Movie Review: King Cohen: The Wild World of Filmmaker Larry Cohen (2017)

“The more you see a monster, the less scary it is.”

This is the thought process of Larry Cohen when making It’s Alive (1974). And this was just part of the brilliance of his filmmaking. King Cohen is a documentary directed by Steve Mitchell (Writer of Chopping Mall) about Larry Cohen’s film career from the very beginning, all the way to the present day. It’s a fantastic look inside the mind of Larry Cohen. You really get a good feel for his character, and the ingenuity throughout his career in film that still holds up today. While this documentary doesn’t cover as many of his horror projects as we would like, it’s thoroughly enjoyable from beginning to end. It’s a good documentary for film lovers in general and has interviews and stories from a lot of legends in Hollywood who took part to help celebrate Cohen’s career.

Cohen is not your typical writer/director. He is the gold standard of guerilla indie filmmaking. Not only was he coming up with original ideas, and executing them in his own way, even going so far as to re-write scenes on the fly depending on what his vision of the shot was in the moment, he was on the pulse of the birth of blaxploitation films with Bone (1972) and other exploitation films that inspired classics which the documentary goes into detail about. It’s Alive would be the first of several classic horror staples in his repertoire, but wouldn’t be the last. He would go on to create other horror classics such as Q (1982), The Stuff (1985), and Maniac Cop (1988). He even had a part in the Masters of Horror series in 2006.

When speaking about writing at home, which he still does quite a bit of, he says in regard to his preference for writing longhand “I feel the dialogue running down my arm onto the page.” This statement comes directly from passion and imagination, which are two things Hollywood could definitely use more of today. We would recommend this to horror film fans and just fans of film in general. Cohen’s story is one that anyone can find inspiration in, and especially those in the indie film community.

King Cohen is available to buy or rent on Amazon and is available everywhere in North America on VOD as of August 14th. This will also be available on Blu Ray on September 25th. Also, check out www.KingCohen.com for more information about the film, and keep an eye out for updates regarding where you can find a screening near you! The link to the showtimes that can be found across the U.S. is http://kingcohenmovie.com/Screenings.html