry Cohen and starring David Carradine, Michael Moriarty, Candy Clark and Richard Roundtree. The original music score was composed by Robert O. Ragland. The film was marketed with the tagline "It's name is Quetzalcoatl... just call it Q, that's all you'll have time to say before it tears you apart!" The film's premise is that the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, the "winged serpent", has been resurrected by a cult in modern New York City and is flying about, snatching people off the skyscrapers. Carradine and Roundtree play police detectives investigating the sudden rash of suspicious deaths, disappearances and dismemberings. Meanwhile a petty criminal (Moriarty), on the run after a failed robbery, accidentally discovers the creature's lair and tries to blackmail the city into paying for the information. Q is laced with Cohen's trademark throwaway humour. Confronted with the mysterious death of a window cleaner, a detective reasons "maybe his head got loose and fell off"; and later someone speculates that the monster may have come to the Big Apple because "New York is famous for good eating". Like Cohen's earlier God Told Me To, Q notes the similarities between gods and monsters; at one point Carradine's character speculates that the only real difference between the two is that monsters can be killed.
Main cast
- Michael Moriarty - Jimmy Quinn
- Candy Clark - Joan
- David Carradine - Detective Shepard
- Richard Roundtree - Sergeant Powell
- James Dixon - Lieutenant Murray
- Malachy McCourt - Commissioner McConnell
- Ron Cey - Detective Hoberman
