Lawrence George Cohen July 15 1941 March 23 2019 was an American screenwriter producer and director of film and television best known as a Bmovie auteur of horror and science fiction films often containing police procedural and satirical elements during the 1970s and 1980s such as Its Alive 1974 God Told Me To 1976 It Lives Again 1978 The Stuff 1985 and A Return to Salems Lot 1987 After that he concentrated mainly on screenwriting including Phone Booth 2002 Cellular 2004 and Captivity 2007 Description above from the Wikipedia article Larry Cohen licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia