Zaat (also known as Blood Waters of Dr. Z; Hydra (UK VHS title); Attack of the Swamp Creatures (US bootleg title) is a 1972 horror film. The film remained obscure for many years but, amazingly was released as a Blu-ray/DVD combo in 2012.
The film begins with Nazi mad scientist Dr. Kurt Leopold in his lab, where he has lived alone for about twenty years (it is revealed later in the film that he graduated cum laude from MIT in 1934). He is contemplating his former colleagues’ laughter at his formula, which is described as “ZaAt” (read Z-sub-A, A-sub-T, but which he simply calls “Zaat”). His formula can turn a man into a walking catfish. He injects himself with the serum emerges from a tank as a giant fish-like creature.
His first act of revenge on 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), 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 laughed 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…
Buy Zaat on Blu-ray Disc + DVD from Amazon.com
‘With risible dialogue, inept staging, ‘special” effects that need to be seen to be believed, and a just plain out there ambience from start to finish, this is the sort of film Ed Wood, Jr. might have made—on a bad day.” Jeffrey Kaufman, Blu-ray,com
UK video sleeve courtesy of Crap Video Art
Florida Boxoffice trade ad courtesy of The Dead Next Door
Categories: 1970s, creature feature, mad scientist, monster movie, Nazi horror
Leave a Reply