Zaat

An idiotic scientist decides to turn himself into a walking catfish monster. He also wants to create a new race of fellow walking catfish monsters. This is a horrible movie. It starts off with some laughable narration and an awful folk song. It only gets worse from there. That said, I was cracking up a lot throughout this thing. There's one golden moment shortly after the guy has changed into monster form. He's walking through a basement and clearly trips over something, perhaps the shitty monster costume itself. We're also privy to the long, drawn out process of him getting his machines, pulleys and other junk together for the mutation. This takes up about 20 minutes of screen time all by itself.

About halfway through the film, we get more awful singing from a bunch of hippies, followed by a march to the local jail. The so-called hero of the picture is a joke. He and his girlfriend also wear ridiculous red jumpsuits. They should have just stuck with the college guy and the sheriff, not that doing so would have saved the movie or anything. This is currently #10 on the IMDb bottom 100 list. There's no question that this is a bad movie, but I wouldn't rate it that low simply because of the amusement I got out of it.

Crazy scientist living in the Florida swamps turns himself into a monstrous walking fish-man and proceeds to terrorize.

Another drive in low-budgeter that probably would have been more at home in the 1950's rather than the early 70's. It's weird and cheap schlock all the way! The big rubber monster of the film is quite cheesy looking as it teeters around the swamps and struggles to swim in underwater scenes. The zippers of the monster suit are "hidden" by patches of fur. Zaat seems to have all of the hokey B flick trappings - a silly storyline, lackluster acting, crude editing, and a folksy theme song. Also there's a bikini-wearing girl who gets kidnapped by the monster to cap it off.

Now ordinarily such campy qualities might be downright charming to a B horror fan such as myself, unfortunately Zaat is just too roughly-made and ultimately ridiculous for its own good. Not the worst of its kind, it certainly beats the similarly themed 1966 movie Curse of the Swamp Creature, but Zaat leaves much to be desired.

Then again, what other horror film is there where the monster robs a drugstore?

* 1/2 out of ****

I first read about this movie as being called ZaAt. Then I actually watch it under the name "Attack of the Swamp Monsters." THEN I hear about it once again as The Blood Island of Dr. Z as showed on MST 3k. I have not seen the MST 3k version of this movie, but one has to admit, they would have a LOT to work with. The lighting of this movie was terrible, the kill scenes were very short, the mask! Well, the mask is very self explanatory.

One thing that boggled my mind was after the monster tipped the boat, there were two people floating in the water, while one scrambled to shore. One person in the water was still moving their hands even though it's my best guess that the catfish monster killed them. And then when the monster went up on the land to kill the other person, HE DIDN'T EVEN TOUCH THE PERSON!!! It looked like he just swept a bug off of her chest and she just went limp!!! What?!? I'm no corroner, but I know that somebody doesn't die from being brushed, even if it is by a catfish type monster. My biggest complaint as in every 70's movie, was the lighting. I have never seen worse lighting in my life. You could use the indiglo of a watch and see what was happening better than the lighting from this movie. But what was so bad about it was that there was bad lighting during scenes that looked like they were important, like the fight scene between the people of INPET (shoulda been named "INEPT") and the monster. That looked like it could have been a big scene, if only we could have seen what was going on. And how about those fresh water underwater scenes, you know, with the coral and tropical fish and currents and all. That must have seen some fresh water pond to house coral. Last time I checked, coral doesn't grow in fresh water, never mind that it grew in a pond.

Well, I'll let you watch to enjoy the rest of the movie, although I do suggest you go out and rent the non-MST 3k version, just because sometimes it's fun to enjoy a movie without someone telling you what's funny about it.

Sargassum, the weed of deceit. Sargassum fish -- mighty hunter of the deep! What an inspiration you have been in my plot! Your life of hiding, waiting... stalking your prey. At just the right moment... ATTACK! [chuckles] I love you. I hope I'll be a good imitator. And my friend, the shark. Cunning, swift... wretched humans, they're afraid of you! I admire you. Soon, I'll swim with you! They'll be afraid! [chuckles] Oh, mighty scorpion, dangerous beast of the ocean with your powerful daggers, and your camouflage... you have little to fear from other fish. [laughs] They think I'm insane! THEY'RE the ones who are insane! Oh, my friends of the deep! This day, this very day, I'll become one of YOU! My family! And together we'll conquer the universe!

Even though I watch a lot of bad movies, it's been awhile since I've seen a plot that made less sense than the one found in Blood Waters of Dr. Z. For reasons known only to him, Dr. Kurt Leopold decides the planet would be a better place if fish were to take over. After a rather lengthy voice-over soliloquy on the subject, he dunks himself into a tank and comes out transformed into some sort of poorly designed would-be fish-creature. With his handy spray bottle filled with I'm not sure what, he sets out on his mission to lead the catfish in a takeover of the Earth. Before you can say "carp", Dr. Leopold's plan seems to be forgotten in favor of finding a mate he can transform into a would-be fish-creature. (Actually, I'm of the opinion that getting laid was Dr. Leopold's goal the whole time. Forget about the nonsense of a master race of fish.) As the bodies start to pile up, old fish-boy soon has some scientists and the local sheriff on his tail. Can they put a stop to Dr. Leopold and his plans for world domination?

Whether you call the movie Blood Waters of Dr. Z or Zaat or ZaAt or Attack of the Swamp Creatures, it really doesn't matter. Crap by any name is still crap. The movie is Grade A bottom-of-the-barrel film-making. As I pointed out, the plot is ridiculous. The technical aspects of the films like lighting, sound, special effects, editing, etc. are beyond bad. The direction is amateurish at best. And as for the acting, I'm not in the least surprised to discover that no one involved ever did anything other than appear in this monstrosity (okay, one guy does have one other credit, but that's it). Quite honestly, my rating of a 2/10 is incredibly generous. I'm sure there's a reason I didn't give Blood Waters of Dr. Z the dreaded 1/10, but sitting here 12 hours after watching the movie, I can't come up with a valid explanation.

One of the comments on IMDb bemoans the fact that the majority of people rating and reviewing Blood Waters of Dr. Z have only seen the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version (that's how I saw it also). The comment states that the real movie has 30 or so minutes edited out by the MST3K crew and the movie shouldn't be judged unless someone has seen the whole thing. Well why in God's name would I want to see 30 more minutes of this trash! The time I've already devoted to Blood Waters of Dr. Z is above and beyond what it deserves. Just be glad more people haven't seen that additional footage as I'm guessing the rating would be even lower if they had.