CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Aubrey Hackett While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

dogcow I find Larry Cohen movies are difficult to hate, but also difficult to love. This one is a prime example. Cohen has a knack for big and clever ideas, and for somehow convincing some of the best New York character actors to be in his films. Despite this his films never seem to gel quite as well as his premises suggest they should. Maybe it is his uneven directing style, or the one-take ultra low budgets. Whatever it is they always seem to me like I'm watching a first draft screenplay, lots of promise and no polish.This film is a prime example. Certainly what hollywood wheelers and dealers used to call a "high concept" picture. The premise, as I'm sure you are aware, involves a police detective (Lo Bianco) investigating a series of senseless murders in the big apple. The first of which evokes (likely intentional) echoes of Charles Whitman's infamous rampage from the U of Texas clock tower. When the detective asks the killer the inevitable question "why'd you do it", all he can answer is "God told me to". As the body counts mount, (and Lo Bianco becomes more unhinged) the titular refrain is repeated by perpetrators of various atrocities across the city.As we delve deeper into the mystery, the film takes an extremely unexpected though not wholly unpleasant turn into science fiction, as the cop finds an unearthly explanation for the killings-- just not the one the title might suggest.Unfortunately this is where the film completely falls apart. What should be the climax of the movie comes about 1/3 of the way in. The plot quickly degenerates into a quagmire of nonsensical sub-plots from which it never really recovers. Ebert famously opined that he thought for sure the reels were being shown out of order. I felt more like watching someone flip the channels on a tv through several different movies as the various subplots unfolded. First you get a scene of a police procedural, then a science fiction scene, then a scene out of a blaxploitation/gangster film, then back to the police subplot. Genre bending can often be a benefit of b-movies in this case its a determent. It left me consistently saying "who is that again? Whats going on here". The subplots sort-of come together but the story is told so incoherently I could not help zoning out. When the twist ending came (was it a twist? Im not exactly sure), I was too confused to be surprised. I even rewound the last 10 minutes a few times and still could not figure out exactly what the hell i had just seen.Many seem to consider this Cohen's best film, I would say its actually one of his worst. The shame is the concept is actually very good and the first third is really well done. It is just a shame he seemingly ran out of ideas before he ran out of film. I'd certainly rank this as much inferior film to "Q" , "The Stuff", or even his Blaxploitation pictures. Overall I recommend this to Larry Cohen fans or b-movie completists. I doubt many others will bother sitting through the entire thing.

MartinHafer Peter (Tony Lo Bianco) is a detective brought in on a strange case. As the film begins, some guy with a sniper rifle starts killing people on the streets of New York. The killer is cornered and Peter tries to talk him down from the tower where he's been shooting. However the guy jumps...just after saying that God told him to kill these people. Soon, other such crimes begin springing up all around---and each killer attributed this to God telling them to kill. In each case, oddly, they also seem very calm...and Peter is perplexed. Where this goes next is NOT where normal folks would expect and I am sure many would find it all sacrilegious as Peter begins to realize the killings are being orchestrated by a modern day Jesus...another Son of God born of a virgin. But it gets MUCH weirder!I liked the first half of the film much more than the second. The second portion is strange and a bit confusing. This isn't necessarily all bad, as the filmmaker, Larry Cohen, does take a lot of risks and makes a truly unique film that is much like "The Omen" meets a detective film! My only complaint is just how odd and unsatisfying the ending was for me.By the way, if you do watch, look for Andy Kaufman playing a murderous cop early into the movie.

Rathko In B-movie schlockmeister Larry Cohen's follow up to the cult classic 'It's Alive' a devout New York City detective tries to find out who is mysteriously persuading random citizens to go berserk in the name of God. Attempting part slow burn suspense in the vein of 'Rosemary's Baby', part religious meditation a la 'The Exorcist', Cohen simply doesn't have the talent as a screenwriter to overcome his exploitation origins. Instead, the pacing is painfully slow and there are few scares and very little suspense. The periodic descents into blaxploitation cliché don't help matters. The performances are sound, and it's always a pleasure to watch the late, great Sandy Dennis, but by the time we get to the gloriously over-the-top last act and the appearance of the bizarre man/woman antagonist with a vagina in his/her chest it's not enough to salvage what is ultimately a pretty boring movie.

HumanoidOfFlesh Set in New York "God Told Me To" stars Tony LoBianco as Peter Nicholas,a Catholic police detective investigating a series of murders being committed by various random,seemingly normal assailants,who claim that God told them to kill.Nicholas finds that the murderers have been influenced by a religious cult leader Bernard Phillips(Richard Lynch)whose origins are a mystery.Creepy and suspenseful "God Told Me To" offers enough weird twists and turns to satisfy fans of 70's horror.A famous comedian Andy Kaufman appears in a cameo as a possessed policeman who goes on a shooting rampage at the Saint Patrick's Day parade.What is so chilling about this film is the calm and placidity with which the unlikely mass murderers describe their crimes.Like "Alice Sweet Alice" this film is seeped in strong religious overtones and is as odd as "Blood Freak".8 out of 10.