ZAAT-(1975)-In Jacksonville, Florida a weird scientist plans to take over the world. We hear his thoughts about "his fish friends" while different species are shown. The dialogue is great! "Fish, mighty hunter of the deep. I love you". He calls a shark his friend and says "Soon I'll swim with you". After this intro we see the scientist on shore (his voice doesn't match his wimpy stature). Since he said he admired the shark it only seems natural his experiment for world domination must involve him turning into a shark-man right?
Wrong! He instead he uses his special formula called "Zaat" to transform himself into a walking catfish man! It's a big green emotionaless monster (with a fur collar) that kind of looks like something from the TV show "Voyage To The Bottom of The Sea"!
Once transformed he decides to take a break from conquering humans to killing a few. Namely some former colleagues who called him insane. Everytime he kills footage of sea life is intercut.
Meanwhile an African American scientist (Gerald Cruse) and a redneck sheriff (Paul Galloway) investigate the walking catfish pheomena that is plaguing the local hicks. After killing the men who wronged him Zaat goes looking for a mate. His first experiment goes wrong and his victim dies. Husband and wife government agents are called in to figure out who's doing the killing. They set up several traps and talk a lot. The sherriff can't believe a monster is responsible and somehow conveniently forgets to mention that a local doctor name Leopold was once doing secret experiments trying to cross humans with fish!
He manages to remember ("I never thought about it..till a second ago") just in time for the climax where Zaat decides the female agent should become his Mrs. The three male leads all die. Zaat is morally wounded (apparently) and goes to the sea to die. The female agent follows him into the water (I guess the last experiment worked!). The End.
I first saw ZAAT in a theater on 42nd Street in Manhattan in the early '80's under the title THE BLOOD WATERS OF DR. Z. People were shouting and laughing the whole time so I shouldn't have been surprised when the next time it resurfaced was in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 but I was!
I was even more surprised when TCM showed it one night around 3 AM!
ZAAT isn't that bad as bad movies go. The monster is kind of funny, there are some lapses in editing and in one or two scenes it looks like the monster is waiting for his cue (the actor Wade Popwell probably couldn't hear very well with that monster suit on) but the acting is ok and there's some gore. The highlight is the monster's movements (going up stairs, freaking out in a pharmacy, operating a board with flashing lights) and his hysterical revenge and fish loving tinged dialogue!
According to IMDB only one actor in ZAAT ever appeared in another movie. This seemed to apply to most of the crew also except for Director of Photograpy Jack McGowan who had shot CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THING, DEATH DREAM and DERANGED.
Triple threat director/screenwriter/producer Don Barton was content to rest on his laurels after this and never made another movie. Too bad!
There's actually a website about it!: http://www.zaatmovie.com/
Thanks for reading!
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