Because Keith and Adam's Grandma are in South Carolina this week, we decided to do a rewatch of what actually turned out to be the last movie we watched before I started keeping a Facebook group of the movies we watch: "Zaat." The movie is about a mad scientist living in Florida (as all the craziest crazies do) who is obsessed with marine life and trying to facilitate its take over of the world. The first ten minutes or so of the movie is just the scientist in voice-over narration lovingly describing some of the creatures of the deep in a documentary style. Then we watch him go back to his lab and play around with fish and a formula called "ZaAt" that would expedite growth in fish. He uses the formula on himself transforming him into a creature that he describes as, "Nothing at all like the catfish , , , but it's beautiful!" This allows him to check "Self transformation" off his to-do list and he also prematurely checks off "Transform Florida" before he goes out into the water with a spray bottle of Zaat. He gets revenge on the two sane scientists who stalled his research and then tries to kidnap women to made a Lady Zaat and the movie ends on a strangely ambiguous note.
While this may sound like fairly typical horror fair, there's a character to this movie that makes it very unique. Absolutely every shot seems to be in real time and zooms-in seem to be the only camera technique employed. Apparently the studio who facilitated it mostly makes training films. The Zaat costume, with its permanently frozen expression, clearly makes it hard to see as the actor moves slowly and trips a lot. The movie also takes a break to have an acoustic guitar playing hippie sing a song. There's even an attempted chase scene in an amphibious vehicle that goes no where when it hits the water.
It's especially strange how much you want Zaat to succeed. He's almost so pathetic that you want to throw him a bone somehow because he will obviously fail. He may be nothing like the catfish, but he's everything like that loner in high school who didn't have any friends.
Quote: "You must be tired. So am I. It's been a long 20 years."
[Someone tell Zaat he should sleep at some point.]
Potential Name for a "Bride of Frankenstein"-esque sequel: She's All Zaat
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