Zaat

This film is a testament to the low budget, independent monster/horror flicks of the 60's and 70's. Man with a grudge, Dr. Kurt Leopold, transforms himself into a murderous "man fish" reeking revenge on all who have scorned him and anyone who gets in his way. Sure, the FX are non existent, the acting and dialogue amateurish, and the monster looks incredibly inane - a "man fish" with fur around the neck and back to hide the zipper! But that's what makes these films loads of fun to watch! You have to admire these independents who often invest their life savings to produce these gems. Lots of heart and soul fuse this genre. Today's excuses for cinema with bloated corporate budgets, over production, over paid prima donna actors, and excessive FX can't compare to the spirit and zeal of this genre. Cinamatic hacks such as Spielberg, Scorsese, Lucas, and Coppola who prostitute themselves on a consistent basis can learn a lot from the likes of The Blood Waters of Dr. Z.

Mad scientist Dr. Kurt Leopold (Marshall Grauer) uses his special formula, Zaat, to turn himself into a walking catfish (although he looks more like a mutant seahorse to me). After polluting a local pond with Zaat, the lumbering catfish man takes revenge on those who scoffed at his work, and then goes about trying to create a catfish woman to be his mate.

The first fifteen minutes of low budget Floridian monster movie Zaat (AKA The Blood Waters of Dr.Z) are enough to sort the men from the boys: anyone not seriously dedicated to Z-grade trash will surely soon fall by the wayside at the sheer banality of the opening scenes -- underwater wildlife footage with a monotonous voice-over, and tedious shots of scientist Dr. Leopold as he goes about his work. At the quarter-of-an-hour mark, things momentarily pick up when Leopold turns into catfish man (the creature played by Wade Popwell) and goes on the prowl, but it's still far from great, any amusement to be had at the shoddiness of the monster costume quickly wearing off.

The rest of the film is mostly long, drawn out scenes of badly lit and very boring 'action' as the monster roams the countryside and town while the authorities investigate, but, every so often, director Don Barton throws in something so bizarre that one can't help but sit up and take notice. A prime example is the hippie musical interlude in which a group of long-haired layabouts sit and sway while a man sings and plays guitar. The town's sheriff arrives and taps his hand appreciatively, before leading the hippies on a Pied Piper style procession to the town jail, where he locks up the youngsters for their own safety. It's a really weird scene that has zero bearing on the plot -- the hippies are never heard of or seen again.

Another head-scratching moment comes when the creature gets a headache and needs some aspirin (at least I think that is what happens): breaking into a pharmacy, it knocks back some meds (getting a little woozy in the process) and then trashes the place. Again, just a really incongruous scene that serves no real purpose other than to pad out the runtime (not that the film needed padding out, the finished mess clocking in at an excruciating 100 minutes).

Other bits that are notable for their eccentricity include the monster taking time out to draw a picture of sexy blonde INPIT Agent Martha Walsh (Sanna Ringhaver) -- he's actually not a bad artist for a fish -- and an unconvincing shot of a supposedly giant catfish destroying a miniature matchstick model of a fence, the only remnant of a Kaiju-catfish sequence cut from the final film on account of it looking so crap.

To be honest, I probably would have rated Zaat a rather generous 3/10 for chucking in these truly weird moments amid the deathly dull stuff, but the film commits a crime against trash cinema that is unforgivable: sexy Agent Walsh is about to undress when she is interrupted, zipping up her red jumpsuit just as things were getting interesting, and then she takes a shower without any nudity. Just what kind of cheap, exploitative, Z-grade monster movie is this? I'm left no other choice than to deduct a couple of points.

Well, no, actually it's an abominable movie, but odd in an interesting way -- I suppose partly because of the filmmakers' ineptitude. If it's riffing off of Frankenstein, why does the catfish creature have to find attractive women to try and mutate into fish brides? Where does that beauty go once you've been mutated into a fish?

And how was I supposed to feel when he breaks into a pharmacy and starts knocking things over? Eerie screeching came over the soundtrack as though this were a moment suffused with inner psychological drama, but maybe the suit the guy had to wear fragmented his performance so much that this really didn't get communicated.

I think if I'd watched this without the puppets, I'd have permanently lost my mind. That's got to count for SOMETHING.

Granted, I wasn't expecting much from this 1971 movie when I sat down to watch in here in 2020. But hey, I hadn't seen it before - nor even heard about it - and so I thought I would sit down to watch it, as it might actually be a good movie.

Well, turns out that the storyline in "Zaat" was rather generic and mundane, offering very little of great entertainment to the audience. The plot was fairly straight forward, for sure, but it just wasn't a particularly compelling or interesting storyline all together. It just amazes me that with four writers, that they couldn't come up with something more wholehearted than what this movie turned out to be.

The acting in the movie was adequate for most parts, aside from the dubious acting in the first part of the movie before the guy turned into the amphibious creature.

For a movie from 1971, then I will say that the special effects weren't all that impressive. Perhaps back in the day they were passable on the screen, but they have not withstood the test of time with grace. The creature design was fairly shoddy, and it was blatantly obvious that it was just a guy in a rubber suit walking and swimming about. And the design of the head for the amphibious creature was just abysmal, it looked horrible and distorted.

No wonder I had never heard about "Zaat" before I got the chance to sit down to watch it, and I hadn't been missing out on a particularly great or outstanding moment in cinema history.

I am rating "Zaat" a mere three out of ten stars, as the movie was watchable, albeit not entertaining. And "Zaat" is not a movie that warrants more than a single viewing, especially since just getting through the first viewing was something of an ordeal in itself.

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.