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God Told Me To

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God Told Me To

R

Released Jul 11, 1979

1h 31m

Horror

Crime

Drama

Sci-Fi

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Popcornmeter

80%

Tomatometer

15 Reviews

51%

Popcornmeter

1,000+ Ratings

A New York police detective (Tony Lo Bianco) ties a death rampage to a cult and its leader (Richard Lynch), half man, half alien.

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Chuck Bowen

Slant Magazine

God Told Me To is a film of contrasts, most notably between queer and straight, male and female, righteousness and blasphemy, heaven and hell, hope and hopelessness, repression and progression, and law and anarchy.

Jul 23, 2022

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Nick Schager

Lessons of Darkness

Intriguing but exasperatingly uneven.

Rated: B

Jan 31, 2006

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Roger Ebert

Chicago Sun-Times

There were times when I thought the projectionist was showing the reels in random order, as a quiet joke on the hapless audience.

Rated: 1/4

Oct 23, 2004

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Sean Axmaker

Stream on Demand

It’s prime pre-X-Files alien conspiracy meets religious iconography, driven with edgy action scenes and unsettling explosions of violence from seemingly disconnected perpetrators.

Apr 26, 2025

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David Nusair

Reel Film Reviews

...compelling subject matter that’s employed to perpetually (and pervasively) hit-and-miss effect...

Rated: 2.5/4

Jul 9, 2024

Full Review

Eddie Harrison

film-authority.com

…Larry Cohen was something of a whizz with outré concepts, but God Told Me To mixes horror, demonology, science fiction, conspiracy theories and much, much more in the most oddball soup he ever concocted…

Rated: 4/5

Jan 26, 2023

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KARL O

Such a remarkably bad movies. It borrows ideas from far better movies and produces this vomit. The only thinv worse than the film itself are the performances.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

07/06/24

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g j

An incoherent, muddled, badly acted mess that, by equal measures, manages to be both silly and boring.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

05/06/24

Full Review

Audience Member

Are we responsible for our own actions or does a higher power tell us to do so? Larry Cohen produces and directs this 70s thriller Several people in NYC are gunned down and a detective Peter Nicholas tries to figure out why the perpetrator did it Might have something to do with a cult involving several others committing random acts of violence Nicholas might be onto a connection having to do with aliens This is an uneven police procedural but has plenty of interesting ideas Underlying satire is hidden in here too An odd mixture of divine intervention and senseless violence Nothing scary but turns an old murder-cult case into something intergalactic

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

10/23/23

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Brad P

Larry Cohen Cult Classic

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

03/21/23

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Jonathan O

God Told Me To it's an intense suspense shocking horror film ever made.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

05/10/23

Full Review

Audience Member

A genre-bending sci-fi, mystery, and horror film that never fails to be anything less than interesting.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

01/15/23

Full Review

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Larry Cohen

Director

Tony Lo Bianco

Det.Lt. Peter J. Nicholas NYPD Homicide

Sandy Dennis

Martha Nicholas

Richard Lynch

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Deborah Raffin

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Synopsis

A New York police detective (Tony Lo Bianco) ties a death rampage to a cult and its leader (Richard Lynch), half man, half alien.

Director: Larry Cohen
Producer: Larry Cohen
Screenwriter: Larry Cohen
Distributor: Blue Underground, World Beyond Video, Image Entertainment Inc., New World Pictures
Production Co: New World Pictures, Larco Productions
Rating: R
Genre: Horror, Crime, Drama, Sci-Fi
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Jul 11, 1979, Original
Release Date (Streaming): Aug 9, 2017
Runtime: 1h 31m
Sound Mix: Mono

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