This movie, this movie, is nuts, it’s too much. Imagine writing some of this (verbatim I swear it) and putting it up for critique.
It had other titles.... do not watch the mystery science version of this, it can't be as good/bad.
ZAAT 1971
What’s Zaat you said?
Weird sound FX. Narrator (with weird Germanic accent):
Sargassom. The weed of deceit.
We see what looks like a lionfish lurking in some weeds.
Sargassom fish – mighty hunter of the deeps. What an inspiration you have been, in my plot.
Close ups of lionfish breathing, probably in an aquarium.
Your life of hiding, waiting, stalking your prey. At just the right moment – attack!
We see lionfish grab a smaller fish.
Hah, hah,hah... I love you ...I hope I’ll be a good imitator.
Lionfish swallows gourami, now we see a shark.
And my friend, the shark. Cunning, swift... wretched humans, they are afraid of you. I – admire you. Soon, I’ll swim with you. They’ll be afraid, huh,huh, heh,hah...
Now we see some kind of Rockfish.
Oh mighty scorpion! dangerous beast of the ocean, with your powerful daggers and your camouflage. You have little to fear from other fish.
More shots of rockfish, other reef fish, coral, shrimp,
Hn, Hn, Hnn Hhn, heh, ha, haaa... they think I’m insane. They’re the ones who are insane.
We see shrimp, hermit crab, puffer fish.
Oh my friends of the deep. This day, this very day, I’ll become one of you.
Shot of puffer fish swimming away.
My family.
Cut to guy on beach, looking out to sea. Narrator voice continues:
And together, we’ll conquer the universe.
Guy stands there then starts walking along beach. Guitar and flute music plays over titles. Guy walks into a place, sort of a junkyard, as moody hippie music continues.
credit Marineland of Florida, Ok that’s the fish shots then... Hippie folkrock plays on, wailing about WW2 and love and fighters and Sargassom, as our guy walks around doing nothing in particular.
Finally he enters a dark basement. Lots of pipes and machinery, he walks, slowwwly, up a flight of stairs. He plugs a little cable into a red pipe on the wall, and machinery whirs to life. Big computers and tricked-up boxes, oscillators, he has gadgets galore. His crazy narrator voice starts up again as he does something on a table, looks like he’s filling a ketchup bottle with a hose.
The formula they all laughed at... Z sub A... and A sub T. My little gem. Zaat! Very powerful. They’ll have fish the size they’ve never seen before! Walking fish - Hn, hn, ha, haa... who like human flesh.
We see guy finicking with some ropes attached to a small swimming pool in the room. Then he walks into the next room, a lab, where he opens the lid of a jar and fondles an octopus for a while. He opens a notebook and starts to read to himself.
Secure the electrodes to the denticulated portions of the pectoral spine. Tape an extra lead from the cathode to a twelve megaohm potentiometer to a point precisely above the posterior tip of the occipital process. With extreme caution, turn the dial for a current of ten to the minus six-millionthpheres..? If the formula proves correct the transformation should be perfect even to the opervescent shape of the accessory breathing organs.
He talks on to himself about the Walking Catfish, as he catches one from an aquarium. He informs us that this fish is visciously aggressive and poses a threat to all freshwater ecology. He dumps it on a table and watches the slithering and thrashing tail, whisker-barbs equipped with taste buds and so on. The largest one collected in Florida is 18 inches. The guy putters around the lab looking at a stingray and other fish in tanks.
We’re going to do something about your size. You can’t battle people being just two feet long. You must be tired. So am I. It’s been a long twenty years. But today a new life will start for me. Oh, but you know that. Your freshwater friends will be the first to experience Zaat. They’’ll outgrow you rather rapidly, mutate, then attack! One final check to be sure there’s been no change in your acidity... uh-huh.
That’s the first ten minutes. The guy turns himself into an Octo-guy. There’s a Southern sheriff and a black scientist and a bunch of hippie musicians in this one, but it is hard to watch without drifting or twitching. Good luck. Zaat’s all for now.