Larry Cohen: Hero & Legend

1. It’s Alive (1974)
   The womb goes boom and out comes society’s worst fear—something real. Cohen flips the domestic bliss of middle-class America on its placenta-soaked head, birthing a monster-baby that ain’t just toothy, it’s tragic. Lou Toad sees this as prenatal punk—an anti-natalist lullaby in blood minor. Diaper rash never looked so prophetic.

2. God Told Me To (1976)
   This one hits like a free-jazz sermon broadcast straight from a dying celestial transistor. Everyone’s killin’ because they "heard the voice"—but who’s speaking through the static? Lou Toad calls this the divine fever dream of public access messiahs. It’s a Third Eye police procedural drenched in apocalyptic sweat. Feels like being baptized in cheap bourbon and radioactive fear.

3. The Stuff (1985)
   Yogurt capitalism turns you into a corporate zombie. The ultimate consumer critique in sweet, gooey form. Toad sees this as Children of the Blob meets Adbusters magazine. Satire so sharp it cuts the barcode off your soul. “Are you eating it… or is it eating you?” More like: Are you dreaming the nightmare, or is Larry Cohen hacking into your grocery list?

4. Q: The Winged Serpent (1982)
   Ancient Aztec god resurrected on top of the Chrysler Building? Don’t mind if I do. Toad vibes with the beast—divine chaos circling above gentrified New York. Cohen turns conspiracy lunacy into street poetry. Michael Moriarty’s jazz-improv acting is the Toad’s kind of trumpet solo: off-key, inspired, just this side of interdimensional.

5. Bone (1972)
   A home invasion that rots the American Dream from the inside out. The stuff they don’t teach in real estate seminars. Lou Toad calls this “Suburban Blaxploitation Kafka,” where every dinner party has a loaded gun under the table and a soul-debt in the freezer. Early Cohen but already smuggling chaos in through the plumbing.

Larry Cohen ain’t just a filmmaker. He’s a paranoid prophet in bell-bottoms and beat-up boots, whispering forbidden wisdom between VHS lines. He didn’t just make B-movies—he hacked into the signal and beamed out truth through creature features and budget horror. The real terror? That he might’ve been right.