Cohen, Larry

The Stuff

B movie maverick Larry Cohen always enjoyed slipping a little social commentary into his genre pictures, and the satirical sci-fi/horror comedy The Stuff is no exception. A mix of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Blob, The Stuff is an insidiously addictive, low-calorie dessert sensation that soon wins the hearts and minds of the nation, but mostly the minds. You see, to borrow a title from another Cohen classic, it's alive.

Michael Moriarty is an industrial spy with questionable ethics and a certain moral flexibility behind his disarming drawl. "No one is as dumb as I appear to be," he informs his newest client, a snack food CEO who wants the secret of The Stuff. Needless to say he becomes the film's hero, a smart-talking everyman battling a compromised FDA and a corporate baddie who sees dollar signs in every Stuff snarfing zombie he converts. Cohen's satirical swipes at consumerism, advertising, and the ethics of corporate profit come fast and furious, if not exactly focused, and help drive the film past his--at times--sloppy direction. Moriarty's energetic performance is hilarious, and his rag-tag crew includes Andrea Marcovicci as an advertising wunderkind (who improbably falls in love with Moriarty), Saturday Night Live alum Garrett Morris as "Famous Amos" parody "Chocolate Chip Charlie," and Paul Sorvino as a commie-hating, conspiracy-spewing militia leader.

The DVD features commentary by Larry Cohen along with trailers and detailed biographies. --Sean Axmaker

Black Caesar

Fred Williamson is imposing tough and unflappable (The New York Times) as a street kid who muscles his way into the big-time mob racket in this super-slick crime drama which became the smash hit of its genre and spawned a successful sequel (Hell Up In Harlem). Tommy Gibbs (Williamson) has always had it tough. Growing up on the streets without a father and trying to make his mother proud Tommy resorts to running errands for The Man. But when a crooked cop beats him up Tommy realizes there s a better way to live: by making The Man deliver for him! Infiltrating -- and then destroying -- the infamous Cardoza family Tommy takes over Manhattan as the first black Godfather and puts the squeeze on anyone who dares to get in his way -- including the crooked cop! But as he tightens his grip on others he loses his hold on the most important things in his own life making him the vulnerable target of every cutthroat gangster who ever dreamt of ruling an empire!System Requirements: Running Time 94 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating: R UPC: 027616857811 Manufacturer No: 1001461

Shot on the streets of New York, writer-director Larry Cohen captures the bustle and color of the city in this violent, low-budget crime film. Ambitious Tommy Gibbs (a swaggering, self-confident Fred Williamson) has risen from shoeshine boy to Harlem crime lord, but he wants a bigger piece of the pot. With a racist, high-ranking cop (Art Lund) in his pocket, he begins his expansion with a bloody takeover bid but finds himself betrayed from within and the target of both the cops and the mob. Cohen invests this fast-paced tale (partially inspired by the 1930 gangster classic Little Caesar with a touch of Scarface) with colorful characters (notably a hustling religious leader played by D'Urville Martin), high energy, and a scruffy style. Black Caesar is one of the most entertaining movies to come from the 1970s explosion of low-budget black cast genre pictures, more commonly known as "blaxploitation" films. --Sean Axmaker

Hell Up In Harlem

Fred Williamson returns as Tommy Gibbs, the self-styled Godfather of Harlem in Larry Cohen's quickly made sequel to the low-budget Black Caesar. The film opens with a different perspective on the finale from the earlier film, this time with Gibbs surviving an assassination attempt with the help of his estranged father (Julius Harris), who becomes Tommy's new chief lieutenant in his rebuilt organization. Tommy takes his revenge on those who set him up but faces a new threat from within as the corrupt DA partners with an ambitious gang member to take Tommy down. It's not going to be as easy as they think. Shooting on NYC streets and locations, Cohen punches up the slim rise-and-fall/revenge story line with gritty action, a driving pace, and edgy, always-on-the-move, hand-held camera work. The production feels rushed at times and the performances don't have the energy of the previous film, but Cohen doesn't give you much time to think about it with his speeding plot and machine-gun editing, moved along nicely with help from Edwin Starr's funky score. --Sean Axmaker

Tougher than Shaft and smoother than Superfly, this high-voltage sequel to Black Caesar explodes with enough action to incinerate New York City. Packed with machine-gun mayhem and riveting adventure, Hell up in Harlem is nothing less than a modern-day tribute to the classic 30s gangster film. Fred Williamson (Original Gangstas) is Tommy Gibbs, a fearless, bulletproof tough guy who blasts his way from the gutter to become the ultimate soul brother boss. When he steals a ledger with the name of every crooked cop and official on the mob's payroll, he becomes the most hunted man in the city. Enlisting the aid of his father and an army of Harlem hoods, Gibbs goes from defense to offense, launching a deadly attack on his enemies that sets off a violent chain reaction from Harlem all the way to the Caribbean, climaxing in one of the hottest turf-war shoot-outs in Hollywood history.

Q - The Winged Serpent

OK, who's Q, anyway? "Q" is short for Quetzacoatl, an enormous winged serpent and Aztec deity who's called back to life after a series of ritual human sacrifices in Manhattan. It takes a lot to keep a critter like Q satisfied, so he flies around and lops the heads off sunbathers, window washers and swimmers as handily as popping grapes off the vine. The police are confounded by the murders, decapitated bodies (blood rains from the skies on NYC denizens) and Q-sightings. The solution comes in the unlikely form of Jimmy (Michael Moriarty), a petty thief. After a heist goes bad, he hides from his cronies in the uppermost spires of the Chrysler Building and stumbles on the giant bird's nest and egg. He leads the NYPD up to the lair for a big showdown with Q, but it's not quite as easy as anybody thought, of course. Director/screenwriter Larry Cohen was one of the more inventive, original voices of Seventies B-movies, with credits that include God Told Me To, Black Caesar, It's Alive!, Hell Up in Harlem and The Stuff. With Q, Cohen put together an interesting, entertaining mix of Fifties sci-fi homage (complete with great stop-motion special effects for the terrifying beast), action movie, and crime drama. It also touches on the metaphysical question of how exactly one goes about killing off a god. It'd be difficult to think of a more compelling performance from Moriarty; as the piano-playing, scat-singing small-time crook Jimmy, he's repellent and sleazy. However, he's struck on something that will give him 15 minutes to bask in the spotlight ("I'm the most important man in New York!", he gloats) and give him a chance to redeem himself and save thousands of lives. Moriarty brings a depth to the character that makes him absorbing, if not quite sympathetic, and gets to come across with the choice line, "Stick it up your…brain! Your small little brain!". With plenty of humor, suspense, a gallon or two of gore, and great performances from Moriarty and David Carradine and Richard Roundtree as his cop nemeses, this is great, original, entertaining sci-fi fare. --Jerry Renshaw

It's Alive/It's Alive 2/It's Alive 3

It's newborn. It's Alive (Disc 1). And murder is what it knows best! A proud couple's bundle of joy is really a newborn terror in filmmaker Larry Cohen's cautionary cult hit that tapped into environmental fears. The horror grows when multiple child monsters rampage in It Lives Again (Disc 2/Side A) - and as two brave parents try to stop them by becoming the bait for their spree. The now global terrors are rounded up and relocated to a far-flung island (but not for long!) in It's Alive III: Island of the Alive (Disc 2/Side B). Will a parent's greatest nightmare become the world's gravest fear? Find out...if you dare.

Original Gangstas

Larry Cohen scratched out some of the most memorably offbeat exploitation films of the 1970s, including two of the most energetic blaxploitation action classics: Black Caesar and its sequel, Hell Up in Harlem, which made a star of Fred Williamson. In 1996 they reunited for this tribute to the good old days and producer-star Williamson brought along a few of his fellow 1970s blaxplo icons: Jim Brown (Slaughter), Pam Grier (Foxy Brown), Richard Roundtree (Shaft), and Ron O'Neal (Superfly). They play old friends and former members of a neighborhood gang in economically depressed Gary, Indiana, who reunite when a new generation of gangbangers using their old street name, the Rebels, turns the city into a war zone. It's great fun to see the old faces back on the screen--Williamson is still buff and tough, and Brown and Grier have become more charismatic with age--but they're let down by a slack script and lazy direction despite an almost nonstop barrage of gunfights and back-alley brawls. Even with revved-up 1990s firepower, the film never really captures the explosive energy of the films that made their reputations. You're better off seeing the originals. Paul Winfield and Isabel Sanford also star, and Cohen casts cult faves Charles Napier, Wings Hauser, and Robert Forster in supporting roles. --Sean Axmaker

The biggest and baddest stars of Soul Cinema, Fred Williamson (Black Caesar), Jim Brown (Slaughter), Pam Grier (Foxy Brown), Ron O'Neal (Superfly) and Richard Roundtree (Shaft) return to the genre that made them famous in this "big, brassy, overblown, pyrotechnic valentine" (Entertainment Today)! Also featuring Isabel Sanford ("The Jeffersons") as Bookman's mother, this all-new, all-action tale of slick, ten-fisted retribution "delivers as generous a measure of sensational entertainment as any of the Shaft or Superfly pictures of a generation ago" (Long Beach Press-Telegram). Williamson is Bookman, a former hood who made it to the big time with his smooth football moves. But when the gang he founded back in his hometown starts shooting up the wrong peopleincluding his fatherhe returns to the old turf, rounds up some of his own posse and begins an all-out street war to return the neighborhood to its rightful state of justice!

God Told Me To

It's Alive

A couple expecting a baby discover it's a monster that kills when it's scared. Terror like all good things begins at home. Set to a chilling Bernard Herrmann ("Psycho") score this eerie and shocking tale of an inhuman newborn who wreaks havoc upon the city of Los Angeles was a surprise boxoffice hit following in the tradition of "The Exorcist." Along with its two sequels this cult favorite was written directed and produced by Larry Cohen.Running Time: 91 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 085393352929 Manufacturer No: 33529

A young couple joyously awaiting the birth of their newborn is in for a horrifying surprise in this thrilling low-budget '70s hit. It's Alive wastes no time in establishing that there is something terribly wrong with the Davies' new baby in a shocking opening "escape" sequence not intended for the faint of heart. As baby "It's Alive" makes its way home from the hospital destroying anything in its path, the Davies must face an impossible dilemma, and a parent's worse nightmare!

An interesting hybrid of melodrama and monster movie, It's Alive focuses more on story and satirical social commentary than blood and gore, finding a balanced tone of realism meets camp. In the tradition of other great monster movies, clever quick-edit shots of the baby are introduced to the audience in small doses, building some solid suspense. Sure, there's mandatory suspension of belief involved, but who has time to ponder gaping holes in logic when an entire metropolis lives in fear of a baby monstrosity?

Maverick independent film maker Larry Cohen struck gold with this chilling "it could happen to you" tale of terror which went on to gain cult status and spawn two sequels (It Lives Again and Island of the Alive). Featuring some strong performances, genuinely creepy creature effects by master of make-up artist Rick Baker (King Kong, Star Wars, Men in Black), and a marvelously effective score by legendary composer Bernard Hermann (Psycho, The Birds, Kill Bill Vol. 1), It's Alive is schlock at its best. --Matt Wold

Masters of Horror: Pick Me Up

Showtime has amassed some of the greatest horror film writers and directors to bring to you the anthology series "Masters of Horror". For the first time the foremost names in the horror film genre have joined forces for the series consisting of 13 one-hour films each season. DVD Features:Death on the Highway: An Interview with Larry CohenWorking with a Master: Larry CohenOn Set: An Interview with Michael MoriartyOn Set: An Interview with Fairuza BalkOn Set: An Interview with Warren ColeBehind the Scenes: The Making of "Pick Me Up"Audio Commentary with Director Larry CohenFantasy Film Festival: Mick Garris interviews Larry CohenTrailersStill galleryLarry Cohen BioDVD-Rom: Screenplay and Screen SaverFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR Rating: NR UPC: 013131446593 Manufacturer No: DV144659

Bone

Future B movie maverick Larry Cohen (It's Alive, Q: The Winged Serpent) made his directorial debut with this sly, often savage, social satire set in Beverly Hills. Yaphet Kotto swaggers into the backyard of an affluent, upper-middle-class Beverly Hills couple (Andrew Duggan and Joyce Van Patten) with a dangerous grin on his face and demands: "I want money and I want it now." Nothing from this point on goes as planned. The home invasion tears the veneer of civility that has been holding the couple's loveless marriage together, exposing their lies and schemes, while Bone (as Kotto's character is called) is revealed as a conflicted serial rapist just looking for a little tenderness. Directed with raw energy and aggressive flamboyance, this cynical portrait of American hypocrisy and corruption is more punchy than perceptive, a little glib in its conclusions, but thoroughly unpredictable in its execution. Cohen tweaks stereotypes and twists expectations, while offbeat characters and juicy dialogue electrify the drama. Kotto takes a big, meaty bite of his role, commanding every scene with a threat always beneath his stocky frame and burning eyes. Jeannie Berlin makes a memorable appearance as a ditzy shoplifter with a thoroughly off-center philosophy. --Sean Axmaker