8mm Forum: Q: The Winged Serpent! 600ft Derann Films

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Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on March 26, 2009, 09:08 PM:

I just had the pleasure to watch this Cohen film a few days ago, (thanks for tipping me off about it Doug!). I had remembered seeing this a long time ago, and it was a pleasure to view this again, even if in a thirty minute version.

Plot is as follows: (that is, for the digest).

We first witness "Q" a recently reborn Aztec Flying Lizard, munch two people. One is a sunbather, (Note: This digest has nudity, but nice "upper carriage" on that lady!) and a window washer, (who knew window washers lives are so dangerous?).

We then meet the cop investigating all these deaths, (David Carridine, from "Kung Fu" TV show fame) and his partner, (Richard Roundtree, from "Shaft" fame).

We now switch to the lucky loser of the piece, played by Micheal Moriarty. he is looking for a place to hide out, (he is a small time hood), and he wanders up into the upper reaches of a New York aging high rise, (note: it is the same building used for the paranormal activities in the first "Ghostbusters"). he finds the flying Lizards egg and nest. He also finds some cool gory half eaten corpses in the lair. Nice corpses!

Like any hood small time hood, he "hatches a plot to try to cash in on this.

The cops get more frustrated as they are getting nowhere.

Our lovable low life is cornered by two hoods who he owes money.
He convinces them that the money is up where the nest is. The two hoods are soon, "Lizard chow".

Now, the Lizard is hungry again! This time, the menu consists of a construction worker. (Nice shot of his helmet plummeting and splattering on the ground). Also, pretty cool as the New Yorkers on the streets are horrified, as it is raining blood upon them.

A young man is the next yummy victim on a roof top pool party, (hey, lots of yummy roof tops entree's in New York).

Our cop goes to a specialist on ancient lore and first finds out about ancient lore about a flying Aztec Lizard. He's now on the scent!

Our friendly neighborhood lowlife has been brought into the cop station on unrelated charges and he hears about the cops searching for what's doing the killing. It's his time to cash in! He agrees on a rather hefty payoff for his information. Before this, however, he has a argument with his girlfriend who doesn't approve.

" Hey, for the first time, I have the chance to really be a somebody, and I'm a gonna take it! "

Now, the finale ...

They make they're way up to where the nest is, (the cops and our low-life). They first blow away the egg, right as it was about to hatch, killing the lizard chick. Now, the momma is coming back ...

... and she's pissed!

She takes an enormous amount of assault rifle gun-fire, but before going down for the last time, takes at least three or four of the cops with her.

She falls to a lower tower and then, with one last gasp, plummets to the streets below.

So ends our titanic struggle, but not before we come down to another roof, and go through a broken hole in the roof ...

To find a nest ...
and a hatching egg! ...

THE END!!

This was a curious digest for Derann. It was fairly well edited.
I do believe that this thirty minute format does almost any film well, (unless your dealing with a four hour epic). The only scene that I think they could have done without was the girlfriend scene and the extended confrontation with the the two hoods.

Another interesting choice was a shortening of the titles. Short titles for the beginning, and just a short title card of "Q: The Winged Serpent ... A Larry Cohen Film." Larry Cohen was one of the great medium budget "B" movie horror giants of the 70's "It's Alive", being among them, and he does a good job with this.

Derann wisely had all the yummy victim scenes in this film, as, until the end of the film, there is very little of the Winged Serpent seen. This was a good ploy, showing wings, or claws, ect. Another shot has the shadow of the beastie as it passes over high rises. By the way, ignore critics on the internet who say that the special effects were lame. The creature effect were top notch and some of the last examples of Stop Motion animated beasties, (the last great one being "Clash of the Titans"). A good editing job.

SOUND

Sound was a very good mono. I listened to the soundtrack in the background and found it to be crisp; actually a little more crisp than the dialogue.

IMAGE

Image seemed just slightly bright, but this is somewhat common with some Derann digests of that period; but highly acceptable.
The image was your average very sharp Derann quality. Very little grain to this image as well.

COLOR

This is on L.P.P. film stock and holding up quite well. The blacks are not absolutely perfect, but this may be due more to original negative more than anything else.

RATIO

This Digest was put out in full frame. However, I compared the widescreen DVD to this print, (comparing exact film frames) and found that this was originally shot full frame 35MM and cropped for theatrical release, so your getting the original way the film was shot. Not bad, eh?

From what I have seen, this is a rather hard digest to find, but it is well worth it. Anybody else happen to own this digest?

One more question: Did Derann ever release this as a feature?

Posted by James N. Savage 3 (Member # 83) on March 27, 2009, 01:56 PM:

Thanks for the review!

I was the manager of a movie theater in the early 80's, and this movie played at my theater for a couple of weeks. The movie wasn't too well received. For one thing, there was very little publicity for the movie during its run. The other problem was, the movie was not well-paced. Except for a few good scenes, the audience didn't like it.

Which brings me to the digest-

This is another perfect example (there seem to be many) of a digest being better than the full-feature. In fact, I think this one would have made an excellent 400 footer, with tighter editing (like Melting Man). This is a pretty good digest, though, and I think it was a pretty good choice for Derann, since it involved elements of a prehistoric stop-motion beast, as well as mixing in modern-day New York city elements, both of which seemed to appeal to super-8 movie collectors at the time.

I'm not sure how well the sales were on this. It was released during a some-what transitional time for super-8. In the early-middle 80's, when video had fully blossomed, many super-8 collectors were jumping ship (even if for just a few years). It wasnt until around 1987 that super-8 started its second life.

As far as print quality, mine was a little grainier than I had remembered it being when it was at the cinema. The colors were pretty rich though, and the sound was very good.

Its a pretty good digest, overall. And it was nice to see Mr. Roundtree back on the big screen. Moriarty was pretty funny in his role, if not just a little annoying at times.

I think this was one of the last movies to carry the "American International Pictures" label, before they changed to "Filmways".

James.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on March 27, 2009, 04:41 PM:

Thanks for your comments James!

This much better as a digest, as you said. One of the problems with the original feature, (for the average moviegoer), is that the Q doesn't show up too often for the first two thirds of the film. Just a little here and there. In this digest, you get the whole Q.

Though I personally prefer seeing a creature revealed little by little, most audiences are not pre-exposed to this kind of film-making, OR they expect to see the creature a lot.

I don't think it was due to budget restraints however. When we do see the complete monster, it's a very well done creature and well animated as well.

I think this kind of creature film was really in a decline by the early 80's. By then, it was more of a past thing, (even with the wonderfully cheesy Doug McClure films.) It's apparrent that American International must have had a personal thing for this kind of film, as they helped bankroll the for Doug McClure films.

Hey, these films epitomize "Popcorn Movies"!

Posted by Douglas Meltzer (Member # 28) on March 28, 2009, 10:34 AM:

Glad to have helped out, Osi! I have the digest, and it's a fun, quirky film, especially because of Moriarity. He appeared in quite a few Larry Cohen films, including "The Stuff", "It's Alive III: Island of the Alive", "A Return to Salem's Lot", and the "Masters of Horror" segment that Cohen directed.

Doug

Posted by Bill Phelps (Member # 1431) on October 21, 2009, 06:31 PM:

Osi,

I have a copy of this digest. I like it alot. My copy is just like you have described. I don't have the original box.

Do you? If you do could you post a shot of it so I could see what it looks like?

By the way, I haven't forgotten about the Flintstone Flyer "timing"...soon.

Bill

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on October 21, 2009, 09:58 PM:

No, I traded my digest. It did have the original cover illustration, but it was fairly bland, just green and black, with a red "Q".

I look forward to your "timing" of the Flinstone Flyer. I have, since the time of having done that review, have had the suspicion that it was a edited down re-issue. Even better than the timing, if you could say, for instance, where the episode begins? I noted that my digest didn't have the customary "Flinstaones" title card, which i found strange, and there were not splices from beginning to end.

Posted by Douglas Meltzer (Member # 28) on October 24, 2009, 11:32 AM:

Bill,

My print came with the artwork glued to the inside of the reel's clear plastic case. It looks something like this......

Doug

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on October 24, 2009, 02:20 PM:

That's it. TanX Doug!

You know, this might have been just about the last stop motion animted major feature. After "Clash of the Titans", these stop motion animated films were quickly going out of style and "Q" was probably the last hurrah for this type of film ...

... except for "Return of the Jedi" which used some nifty stop motion animated work, (the smaller ATAT walkers, some of the creatures ...

... and, the magnificent work on the dragon in that great 80's classic, "Dragonslayer", which was done by George Lucas's ILM.

Posted by Bill Phelps (Member # 1431) on October 25, 2009, 09:05 PM:

Doug,

Thanks for the screen shot! Looks sweet.

I really like the original artwork on alot of these films I collect because they are usually unique and different than the promotional stuff for the movies themselves. (posters etc.)

Bill

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