YMMV / God Told Me To

• Complete Monster: Bernard Phillips is an alien/human hybrid, conceived when his birth mother was artificially inseminated whilst she was walking on the beach. Possessing telepathic abilities, Bernard sought to create a species of hybrid beings to replace humanity. To accomplish this, Bernard establishes a cult around himself wherein he brainwashes ordinary men into becoming his Apostles. Through his power of persuasion, the Apostles massacre several innocents via spree killings; with each murder, they accredit it to being his will. One instance of this is when a father is manipulated into killing his entire family, children included. Bernard becomes interested in NYPD detective Peter Nicholas, upon sensing that he was also of extraterrestrial origin. He orders his followers to indoctrinate Nicholas into their cult so that he could breed with him. When Nicholas confronts him, he tries to coerce Nicholas into flinging himself into a furnace when he questioned his power. He also mocks Nicholas by telling him that his unborn children would've inherited his abilities had he not have willed them to die. Genocidal, and apathetic to even his own followers, Bernard valued nothing less than the total destruction of mankind and godhood.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Larry Cohen noted to Andy Kaufman's biographer Bill Zehme that this film predated the 1977 "Son of Sam" killings committed by David Berkowitz, who claimed initially to have been told to kill by a demon...and Kaufman, who plays the police officer here, rather looked like him.
• Retroactive Recognition: Andy Kaufman (in his screen debut) as a crazed policeman. Larry Cohen noted to Kaufman's biographer Bill Zehme that the guerrilla filming involved in his sequence — they snuck him into the actual St. Patrick's Day parade and amazingly weren't caught — was an absolute thrill for the proto-performance artist.

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