I've been aware of this movie for years, but for some reason I had it in my head that it was some artsy film along the lines of something that Criterion would release. Don't get me wrong, Criterion releases are awesome, but they do release a lot of boring, pretentious stuff too. It seems I was way off on that point as this is actually a Larry Cohen film, the fella behind such genre films as the Maniac Cop films and Uncle Sam. The tone is definitely set when in the first ten minutes of the film there is a decapitation, a flayed human body, and a topless gal picked from the roof she is sunbathing on.
The story concerns a giant half-reptile, half-bird that is terrorizing New York City by going around biting off peoples heads and snatching people from rooftops. Amidst this is someone committing sacrifices to the creature which may or may not be a reincarnated Aztec god, a pathetic criminal using his knowledge of the location of the creature's nest to his advantage, and David Carradine (aka Bill, aka Caine from Kung Fu, aka the actor that died quite embarrassingly not too long ago) who plays a cop that is attempting to figure the whole thing out. Shaft is in there somewhere too.
I found the film itself to be very entertaining. I had no qualms with any of the actors, and actually thought they did a really good job for the type of film it was. It definitely has a late '70s/early '80s New York feel to it and there a lot of helicopter shots of the city meant to be the creature's POV that are fun to look at. When the creature is shown on-screen it's pure cheese, but if you are of the age or mind of someone that appreciate the old school of monster effects you will probably find it charming. If you were ever on the fence about whether to check this one out or not like I was, I recommend you do.
