Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
A fleeing gangland flunky discovers the New York nest of Aztec deity Quetzalcoatl, the man-eating flying serpent.
Larry Cohen's Q is a gloriously idiosyncratic B-movie that punches well above its weight thanks to Michael Moriarty's unhinged, jazz-improvising performance and a genuinely novel premise blending Aztec mythology with New York City grit. The plot is entertainingly pulpy but structurally loose, with the Quetzalcoatl creature sequences often feeling disjointed from the police procedural elements. The low-budget stop-motion effects and handheld cinematography are functional at best, giving the film a rough, unpolished look. The ending deflates somewhat, wrapping up the monster threat hastily while leaving the human drama unresolved in a way that feels anticlimactic rather than deliberately open-ended. Still, as a cult oddity it remains genuinely one-of-a-kind.