An enormous Aztec bird god called Quetzalcoatl gets prayed back into existence by some deranged religious fruitcake high priest who runs around New York City skinning folks alive. Q flies around Manhattan and noshes on anyone unfortunate enough to be on a high-rise building whenever it's on the prowl. (My favorite victim is the luscious Bobbi Burns as a foxy topless sunbather who gets snatched by Q while bagging a few rays. There's also some pervert on an adjacent building roof getting a nice eyeful of Bobbi through his telescope; the look of startled surprise on the man's face when Q grabs Ms. Burns is absolutely priceless!). Out to stop Q are a couple of hard-nosed homicide detectives played by Richard Roundtree (who along with John Saxon seems to portray more cops than any other actor alive) and David Carradine, who gets a rare (and wonderful) opportunity to display a wickedly acidic sense of bone-dry sardonic humor. But what really makes this flick worth seeing is a spirited, extremely vivid, and wholly riveting performance by the great Michael Moriarty as luckless, sleazy and sniveling, yet still oddly endearing two-bit hoodlum Jimmy Quinn, who discovers Q's lair in the Crysler building and demands a million tax free dollars from oily Fun City officials in exchange for this valuable information. Whether he's whining to his loyal, but fed-up girlfriend Joan (nicely played by Candy Clark) that maybe he's a habitual criminal who's seemingly incapable of going straight or singing a hilariously dreadful jazz song in a low-rent Gotham bar, Moriarty manages to make Jimmy Quinn alternately funny, pathetic, and even surprisingly poignant. Ably directed and sharply written with tongue firmly in cheek by the ever-offbeat Larry Cohen, this bang-up little beaut further benefits from a sprightly, marvelously cornball schlock horror score from Robert O. Ragland, a nifty stop-motion animation lizard beastie by David Allen, and plenty of spot-on scroungy Big Apple atmosphere. A total treat.

The only thing you have to ask yourself is, are you willing to let yourself into a imaginative detective story, with stop-motion!? If you're willing to suspend your disbelief and care for the title character Q (short for the main character, which is displayed on the poster here on IMDb),then go ahead and watch this movie.

The acting is good enough for a b-movie of it's kind, so you won't be too disappointed with that. The story is good enough, too. There's not much more you need here. It's good ol' fun all around and if you have the time and like audio commentaries, than I urge you to listen to the one recorded for the US DVD (it might be on other DVDs too, but I know for sure, it's on the RC-1 SE)! It's a great little commentary on the struggles of making this movie happen ...

New York police are bemused by a spate of reports of a giant flying lizard that has been spotted around the rooftops of New York, which they assume to be bogus until the lizard starts to eat people. An out-of-work, ex-con piano player (Michael Moriarty) is the only person who knows the location of the monster's nest and is determined to turn the knowledge to his advantage, but will his gamble pay off or will he end up as lizard food?

The biggest issue with this movie is the implausibility that no one is able to see the monster. With a creature as big as Q, they really should be able to see where he flies to nest. As the plot says, some people even doubt he is real. Look up! He is huge! Even New York City's smog is not so bad that you cannot see the skyline. (The claim is that he flies in line with the sun so as to hide, but that makes no sense whatsoever.)

Besides that, it is a great film. Good story, good characters, good acting, good cast (Moriarty, Richard Roundtree, Candy Clark and David Carradine)... we have a low budget going a long way on the effects (cheesy, maybe, but look at the stuff Sam Arkoff used to produce with American International). Some relatively tame blood and guts, kicking off early with the window-washer scene, which is pretty awesome.

Praise has come for Michael Moriarty. Roger Ebert says, "Rex Reed was right, though, about the Method performance by Michael Moriarty. In the middle of this exploitation movie, there's Moriarty, rolling his eyes, improvising dialogue, and acting creepy. He's fun to watch, especially in the scene where he names his terms for leading the cops to the lizard." Moriarty is indeed an unusual actor, but a skilled one: he has won his fair share of awards.

The negotiation scene is a bit odd from a legal point of view. Can the city actually grant Quinn complete book rights as well as photo rights from the police? There seems to be little the city could actually do to block another writer -- no one owns the news. And can you copyright a public document?

Even after multiple viewings, the film never gets old and you might find different ways of looking at it. The science fiction angle of a giant monster may be the primary plot, but this is also a serial killer film, a murder mystery (or at least a detective story) and an examination of a man's flawed quest for redemption. There is more intelligence in the script than first meets the eye.

I have seen this film on VHS, DVD, the big screen and on Blu-Ray. In any format, this film is a winner and the last of the great non-CGI science fiction films. While no collector's edition exists yet (perhaps some day),the must-have version is available from Scream Factory, who have provided a new (as of 2013) commentary from writer-director Larry Cohen. Truly a must-have.