Q: THE WINGED SERPENT
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| Rated R
| | Copyright 1982 Arkoff International and Larco Prod Inc.
| | Reviewed by Brad
on 15 April 2001
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- Detective Shepard - David Carradine! That's right, Mr. Kung Fu himself. Here he's the um... hero I guess. He is your typical drinks too much works too little kind of cop.
- Sergeant Powell - Richard Roundtree! That's right, Shaft is here. Mostly as Q-chow, but he's here.
- Jimmy Quinn - Take 94% weasel, add 4% oily funk, and toss in 2% bone matter. What have you got? The film's other heroic (by default because he lives) main character, that's what.
- The Professor - All Gilligan's Island jokes aside, he is the local ancient Aztec god expert. He knows way too much about the big Q. I wonder if that means anything? Shot by police and presumed dead.
- Police Commissioner - Standard Irish police commissioner type. Yea you heard me; the last of the great native Irish NYPD Commissioners.
- Quetzalcoatl - The movie tells us it's an Aztec God of some sort or another. Actually it's a pretty decent Claymation monster swooping through Manhattan and chewing up more than just the scenery.
- The Rest - Numerous police, crooks, sunbathers, joggers and window washers are all food for the beast eventually.
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Next to Tokyo, New York City must be the most exciting place to live. Every other day there's something fantastically strange going on to keep one occupied. Whether it is a gigantic monkey on Monday, cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers on Wednesday or pissed off extra terrestrials on Friday, this is one happening city. Well, you can add an avenging Aztech god to the list of exciting activities New York has to offer. The plot to the movie is as follows.
It seems as if something is cruising around the Big Apple lunching on rooftop sunbathers, window washers, and construction workers. New York, being a city of millions, of course nobody sees a thing. In come Detective Shepard (Mr. Kung Fu himself) and Sergeant Powell (Shaft in the flesh), as a couple of New York's finest.
As if all these strange disappearances aren't enough; a series of ritual killings starts dragging Shepard's mojo down, as a series of ritual killings will do. This new string of killings brings Shepard to the local museum where he meets The Professor (an expert in Aztec god's and rituals). It's not explained how Shepard makes this bold move, but I think it has something to do with those whiskey stops so early in the morn. Anyway, he gets some books, complete with plenty of pictures, from the nice Professor and heads home to his swank little pad and his quite um... ...homely woman. Once there he gets it in his head that they are dealing with Quetzalcoatl, don't try to pronounce it cause it'll never happen, an Aztec God of some sort and he goes on to fill out his police report accordingly.
It's about this time we get to meet Jimmy Quinn - a greasy little weasel who signs on to help rob a diamond store named Neil Diamond's of all things. The job goes off and Jimmy runs with the satchel-o-diamonds, which he manages to lose within five minutes. While on the run from the cops he heads to his lawyer's office in the Chrysler building. With his lawyer out and having set off the door alarm Jimmy does the only logical thing which is head up into the upper parts of the building.
I've been in few skyscrapers, although never in the off limits area, but if the Learning Channel has taught me anything it's that those areas of a building are used for all the maintenance equipment. However, once Jimmy gets out of the main hallway, the building is a shit pit with boarded up windows and piles and piles of useless garbage everywhere. Anyway, back to the movie. Jimmy discovers a nest with a huge egg in it and, showing intelligence for the first time, high tails it for home. Being the brain trust he is it only takes a day for Jimmy to get caught by his fellow crooks looking for their diamonds. Having lost said diamonds Jimmy leads the crooks to the large nest he found the previous day and has some fun feeding the local wildlife.
Upon completing his part of the Clean Up New York Campaign for the day, Jimmy heads home only to get pinched by the cops as he enters his building. Not relishing the thought of doing more time, Jimmy meets with the Police Commissioner, Chief, Detective Shepard, and Sergeant Powell to play his trump card and spill about the nest, but only under conditions. First he gets a pardon for all the stuff he's done, next he gets a million dollars cash, and finally he gets all the picture and book rights to the creature. Once all that's out of the way the cops storm the roof of the Chrysler building looking to bust some caps on that bird's ass. With the bird having already fled they can only kill the egg and baby inside it then wait for mommy to return.
In the meantime Powell making one of his few appearances in the film follow the Professor (remember him?) to an abandoned warehouse where he prepares to become the final sacrifice to Q. The police bust in and save the Professor by shooting him! They give chase to the masked ritual master and follow him onto the roof. He gets away as Q comes down to eat Powell. I guess he wasn't the star of this movie, as they usually make it to the end of the movie.
Back at the Chrysler building, Shepard's patience is rewarded when mommy comes back to combat the police who have conveniently positioned themselves in little baskets on the outside of the building. You can probably guess the outcome of this strategic decision. The police manage to shoot the hell out of Q before it kills most of them except Shepard, who stayed safely inside the building. With Q dead the only loose end left to tie up is Jimmy who is pacing around in some run down motel room after being evicted by his girlfriend for general asshole behavior. Jimmy answers a knock at the door only to be accosted by an Indian (as in the country) sounding man who holds a knife to Jimmy's throat and insists he pray so that he may be killed. Imagine his dismay when Jimmy refuses and therefore cannot be killed. Just then Shepard kicks in the door and, without hesitation, shoots the man in the head. He then proceeds to shoot the crazy man several more times, which in all fairness he was asking for. Jimmy decides he's going straight and is determined to get a job to win his woman back. Shepard laughs at this revelation and switches the sign on the door to "Maid please service room." As the movie draws to a close we see a warehouse somewhere in New York with another nest complete with egg. We are left to assume the egg was barren and never hatched or it did and people in New York have just learned to live with it. Either way The End.
This movie is actually very well done given the release date and subject matter. It could have been played many different ways and in the end the very light drama mixed with the horror aspect makes for a very watchable and re-watchable movie. I bought this movie on DVD based on the IMDB description and can honestly say I wasn't disappointed with any aspect of it. My only real beef with the movie was the small amount of screen time Richard Roundtree had in it and the friction his character had with Shepard for no explained reason.
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| Things I Learned From This Movie: | |
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- The top of the Chrysler building is a boarded up sty.
- New Yorkers never look up.
- Body parts falling from the sky really don't bother New Yorkers.
- For all we know God might be a bird.
- The Constitution doesn't apply to people in prison.
- The NYPD cuts a sweet deal.
- The original model for the Statue of Liberty is on top of a skanky warehouse.
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- 3 mins - Now he's going to have to wash that window all over again.
- 10 mins - A bit early for the hard stuff isn't it? Oh, I forgot, you're a detective.
- 20 mins - So it ate everything but that delicate little bracelet? Right.
- 24 mins - How do you find volunteers for that?
- 28 mins - Love is a beautiful thing.
- 43 mins - Two crook McNuggets to go.
- 78 mins - That cat Shaft is one dead mother... ...shut your mouth.
- 80 mins - Finally an excuse for the NYPD's excessive force policy.
- 86 mins - Hope he wasn't just turning down the bed there Shepard.
- 89 mins - Another egg! Boy, never expected that.
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- Shepard to his woman: "That's why I have to kill it. If I can kill it it's not a god, just a regular monster. I've got to take my birth control pills."
- Shepard to Powell: "You're a little dense you know that? Just a little."
- Police Chief to Shepard: "With a wingspan like you're talking about here that thing could fly miles into New York City every day. And it would do that of course, you know, because New York is famous for good eating."
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| | Audio clips in wav format | SOUNDS | Starving actors speak out | |
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| File | Dialog |  | q1.wav
| Powell: "The only place I haven't looked is up in the parapets."
Shepard: "There won't me much left of it. Did you ever drop a cantaloupe from forty stories?"
| | q2.wav
| Shepard: "Let me get this straight, you're talking about human sacrifice now?"
Curator: "Willing sacrifice, they give themselves to the god willingly."
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| Joan: "And I told you, the next time you hit me I'll break a lamp over your head while you're asleep!"
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| Jimmy being dumb and weird. "I see dead things. Muh!"
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| Police Captain: "My God, with a wingspan like you're talking about here that thing could fly miles into New York City every day. And it would do that of course, you know, because New York is famous for good eating."
| | q6.wav
| Jimmy: "You pay the God damned lottery winner one million dollars and I'm saving the Big Apple ten... ...a hundred million dollars, maybe a billion dollars and you're going to welch on one million lousy dollars?"
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| | Click for a larger image | IMAGES | Scenes from the movie | |
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| | Watch a scene | VIDEO | MPEG video files | |
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 | q1.mpg
- 2.1m
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| Quetzalcoatl comes swooping down to snatch up a poor schmuck and manages to ruin the pool party. At least after this scene the authorities believe an Aztec god is flying around Manhattan.
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| | Leave a comment | EXTRAS | Buy the movie | |
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