Overview: A rooftop sniper guns down 14 pedestrians on the streets of New York City. A mild-mannered dad takes a shotgun and blows away his wife and children. A cop goes on a sudden shooting spree at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. And each of these unlikely killers makes the same dying confession: God told me to.

Now a repressed Catholic NYPD detective (Tony Lo Bianco of THE HONEYMOON KILLERS and THE FRENCH CONNECTION) must uncover a netherworld of deranged faith, alien insemination and his own unholy connection to a homicidal messiah with a perverse plan for the soul of mankind.

4K UHD Blu-ray Verdict: From Larry Cohen, who brought us It’s Alive and what my friend describes as the best blaxploitation movie ever, Black Caesar, comes God Told Me To, one of the strangest and most compelling horror/sci-fi movies I know of!

The movie begins with a beautiful and creepy credits sequence showing these things floating through liquid. It reminded me a bit of the beautiful but equally inexplicable credits sequence from eXistenZ. Then we quickly move on to an average day in ’70s Manhattan, where a sniper suddenly begins taking out random people on the sidewalk.

This is indeed a well thought out scene, which gains a lot of resonance from recent events, creating a very creepy and surreal scene that one (who lives in Manhattan) could very easily imagine happening. Anyway, Peter, our hero, climbs up the water tower where the sniper is, receiving extensive ass coverage on the way, and tries to talk him down. The guy tells him that God told him to kill the people, then tosses himself to the ground. And we’re off!

Peter is played by Tony Lo Bianco, the hot protagonist from one of my favorite movies of all time, The Honeymoon Killers. And, as he was supposed to be smokin’ hot in that movie, in this movie he is also treated as somewhat of a sex object, which is no problem for me!

Anyway, soon the plot points start getting piled on. Peter is super religious, it’s apparently like an addiction with him. He’s dating this woman who inexplicably wears these ludicrous glasses at all times (even in bed), and has a wife who is, shall we say, a bit dour. The police station where he works is littered with hot daddies. There are more inexplicable murders, and the killers all say God told me to before dying.

One of these sequences takes place during the St. Patrick’s Day parade, where we get extensive coverage of the hot cops (back when cops had mustaches and weren’t all burgeoning metrosexuals). One of the cops freaks out and begins shooting. The thing is, this cop is played by ANDY KAUFMAN. You barely notice it, but it’s just one of the interesting factoids about this movie.

Another is that we learn from the trivia section that what we’re watching is actual footage from an actual parade, shot on the sly by Cohen, who told the police that he was shooting a documentary. That means that all the hot cops are actual hot cops. Ahh, better days!

As it all goes on it starts getting stranger and stranger, but I’m going to stop now, because if you’re going to watch the movie (which you should), it’s good to be surprised by where this all leads to.

Written, produced, and directed by Larry Cohen (IT’S ALIVE), this critically acclaimed cult classic remains one of the most disturbing and thought-provoking horror films of our time. Deborah Raffin (DEATH WISH 3), Sandy Dennis (WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?), Sylvia Sidney (BEETLEJUICE), Mike Kellin (SLEEPAWAY CAMP), Richard Lynch (BAD DREAMS), and Andy Kaufman (TAXI) co-star in GOD TOLD ME TO, now presented in a new 4K restoration from the original uncensored negative, with Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos audio, packed with revealing extras! This is a Widescreen Presentation (1.85:1) enhanced for 16x9 TVs and comes with the Special Features of:

Disc 1
Ultra HD Blu-ray (2160p) and HD Blu-ray (1080p) Widescreen 1.85:1 feature presentations
Audio: Dolby Atmos (English); 5.1 DTS-HD (English); 1.0 DTS-HD (English); French (Dolby Digital 2.0)
Subtitles: English SDH, Francais, Espanol
Audio Commentary #1 with Writer/Producer/Director Larry Cohen
NEW! Audio Commentary #2 with Film Historians Steve Mitchell and Troy Howarth
Theatrical Trailers
TV Spots

Disc 2:
Audio Commentary #1 with Writer/Producer/Director Larry Cohen
NEW! Audio Commentary #2 with Film Historians Steve Mitchell and Troy Howarth
Heaven & Hell On Earth – Interview with Star Tony Lo Bianco
Bloody Good Times – Interview with Special Effects Artist Steve Neill
God Told Me To Bone – New Beverly Q&A with Larry Cohen
Lincoln Center Q&A with Larry Cohen
Theatrical Trailers
TV Spots
Poster & Still Gallery