Born in 1941, Michael Moriarty is an American-Canadian actor known for his distinctive roles in cult cinema. He delivers a memorable performance in Q: The Winged Serpent (1982), where he plays a man caught in a battle against a monstrous creature. Moriarty also appears in The Stuff (1985), a satirical horror film that critiques consumer culture through the lens of a deadly dessert. His work in these films, along with Hickey & Boggs (1972) and Troll (1986), cements his status as a notable figure in the realm of exploitation and genre cinema.
Q: The Winged Serpent
The Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, a winged, dragon-like, female lizard, takes up residence in the art-deco spire of the Chrysler Building, with frequent jaunts in the midday sun to devour various helpless New Yorkers on the rooftops. The resulting bloody mess confounds detectives, Shepard and Powell, who are already occupied with a case involving a series of bizarre ritual murders linked to a secret neo-Aztec cult. Meanwhile, Jimmy Quinn, a cheap, paranoid crook who wishes to be a jazz pianist, takes part in a botched diamond heist. Attempting to hide from police after the heist, he stumbles upon the creature's lair atop the Chrysler building. Quinn abandons his attempts to settle down and leave his life of crime, deciding to extort from the city an enormous amount of money in exchange for directions to the creature's nest, which houses a colossal egg. Quinn makes a deal with the city--$1 million for the location of the nest. He leads Shepard and a paramilitary assault team to the top of the Chrysler Building where they shoot the egg, killing the baby inside. However, because the creature itself was not present in the nest, the city reneges on its offer to Quinn, taking back the $1 million and leaving him broke once again. Later, after killing Powell, the creature comes to the tower. After the showdown, the creature, riddled with bullets, falls onto the streets of Manhattan. Finally, Shepard shoots the Plumed Serpent's crazed priest (who had been committing the ritual murders) as he tries to kill Quinn to resurrect his "god". Ultimately, a second large egg hatches in a different location in the city.
