Demon [God Told Me To (1976)] - Newspaper Ad [Oakland Tribune - March 9, 1977]

While I think The Stuff might be my favorite Larry Cohen movie, apologies to both Q: The Winged Serpent and It's Alive, it is God Told Me To that gets my vote for his absolute best. Although it is sporting its alternate title of Demon here. This movie is smart, challenging, and abrasively, almost shoddily, off-kilter as only writer-directer-producer Larry Cohen at the very top of his game could be. 

A series of mass killing events plagues New York City. Although the perpetrators do not know one another, each and every one share the same calm, cool, and almost serene demeanor during and after their killing spree. They also give the same reason for what made them decide to start killing people... "God told me to."

One can understand why the distributor opted for a title change.

Tony Lo Bianco is the deeply religious cop on the case and what he learns is, well, earth shattering. The calm ambiguity of the film's final line of dialogue and fade out image might sooth one viewer's nerves every bit as much as it will shatter another's.

Yeah, God Told Me To is Cohen at his absolute best, I think.

It's Alive (1974) - Newspaper Ad [Oakland Tribune - April 10, 1977]

Larry Cohen's iconic monster baby opus It's Alive had a brief theatrical run in 1974, but was pulled and shelved by an unimpressed, or just plain embarrassed, distributor. 

Three years and a regime change later, the new boss had a far more favorable opinion of It's Alive than the old boss. So, in 1977, the movie was pulled off the shelf and re-released, with a snazzy new campaign that scared the living daylights out of nine-year-old me.

I was fascinated and petrified by the sight of that clawed hand draped over the side of an ever so slowly twirling basset, the thumping heartbeat that began as soon as it came into view, and the monstrous cry heard just after the narrator intones, "You see, there's only one thing wrong with the Davis baby... it's alive."

While not a huge hit by today's standards, the film did rake in a tidy profit for the studio. So a sequel was requested. More on that later.

I didn't see It's Alive until well into the 1980s. While it was not quite the traumatizing creature feature I had imagined as a child, it was nonetheless an intriguing and fascinating little nightmare scenario.