Q: The Winged Serpent

Quetzalcoatl, summoned by ritual murders across Manhattan, has built a nest in the crown of the Chrysler Building and is picking people off the rooftops of New York.

Larry Cohen made it fast and cheap, and it is really two films: a stop-motion monster picture, and a great character study of a small-time crook, played by Michael Moriarty in a largely improvised performance, who finds the nest and tries to sell the location to the city.

Moriarty is the reason it works. He plays Jimmy Quinn as a jittery, cowardly, oddly sympathetic loser, and the scenes of him negotiating with the police are better than the creature deserves.

David Carradine is the detective. The stop-motion, by David Allen, is charmingly rough.

Cohen reportedly wrote much of it on the fly during the shoot, which is his method.