I saw this film under the title, The Blood Waters of Dr. Z on the cult riffing show Mystery Science Theater 3000. Apparently, it is more commonly known by the title Zaat and though I am sure there is a lot of movie that MST3K did not show, I am rather sure it still would have been a very poor movie. The main problem with it? No matter how much more gory it might have been, no matter if there was nudity you cannot ignore the fact the monster of this film looks and acts horribly! Seriously, the monster in this one does not look as good as a monster in a Roger Corman film from the 50's, the monster in Night of the Blood Beast looks more intimidating! Basically, the thing is supposed to be part man and part fish...part catfish that is, which is absurd to begin with. The body portion of the costume is very dumpy and the head looks like a joke as the mouth looks like it is a set of novelty vampire fangs! The Creature From the Black Lagoon looks way better than this thing and once again it is from an older film. If the looks of the thing were not bad enough then it is the fact I have never seen a more nonthreatening monster in terms of its movements. It is constantly tripping and stumbling and movie and swimming at a snail's pace, and the audience is supposed to believe this thing is a threat?
The story has a man talking over a bunch of clips of fish, making one almost think this is a nature documentary read by a deranged man. You see, Dr. Leopold wants to turn himself into a fish and rally the other fish to his cause to take over the world! His partner in crime, the walking catfish! Other than a scene where Leopold talks about how they achieve movement over land, you do not really see them do anything as far a terror. Dr. Leopold soon turns himself into the most embarrassing looking monster ever and begins his quest for world domination as he tries to kidnap an attractive blond and turn her into his mate. Meanwhile, the heroes of this piece consist of a sheriff, some sort of water guy and two agents who wear orange jumpsuits. The are the most incompetent group ever as they literally could have just went to Dr. Leopold's house and set up an ambush and probably wiped the floor with him.
This made for a very funny episode of MST3K as the film provided plenty of riffing material. As I've stated, the monsters looks, the strange voice over with the fish clips, the monster kills and the strange scene involving an off camera mom who you never see. You don't even see her car! 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. That being said, I would almost like to see an unedited version to see what was taken out and see if maybe there is a scene depicting the giant catfish and see if maybe there was any nudity in this one as there were a couple of instances where there looked like there might of been. I don't think the kills would get much better as one of the kills they showed had the monster with a hand already full of blood swipe past a young man it was killing. Still, as bad as it was, it is still a rather amusing film to watch and made for a very funny episode of MST3K.
The story has a man talking over a bunch of clips of fish, making one almost think this is a nature documentary read by a deranged man. You see, Dr. Leopold wants to turn himself into a fish and rally the other fish to his cause to take over the world! His partner in crime, the walking catfish! Other than a scene where Leopold talks about how they achieve movement over land, you do not really see them do anything as far a terror. Dr. Leopold soon turns himself into the most embarrassing looking monster ever and begins his quest for world domination as he tries to kidnap an attractive blond and turn her into his mate. Meanwhile, the heroes of this piece consist of a sheriff, some sort of water guy and two agents who wear orange jumpsuits. The are the most incompetent group ever as they literally could have just went to Dr. Leopold's house and set up an ambush and probably wiped the floor with him.
This made for a very funny episode of MST3K as the film provided plenty of riffing material. As I've stated, the monsters looks, the strange voice over with the fish clips, the monster kills and the strange scene involving an off camera mom who you never see. You don't even see her car! 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. That being said, I would almost like to see an unedited version to see what was taken out and see if maybe there is a scene depicting the giant catfish and see if maybe there was any nudity in this one as there were a couple of instances where there looked like there might of been. I don't think the kills would get much better as one of the kills they showed had the monster with a hand already full of blood swipe past a young man it was killing. Still, as bad as it was, it is still a rather amusing film to watch and made for a very funny episode of MST3K.