“Maybe his head just got loose and fell off.”

For me, the high point of Larry Cohen’s Q: The Winged Serpent came at an unexpected moment. Early in the film, Jimmy Quinn (David Moriarty) wanders into a bar and talks the proprietor into letting him do some improv on the piano on the chance that he might be good enough to land a paid gig. He starts gleefully diddling around, not without some skill, and mumbling a falsetto tune. Then Detective Shepard (David Carradine) comes in and plops down at the bar. As the proprietor pours his drink, he asks him, “Hey, um, did you ever find that guy’s head yet?” It’s a brilliant little bit of screenwriting, establishing the goofiness of our protagonist—the cowardly, paranoid, opportunistic, loquacious crook Quinn—as well as forwarding the plot, which begins with a peeping Tom skyscraper window cleaner getting his head crunched off by the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl which has taken up residence in the spire of NYC’s Chrysler Building. The mythological creature can also be seen snatching rooftop sunbathers and construction workers, flinging blood onto the masses in the streets below. Shepard and his partner Powell (Richard Roundtree) are heading up the investigation. Anyway, the highlight comes later—after Quinn has botched a gig as a jewelry heist getaway driver and discovered the monster’s lair and decided to ingeniously use that knowledge to escape the mob as well as the law and get rich quick in the process—when Moriarty’s unusual musical piece shows up on the film’s soundtrack at a moment when you’re expecting something generic, or at least not that—I thought it was pretty audacious and original. Elsewhere, the film is marked by its game performances, charming special effects, and a fun screenplay that incorporates the gory ritualistic murders of a pagan cult. There aren’t any hidden symbolic meanings to be found, just a giddy old school monster movie informed by cynical ‘70s noir, lathered in cheap gore, and laced with Cohen’s sardonic wit. Some consider it a cult classic and the director’s best film, but I still prefer The Stuff and there are many that I still need to get to.