Q: The Winged Serpent Reviews

This film doesn’t mess about. Within the first few minutes a window cleaner is decapitated by an unknown beast and a sunbathing beauty is plucked from a rooftop. David Carradine and Richard Roundtree’s cops are sent to deal with a mysteriously flayed corpse. And a seeming random crook takes part in a diamond heist.
The first half hour of this movie really sets up your expectations – a mad monster movie with wise-cracking cops with attitude. Sadly, it doesn’t quite live up to this premise, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good movie. It’s just not a 50s-style B-movie.

The lead character of Jimmy (played by an excellent Michael Moriarty) is an unusual choice. The film follows him and his criminal ineptitude until he finds Q’s nest at the top of the Chrysler building. From there he thinks of a way that the beast can solve all of his problems, not all of them financial. He is yellow, he is twitchy and somewhat unsound, and he’s hard to identify with but that’s what makes him such an interesting protagonist.

Carradine is excellently deadpan as the homicide detective, trying to piece together a connection between the mysterious giant creature seen in the skies and the seemingly ritual killings, and his rapid acceptance to the idea of human sacrifice for the beast is a little ludicrous but in a short running time, necessary.

In all the characters are what drive the film more than the Q of the title, and that makes it a little more interesting to watch.

It surprises me that this film was made in the 80s. The special effects are diabolically bad, with the Q himself looking like he was knocked together in someone’s garage (he probably was). But that does add a little low-budget charm to it that is hard to ignore.