{"id":25057,"date":"2022-07-18T23:51:26","date_gmt":"2022-07-19T06:51:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/?p=25057"},"modified":"2022-07-18T23:51:26","modified_gmt":"2022-07-19T06:51:26","slug":"blasts-from-the-past-blu-ray-review-god-told-me-to-1976","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/?p=25057","title":{"rendered":"Blasts from the Past! Blu-ray Review: GOD TOLD ME TO (1976)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This 4k Ultra HD and Blu-ray combo disc from Blue\nUnderground is now available at most retailers.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Writer\/director\/producer Larry Cohen will be a familiar name\nto any genre film fan. During his lengthy career, he raised funds for and made\nall kinds of genre movies, including It\u2019s Alive<\/em>, Q: The Winged\nSerpent<\/em> and The Stuff<\/em> (a personal favorite of mine) among many\nothers. While those titles are all well-regarded, one of his biggest cult\nfeatures is God Told Me To<\/em>. Blue Underground have decided to restore and\nrelease a 2-disc \u201cSpecial Edition\u201d of the title that contains a 4K Ultra HD\ndisc and a Blu-ray of the film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those unfamiliar with this story, it involves a police\ndetective named Peter Nicholas (Tony Lo Bianco) investigating a series of\nshocking crimes taking place across New York City. Random citizens are\ncommitting murder and shocking locals. One figure climbs up a water silo and\nbegins opening fire on pedestrians, another coldly shoots his own wife and\nchildren, and a cop (played by Andy Kaufman in his first role) guns down\nattendees at a St. Patrick\u2019s Day parade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When each of the individuals involved is asked why they did\nit, all they will say is, \u201cGod told me to.\u201d For Nicholas, the trail ultimately\nleads to a mysterious figure named Bernard Phillips (Richard Lynch). But when\nthey finally encounter one another, things do not go as expected and Nicholas\nbegins to wonder if he may have some strange connection to the events as a\nresult of his own bizarre personal history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea of God telling individuals to kill a powerful one\nfor a movie and the flick features some really jarring and disturbing material.\nThis is especially true early when people randomly act out without any sort of\nwarning and leave innocents in their wake. Many of the authentic New York City\nlocations add an air of realism to the proceedings and these sequences really\nmake the skin crawl. The cast members are all excellent as well, with the lead\nslowly becoming more and more unhinged as his investigation proceeds and his\nbackstory is revealed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The tale takes a completely bonkers turn during the final\nact, when Nicholas confronts his prime suspect. While one might assume that the\nprotagonist would be dealing with a charismatic and influential cult leader, a kind\nof mass hysteria or simply an angry, vengeful deity, this tale goes in a\ncompletely unexpected and surreal direction. Indeed, it ends up connecting its\nstar to the terrible events, but introduces UFOs and hermaphrodites into the\nmix, also suggesting that some characters may be the offspring of Biblical\nfigures. In some respects, this reviewer wishes that the film had taken a more\nrealistic approach and had avoided some of the more outrageous elements that\nare revealed late in the movie. However, while the movie is completely crazy\nand almost nonsensical at times, that also makes it unpredictable, fascinating\nto watch and enjoyably subversive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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You can always count on Blue Underground to do an incredible\njob with transfers and this film is no exception. While the film used to look\nrather flatly lit and dingy on VHS and Blu-ray, it has been completely\nupgraded. There is some film grain present, but the image is clean and sharp\nand the lighting looks far less haphazard. Some of the scenes are well photographed\nand there are some great camera angles used, including a low-angle shot from\nthe floor of an elevator looking up at the characters. This is a much more\nvisually impressive movie than I remembered and it now appears on disc as\noriginally intended by the filmmaker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The disc contains two excellent commentary tracks. The first\nis an archived talk with the late Larry Cohen who goes over how he managed to\nmake this oddity. It seems that Cohen was an irrepressible force who\nmore-or-less willed this picture into life. He notes how often he stole shots\nand filmed in busy New York locations without permits, which added scale and\nproduction value to the picture. Amazingly, he, Tony Lo Bianco and the crew\nactually went down into the New York subway system and shot a scene on the main\nplatform with people around, completing the bit before anyone arrived to ask if\nthey had permission. Cohen also relays a stunning tale while trying to capture\nfootage for the mass shooting featured at the beginning in the film. After heading\nto a building roof location and being told by the props manager that the weapon\nneeded for the scene wasn\u2019t available, the filmmaker asked the crowd watching\nif anyone there had a rifle. Remarkably, a person living in the building did\nknow how to access one and the gun collected was the one used in the final\nfilm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cohen tells incredible stories throughout and is a joy to\nlisten to. But a newly recorded movie historian commentary is equally engaging.\nOne of the speakers is Steve Mitchell, who was friends with the filmmaker and\ndirected the 2017 documentary King Cohen<\/em>. He has just as many stories\nabout the writer\/director and also shares some of his thoughts about the brash\nfigure, translating some of the moviemaker\u2019s more outlandish statements.\nMitchell notes that while Cohen was a maverick independent, he had a soft spot\nfor classic Hollywood features and loved casting aged stars from his favorite\nflicks. The historian also goes into other aspects of guerilla filmmaking Cohen\nused on the production. More interesting tidbits include the fact that Robert\nForster was originally cast as the protagonist, but parted ways early into\nshooting. After choosing Tony Lo Bianco to replace the performer, Cohen learned\nthat his new star was also ready to jump ship if another part came his way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Despite all the drama behind the scenes, it appears that\nthere were no hard feelings between anyone who worked on the project. There are\nalso interviews with star Tony Lo Bianco, who expresses his enjoyment working\nwith Cohen. The special effects artist also discusses his work on the film. And\nthose who want to hear even more from the man behind the camera will enjoy a\nQ&A with Cohen recorded at the New Beverly cinema in Los Angeles and a\nsecond taken at the Lincoln Center in New York. Additionally, there are tons of\nads and trailers and other publicity materials included on the\ndisc.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

God Told Me To<\/em> is a surreal experience and one with a\nstory that jumps around haphazardly, but it\u2019s still something to behold. It has\nauthentic character and oozes New York atmosphere throughout. While Blue\nUnderground has cleaned up the picture, it doesn\u2019t take away from the\ngrittiness on display. This is an enjoyable film that could only have been made\nby one eccentric voice and vision and it\u2019s great to have a high-quality version\nof it available to the public. Anyone who enjoys Larry Cohen movies should\ndefinitely pick this title up! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This 4k Ultra HD and Blu-ray combo disc from Blue Underground is now available at most retailers. Writer\/director\/producer Larry Cohen will be a familiar name to any genre film fan. During his lengthy career, he raised funds for and made all kinds of genre movies, including It\u2019s Alive, Q: The Winged Serpent and The Stuff […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":25068,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[107,2928,3202,4983,8410,8411,8412,9319,12082,17005,19380,22825,23093],"class_list":["post-25057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dvdblu-ray-reviews","tag-107","tag-blasts-from-the-past-blu-ray-review","tag-blue-underground","tag-cult","tag-god-told-me-to","tag-god-told-me-to-blu-ray-review","tag-god-told-me-to-review","tag-horror","tag-larry-cohen","tag-richard-lynch","tag-supernatural","tag-thriller","tag-tony-lo-bianco"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25057\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}