God Told Me To

R

Released Jul 11, 1979

1 hr. 31 min.

Horror

Crime

Drama

Sci-Fi

List

79%

14 Reviews

Tomatometer

52%

1,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

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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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

Full Review

Brad P

Larry Cohen Cult Classic

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

03/21/23

Full Review

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

Shayla S

Strange and very weird but good.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

12/15/22

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

jon c

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 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

03/31/23

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

Bernard Phillips

Deborah Raffin

Casey Forster, Peter's Mistress

Sylvia Sidney

Elizabeth Mullin

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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

Full Review

Nick Schager

Lessons of Darkness

Intriguing but exasperatingly uneven.

Rated: B

Jan 31, 2006

Full Review

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

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 headiest soup he ever concocted…

Rated: 4/5

Jan 26, 2023

Full Review

Matt Brunson

Film Frenzy

With such efforts as Q -- The Winged Serpent and It's Alive on his resume, it's saying something to note that God Told Me To might be the most bizarre of all films from Larry Cohen.

Rated: 3/4

Jul 23, 2022

Full Review

Eve Tushnet

Patheos

...whoof, I could not care less about the explanation we get, it's almost calculated to repel my interest and make the whole theological aspect of the drama seem pointless.

Jun 30, 2020

Full Review

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

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