God Told Me To (released in some theatrical markets as Demon) is a 1976 science fiction horror film written, directed, and produced by Larry Cohen. Like many of Cohen's films, it is shot on location in New York City and incorporates aspects of the police procedural. Plot In New York City, a gunman perched atop a water tower, opens fire with a .22 caliber rifle on the crowded streets below, randomly killing fifteen pedestrians. Peter Nicholas, a devout Catholic NYPD detective, climbs the tower to talk to the sniper. Before jumping to his death, the gunman tells Nicholas that "God told" him to commit the murders. Although traumatized by the attack, Nicholas investigates a series of seemingly unpremeditated murders that follow: a mass stabbing at a supermarket, a mass shooting by a police officer at a St. Patrick's Day parade, and a man who murders his wife and children. They have all been committed by a variety of unconnected, seemingly normal assailants who claim that God told them to kill. Nicholas learns that one of the murderers knew a long-haired young man named Bernard Phillips. When Nicholas visits Phillips' address, Phillips' mother assaults Nicholas with a knife, but she dies during the attack by falling down a flight of stairs. She turns out to have been a virgin and to have once claimed she was abducted by aliens. Nicholas' superiors refuse to acknowledge a religious motivation for the murders and suspend him, so he leaks this story to the press, causing a panic. A corrupt high-level NYPD officer is stabbed to death by Zero, a gangster he had betrayed. Zero disguises the murder as one of the "God" killings; however, Nicholas correctly deduces that it is a cover for a non-connected murder, noting that the previous killers all remained where they committed their crimes and accepted being arrested or shot (or committing suicide) after confessing that "God told them to" commit the atrocities. A group of wealthy religious cultists are in thrall to Bernard Phillips and are aware that Phillips is influencing the murderers as he contacts and controls them via psychic powers while informing them of each impending atrocity. Phillips has one of the members invite Nicholas to join them, but when Nicholas asks whether the follower knows about Phillips' mother, the follower suffers convulsions and drops dead. Another cult member attempts to kill Nicholas by pushing him in