Zaat

Plot synopsis:
The film begins with Nazi mad scientist Dr. Kurt Leopold in his lab, where he has lived alone for about 20 years (it is revealed later in the film that he graduated cum laude from MIT in 1934). He is contemplating his former colleagues' derision for his "formula", which is described as "ZaAt" (read Z-sub-A, A-sub-T, but which he simply calls "Zaat"). This compound, it is later explained, can transform humans into sea creature hybrids and "mutate all sea life". He injects himself with the serum and immerses himself in a tank connected to an array of equipment of an unspecified nature, emerging as a furred, fish-like monster.
His first act of revenge on the society that he feels has wronged him is to release several smaller walking catfish around the town's lakes and river (filmed in the St. Johns River near Green Cove Springs, Florida), an annoyance to the townspeople, and releases Zaat into the local water supply, rendering many of the townspeople ill.
Leopold decides to kill the colleagues that scoffed at his work. He begins with a character named Maxson. In a lake where Maxson is fishing, Leopold swims under Maxson's boat, overturns it, and proceeds to kill Maxson and Maxson's son. Maxson's wife escapes, although she is in shock from the attack.
After killing Maxson, Leopold discovers a girl who is camping out alone on the shore of the lake. He approaches her, only to be deterred by her barking dog. The girl carries on with her business, unconcerned about the barking dog. Leopold retreats. Later, Leopold kills another colleague, Ewing.
His two colleagues now deceased, Leopold returns to the lake where the girl is still camping and waits for an opportunity to abduct her. His perseverance pays off when she strips down to a yellow bikini to go swimming. She dives into the lake, swimming carefree until Leopold catches her underwater. He swims with her to his lab, even as she struggles in vain to escape.
At the lab, the bikini-clad girl is lying strapped down in a mesh basket next to the large tank of Zaat. She is unconscious, and Leopold reveals his intentions to make her his mate. Leopold injects Zaat into her neck. As she is immersed into a tank of Zaat, the girl wakes up and struggles against the ropes holding her. The equipment malfunctions for reasons unknown, and her corpse, partially transformed, is pulled from the tank.
The movie strangely diverts from the storyline for approximately 10–15 minutes to show a lingering scene of the town sheriff Lou, watching a small group of youths playing religious folk music. After one of the youths (an acoustic guitarist, Jamie DeFrates, who also wrote the songs for the film) finishes leading the group in a song, the town's sheriff, Lou, places them all in the town's jail, presumably for their own protection. (This scene does not appear in all released versions.)
Leopold attempts to kidnap another mate. His choice is Martha Walsh, the lovely female member of the INPIT scientific team sent to investigate the weird happenings in the town (caused by Dr. Leopold). Leopold grabs her after her male counterparts leave her alone. Leopold takes her to his lab, but two of her companions (having unraveled the plot) are waiting there. Leopold kills them (including the sheriff) violently. He injects her with Zaat, readies her to be dunked into the tank, and makes his getaway, with canisters of Zaat. Martha's transformation does not go as planned and she gets saved from getting dunked in the tank by one of her dying male companions as Leopold flees toward the ocean. Despite being saved from the transformation, she appears to be in a trance and immediately follows Leopold into the sea. The movie ends ambiguously, with Leopold seen shot but not killed.

Tags: cult

Review:
I suppose it establishes some plot points and clarifies things for the audience, but there are so many ramblings and offshoots that you just kinda of give up and give in.The "monster" looks like an early draft of a Silurian costume from Doctor Who, with a fur neckpiece (??).
The opening narration dwells on them (giving us a good impression of Jacques Costeau as a Nazi gone bad), and at least one murder scene decides to insert random shots of fish in-between cuts.
This is one of the cheapest and ugliest, but it has a rough appeal to it nonetheless.A nerdy, evil little scientist who looks like Elmer Fudd decides to turn himself into a giant fish monster, and succeeds...sort of.
The unhappy ending was not something I saw coming, and was a shock since this film seemed to so very badly want to recapture the glory days of mad-scientist-making-monsters-in-their-basement-labs movies from the 50s.
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.
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!
This main reason ties in with the peculiarity of a rarely seen and relatively unavailable film getting as high as over 2,000 votes.A reviewer from Tennessee got to the heart of this matter in his 2007 IMDb user's essay; he addressed another IMDb comment that bemoaned the majority of the reviewers having only seen ZAAT in its Mystery Science Theater 3000 dissection, which also happened to be the way the Tennessee reviewer saw the film.
And it especially becomes unfair if the satirized version has been abridged -- that's like a book reviewer who reviews a book based on only some chapters.Add to this formula the cynicism of a newer generation, who thinks it's "cool" to put down media-presented efforts; by doing so, such people think they are being smarter, and what a nice way to feel better.Of course ZAAT is a "bad" movie.
The producer obviously had a very low budget (I'd imagine his contacts with the Florida Marine facility might have inspired the "plot" -- without money, a film can be designed around the locations and other assets), yet still managed to come up with a stupidly imaginative film.I appreciated the quality of the monster suit, for one thing -- given what must have been the restraints of the budget and the local special effects talent.
(With a movie like this, you've got to appreciate what you get.)I'm giving the film a few undeserved stars as a reaction against the numerous IMDb snobs who don't even have the decency to watch the real thing.
And for those who have taken in the real thing, what DO these people expect when they watch a locally made monster movie from the 1970s that defines the word "cheesy"?
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.
The big rubber monster of the film is quite cheesy looking as it teeters around the swamps and struggles to swim in underwater scenes.
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?
Fans of rubber suited monsters movies will have a special place in their hearts for it & look on it as one of the best of the genre.
(I think people are being overly dramatic about it because it was featured on MST3K.) At least it didn't waste time getting to the creation of the monster.
Zaat didn't waste time, the monster was created in the first 5 minutes.Also, the ending was pretty good.
Let's face it, the MST3K airings cut almost 30 minutes out of the film so their segments could be added and they talked through the whole movie.
The plot drags on and on with no exposition except for a pathetic voice-over from the "villiain" who tells us all that they think he's mad, and "he'll show them someday".Anyway, after about 20 minutes of showing us this bad guy playing around with all sorts of pseudo-Frankenstein lab stuff, he finally turns into a walking fish-man.
"Zaat," or "Blood Waters of Dr. Z," as it is more well known, isa really horrendous excuse for a horror movie I've ever seen!This movie stole elements from other movies just to make a goodcut, and as it turned out, the result is not very good!Dr. Leopold is a lonely scientist who can't seem to get a date.So what does he do to solve this problem?
He uses special hydrochemicals to turn himself into a giant catfish monster and grabsunsuspecting babes that are swimming in some nearby waters!Those doesn't seem to be bad ideas, except the fact that he hasto become a fish monster!
The "awesome" monster costume...But the film has charm, and despite being a bad movie, it is not deserving of being on the bottom 100.
There's one thing that ZAAT has going for it that very few monster movies do: it delivers the goods early on and doesn't skimp.
It helps that the locals make some serious errors in judgement when confronting our hero (like the sheriff who starts to draw his gun when he runs afoul of our hero, then opts to use it as a club rather than a firearm), but that's a big part of what makes the movie so much fun.
I guess the best that could be said for it was that at times, the location scenery was very nice and the print we saw on Turner Movie Classics tonight did not deserve to look so clean and pristine (that alone stunned me).
Suspenseful music cues used at times when absolutely NOTHING suspenseful was going on and other gaffs and blunders that usually make these things entertaining, but not entertaining enough (if you ever have only an hour to live, watch this movie and you'll think you've lived another 9 days).I'm rather surprised I had never heard of this one until recently!.
The only reason I watched this (DVR'ed from Turner Classic Movies channel) was because I was a friend of Wade Popwell who played the monster.
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.
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 monster in the cover art may be the best thing about the movie but it's as cheesy as you can get.Anyways, this poor effort is even better than most of today's direct to DVD flicks.This is Mystery Science Theater material.
This is a movie about a scientist who turns himself into a fish person to kill people.
"Zaat" also known as "Blood Waters of Dr. Z" or "Attack of the Swamp Creatures" and "Legend of the Zaat Monster", its a pretty awful monster movie that has serious problems, everything from the acting, to the pacing, this film gets most aspects wrong.
Its directed by Don Barton and Arnold Stevens (he's uncredited), none of them have worked in another movie after this one or even before, but I can tell that they did the best with what they had.The film starts pretty well, for a 70's trashy monster flick, its campy and cheesy but somewhat enjoyable for schlock movie standards, but as it goes on you realize that you have little or no character development (I know its just a monster movie, but if you have seen the movie you know what I mean, there is almost no real characters here) and not much happens in this film, or maybe stuff did happened, but its just too boring to even care.
But I will say that this movie shows the monster throughout most of the film, and it may not be a good monster costume, but they at least deliver the monster, I must give them credit for that, I also like the underwater footage with the animals and stuff, its kinda of riveting to watch.
One would think the spiteful Zaat would also kill all the fish, considering the fact that they too are non-fish-people, but no, Dr. Z assumes he can just make friends with them, and eventually become their leader, or maybe he gets to be leader as soon as he shows up, I'm not sure.I think this is one of those unfortunate cult "classics" that's been MST3Ked. Pretty typical, I guess, but personally, I'd rather just watch this pile of garbage without the stupid commentary, which is obviously designed for geeks who don't "get" B-cinema.
what's worse is that the opening credits say it was filmed on location in Switzerland, when the whole movie looked like areas in Florida no real estate agent would think about buying.
because they had an original story to tell and they were having a good time, as were the people who helped them, in Florida i have read........these kinds of movies helped keep drive-ins alive.....by the way, i think this film is a lot better than the first efforts i have seen on similar, or greater, budgets from wizards like spielberg, lucas and coppola........
now, actually as a scientist i was impressed by the science of it all and the use of technology available at the time .......i thought it flowed quite nicely and was very surprised by the quality of the actors even when considering everyone in front and behind the cameras were just amateurs with the exception possibly, of the cinematographer.......i have no idea why some of these people didn't stay in show business ......i think they would have done well especially when associated with such a great monster cult film like this.........an even more important part of the film from an historical aspect is the presence of charles manson and some of his family members as manson plays the guitar and sings a very touching song in the middle of the movie ..............all in all, i thought it was just great..
Zaat or Blood Water's of Doctor Z (made famous by MST3K) is a terrible made movie mainly due to the fact that the first 10-20 minutes of the movie are simply a mad scientist transforming himself into a "walking catfish" and talking to fish.
It was also a nice idea to be able to get the transformation scene on-camera and done rather quickly, as it looks really good and happens to be well-done and since it occurs really early-on, the fact that there's going to be a lot of time spent with it is a good thing.
Watching fish swim around in tanks or the open water while a narrator speaks over everything about the fascinating virtues of a fish isn't a way to begin a film of this value, as it will elicit feelings of boredom almost immediately, and especially since this sequence manages to last around fifteen minutes.
The continuing ability to focus on fish swimming around also carries over into the later parts of the film, so this one can feel like a nature documentary at times, and that's not a good way to feel during this one.
The entire first 15-20 minutes of the film is nothing but that irritating and nonsensical sort of claptrap.After all this annoyance and exposition, the doctor has now become some goofy sea monster--much like the ones you see in THE HORROR OF PARTY BEACH and other such 60s laughable crap.
Also, inexplicably, the camera keeps jumping back and forth from the lame action to stock film of water animals--and it all seems so very irrelevant and cheap.Apparently the plot has something to do with revenge or making a female creature like himself or something, but it's never very clear.
Anyway, the monster goes around killing people for apparently no real reason and it's up to four brain dead characters played by incredibly bad actors to stop him.That's about the size of it.
Throw in the racist cracker sheriff, the Gil Gerard lookalike 'scientist' trying to catch the monster at the end, and the bad fake Vincent Price imitation voiceovers, and you have one of the worst movies ever.
If you enjoy films like ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES, CURSE OF THE SWAMP CREATURES or various other drive-in stuff then you might find yourself enjoying this mess even though it's pretty bad from start to finish.
For the life of me I can't understand a single thing about this movie as the entire "lets turn myself into a fish" routine never makes sense nor does his entire plan for kidnapping women to mate with.
What's even dumber is that a film like this would need the running time of 100-minutes, which is the real reason one wouldn't be able to laugh at this thing even more.
Now if you were to watch this film without mike and the bots on MST3K you would be bored to tears, in fact you would probably prefer going to work in a coal mine.
However, both films are also unimaginably bad, amateurishly put together and they actually make the aforementioned Creature look like it's "Citizen Kane".
Yet even this doesn't account for just how bad it is.The plot involves a bitter scientist who turns himself into a human catfish and releases chemicals into a small Florida town's water supply as part of his plan to turn humanity into fish and conquer the world.
Overall, I've seen worse but that's saying a huge amount as Blood Waters of Dr Z is still terrible, one of the lamest monster movies almost certainly brought to celluloid.
I'm not surprised that "Zaat" was put on IMDB's list of the worst movies of all time.The film is truly abysmal,but this doesn't mean that it isn't enjoyable to watch.The monster is actually really funny looking and wanders around killing many stupid people.The underwater photography is quite good and the acting isn't as bad as I expected.Highly recommended if you like trash cinema from early 70's.The plot:A mad scientist turns himself into a giant half man/half fish to try and rule the world!.
Also known as the Blood Waters of Doctor Z, this incredibly bad, lame film about a mad scientist who turns himself into a Manphibian, is a 27th rate Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Most of the time the movie uses "electronic music" which is highly annoying and then in some places they play what sounds like (and what might be) themes from CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON.
The Creature From the Black Lagoon looks way better than this thing and once again it is from an older film.
The episode gets a bit boring during the stretch where the guy is riding the door and they are just driving, but then ramps back up when the one guy wants to track the beast in his little toy car/boat and then proceeds to stumble through the swamp letting you know that the monster simply lucked out in this one as he had the four most incapable heroes ever.So the movie is rather bad and I am going to guess seeing an unedited version would not improve it much.
Still, as bad as it was, it is still a rather amusing film to watch and made for a very funny episode of MST3K..
From the opening shot of the scientist strolling along(like we want to waste our time watching some guy take a Sunday walk!) while the worst,most drab folk song that I have ever heard plays in the background(sashay through the sarcasm?!
What does that even mean, for chrissake?!) To the end shot of the girl moseying into the ocean to become mate to the stupid looking monster that the doctor transforms into, this movie is just dreadful.
He then strips (not a pretty sight) and immerses himself in a pool full of red water, by which he is turned into a hilarious looking "walking catfish monster" (guy in ugly rubber suit).
Said monster then spends the rest of the movie bumbling about in much the same way science guy did, only the monster kills people instead of doing science, all set to swamp sounds like "wuuuh" and the like, plenty of clips of water creatures spliced in for good measure.
It's a typical low-budget monster movie with a really bad costume, subpar actors, and some shoddy camera-work.The story is about a doctor who is really uppity that the world doesn't like fish as much as he does, so he does the rational thing and turns himself into an amphibious monster in hopes of conquering the world.
The best thing is you don't actually have to watch it now, it's that stupid.Not the worst movie ever, but it's really, really close.
This movie tells the story of a mad scientist who turns himself into a catfish monster wanting to capture a girl and take over the world.
low budget monster flick, which could be a good or a bad thing..
The movie is about an evil scientist named Dr. Z who transforms himself into a fish-like monster which is his "plan" to take over the world.