Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird How Cinema rewind. This is Rob
Speaker 1: Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In today's episode was originally
Speaker 1: published on April. It's that baby, that's right. I mean,
Speaker 1: because this is this is our Turkey Day break. So
Speaker 1: I think last last year we were thinking about Mystery
Speaker 1: Science Theater three thousand, the traditional Mystery Science three thousand
Speaker 1: celebration of Turkey Day. And so this is a great
Speaker 1: time for us to turn to a beloved episode of
Speaker 1: MST three K because of course they did z as
Speaker 1: the Bloodwaters of Doctor Z and uh yeah. So so
Speaker 1: it's a perfect time to to really wade into this
Speaker 1: Florida movie. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production
Speaker 1: of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird How sent him.
Speaker 1: This is Rob Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and I
Speaker 1: regret to inform you right at the start here that
Speaker 1: the Weird House Cinema tour bus has broken down in Florida,
Speaker 1: so we are still stuck in the Sunshine State. That's right.
Speaker 1: We're continuing our look at Florida movies from the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: movies filmed in Florida and certainly in the case of
Speaker 1: today's film, and also Nine two Frogs, which we've covered previously,
Speaker 1: set in Florida as well, they capture a certain Florida
Speaker 1: This both real and imagined. Uh. And this week we're
Speaker 1: gonna look at the Florida movie par Excellence nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: ones Z. You might know it as the Blood Waters
Speaker 1: of Doctor Z. Some of you might even know it
Speaker 1: as Hydra basically, as we'll get into it had a
Speaker 1: number of various releases over the years under different titles,
Speaker 1: but uh, for the most part, the one that's stuck
Speaker 1: is z Z a a t. This movie has some
Speaker 1: thematic overlap with other movies that we've looked, including a
Speaker 1: sort of like Nature strikes Back movies, though this is
Speaker 1: not exactly Nature strikes Back. This is more of a uh.
Speaker 1: This is more of a sort of cheap body horror,
Speaker 1: mad science movie with some ecological themes to it, rather
Speaker 1: than just like animals attacking for revenge on humankind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's I guess at heart it's a creature feature. But
Speaker 1: like like a lot of films that you encounter like this,
Speaker 1: certainly like like the first big independent efforts from from filmmakers.
Speaker 1: It it tries to do a lot of things, so
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a creature feature, but it's also like
Speaker 1: a science team adventure. It's also um, you know, it
Speaker 1: also tries to be uh in the heat of the
Speaker 1: night a little bit it uh. It also has this
Speaker 1: nature strikes back element to it. It's also a kind
Speaker 1: of a hippie folk musical, so it it kind of
Speaker 1: bats itself around a lot and um. Depending on where
Speaker 1: you are in the film, you might get something that
Speaker 1: is totally different from another portion of the film. It
Speaker 1: also has a little bit of overlap with Boggy Creek two,
Speaker 1: and the legend continues. We can talk about some of
Speaker 1: the similarities as we go on, but uh, but I
Speaker 1: appreciated the the similar pompous voiceover narration, though in this
Speaker 1: case it is the voiceover of a of a crazed
Speaker 1: uh spurned scientist who wants revenge on the world, whereas
Speaker 1: in Boggy Creek Too, it's just a kind of uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like the town smart guy who wants
Speaker 1: to to show off all his knowledge about the river. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The voiceover narration and this is um is sardonic to
Speaker 1: the max, Like if you took Vincent Price's voice and
Speaker 1: you reduced it overheat for a little bit until it
Speaker 1: was it was just extra ikey and gooky. That's what
Speaker 1: you'd have in the Bloodwaters of Doctor Z. The voiceover
Speaker 1: narration wears joker makeup. Yeah. Now, um, if you mentioned
Speaker 1: Boggy Creeker earlier, and I think this is a good
Speaker 1: point to mention that this film was was riffed in
Speaker 1: a episode of Mystery Science Feed or three thousand under
Speaker 1: the title the Bloodwaters of Dr Z. And if you're
Speaker 1: like me, that might be where you discovered the film. Um,
Speaker 1: and it that's a great MST episode. I don't want
Speaker 1: to take anything away from that, but as I would
Speaker 1: watch and rewatch that episode, I found that, like a
Speaker 1: lot of MST episodes that really called to me, there
Speaker 1: was something in the underlying film. There was an awkwardness
Speaker 1: to it, a kind of loneliness to it. And I've
Speaker 1: also grown to really appreciate the Florida no of it
Speaker 1: as well. So for this episode of Weird House Cinema,
Speaker 1: this was the first time I watched an unriffed version
Speaker 1: of that which rented from Atlanta's Videodrome Video rental store.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, ultimately I encourage fans of the
Speaker 1: MST episode to do the same because, like a lot
Speaker 1: of MST films, it was really edited, really cut down
Speaker 1: for time, and so there's a there's a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff that you're missing out on, some really um walky
Speaker 1: and at times grotesque details and sometimes just ludicrous um
Speaker 1: additions to the film. This is not of the attack
Speaker 1: of the Crab Monsters School of Creature feature run time.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not your sixty three minute abs this one,
Speaker 1: I think is it's it's actually getting close to two
Speaker 1: full hours, isn't it. Yeah, I think it's the it's
Speaker 1: a hundred minutes long. It's a it's it's plus size
Speaker 1: this one. Um, so you can you have to set
Speaker 1: us out a little bit of time for it. Um.
Speaker 1: And again the pacing is is at times kind of
Speaker 1: weird but also hypnotic um quite ludic at times. Uh huh.
Speaker 1: Now we mentioned the MST episode. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people did discover it through that. But the film
Speaker 1: has has had a cult following outside of MST as well,
Speaker 1: despite only having a limited release in Jacksonville, Florida, and
Speaker 1: New York's Fort Street back in ninety two. The uh
Speaker 1: you have the version we watched. It begins with a
Speaker 1: statement from the director where he's like people were coming
Speaker 1: up to be and saying, don don You've got to
Speaker 1: release this movie? Yes, so yeah, I think it was.
Speaker 1: It was people really wanted some sort of release for
Speaker 1: a long time, and luckily in recent years it has
Speaker 1: been available. Um. But yeah, this this film, like the
Speaker 1: Scorpion Fish uh and the Sargassum Fish is it's been patient.
Speaker 1: It knew that it would one day conquer the universe. Um.
Speaker 1: And and it has its super fans, one of which
Speaker 1: is the Atlanta artist and Jacksonville native our Land, who
Speaker 1: I know, we're both the fans of. Have you seen
Speaker 1: any of our lands Zat pieces, Joe? Oh, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I've seen a lot of his stuff around town, a
Speaker 1: lot of you know, restaurants and coffee shops and stuff.
Speaker 1: We'll have our Land pieces up on the walls. I
Speaker 1: think some of his work also, though I don't quite
Speaker 1: recall how was featured in some adult swim shows. I
Speaker 1: could be wrong about that, but no, I don't know
Speaker 1: the za ones are. I know his I know his
Speaker 1: piece that's like the divers with the spear guns. Is
Speaker 1: that that related? Um, that one might not be. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's he works Florida into a lot of his pieces,
Speaker 1: but he did. Um, he did create a number of
Speaker 1: art pieces that actually feature that he did. He did
Speaker 1: a show as part of a two thousand nine screening
Speaker 1: of the film at the Plaza here in Atlanta, and
Speaker 1: at least some of the pieces I assume from that
Speaker 1: show were that they used to hang out over at
Speaker 1: Joe's Coffee in East Atlanta. Uh. And I would go
Speaker 1: there and bring my laptop and work. Uh And UM,
Speaker 1: I don't know, there may still be some pieces there.
Speaker 1: I haven't been there in a in a spell, but uh,
Speaker 1: you know images of za and uh. He had some
Speaker 1: some spinoffs over the years as well, Like there was
Speaker 1: one that was like a real estate sign that says
Speaker 1: that did it again. Um, and then he's he recently
Speaker 1: did did one at least online that was a zat
Speaker 1: or day uh thing. It was pretty amusing. But yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he's apparently a zat Mega fan. And you know
Speaker 1: a lot of people like him out there, you know
Speaker 1: where you see this maybe when you're younger, and something
Speaker 1: about it that it sticks in into your brain. And
Speaker 1: you can't quite get it out all right, what's the
Speaker 1: elevator pitch? On this film? A lonely mad scientist in
Speaker 1: Florida hatches a plan to raise an army of giant
Speaker 1: walking catfish and avenge himself over his colleagues, and also
Speaker 1: conquer the planet, perhaps the universe. Uh, and we're left
Speaker 1: to follow him and see how it works out. Let's
Speaker 1: hear that trailer audio and now coming to this theater.
Speaker 1: One of the most incredible stories of modern time sat
Speaker 1: Invasion of the Walking Catfish. A crazed scientist Dr. Leopold
Speaker 1: is convinced he can turn to humans into fish. He
Speaker 1: proves it by transforming himself into a horrible for them
Speaker 1: full that tells it all. You won't want to miss
Speaker 1: zat positively. No one admitted during the last minutes. Okay, now,
Speaker 1: you would not have expected a movie like this to
Speaker 1: have major folk music themes. And I don't know if
Speaker 1: the trailer audio we just played have the folk music
Speaker 1: in it. Uh. If not, maybe we should insert a
Speaker 1: clip right here, just because like you've got to have
Speaker 1: this in your head to understand everything that comes after.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean we can go straight to the
Speaker 1: music here if you like uh this, Uh, what we're
Speaker 1: about here is um is a is a bit from
Speaker 1: a song titled World War two Boy, which is a
Speaker 1: very strange, strange title. But this is from Barry Hodgen
Speaker 1: and Jamie Defrates. They were the composers. And this is
Speaker 1: Jamie Defrate's performing the song. Alright, that's just a clip,
Speaker 1: but this song is performed in its entirety at the
Speaker 1: top of the film um and it's and I actually
Speaker 1: love it. I listened to this song quite a bit,
Speaker 1: especially in the last couple of weeks leading up to
Speaker 1: this episode, because you can. You can find this on
Speaker 1: Spotify and various other streaming places. If you just look
Speaker 1: up Z songs or or Jamie Defrates you will find it. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a B side and we'll get to the B
Speaker 1: side track in a bit. But these tracks are featured
Speaker 1: in the film in full no cuts. It's almost it's
Speaker 1: almost a rock opera. I mean not quite, only only
Speaker 1: a couple of songs in the movie, but like it
Speaker 1: has musical numbers. Yeah, And I have to say, I
Speaker 1: mean we'll get into this a little bit when we
Speaker 1: start rolling through the plot, but yeah, the music music
Speaker 1: always elevates the film. If you have quality music, it
Speaker 1: can really create dimensions that would not be there otherwise.
Speaker 1: And I legitimately think that the music and that both
Speaker 1: the folk music and some of the other music will
Speaker 1: get to does a great job of that. Like it
Speaker 1: takes this this sort of awkward, fumbling creature feature and
Speaker 1: and elevates it to to this level where it does
Speaker 1: legitimately get caught up in your brain. Do you ever
Speaker 1: hear that story? It was by somebody who worked on
Speaker 1: Halloween with John Carpenter. It might have been Donald Pleasants
Speaker 1: who told the story about going to see a preview
Speaker 1: screening of the movie where the music had not been
Speaker 1: added in yet and thinking like, oh no, what a disaster.
Speaker 1: I'm so embarrassed, and then seeing another cut later when
Speaker 1: the music had been finished and added in, and suddenly
Speaker 1: everybody thinks this is a horror masterpiece. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it. It really does it? It? Uh, It can
Speaker 1: really elevate things to to new levels. Though shocking that
Speaker 1: Donald Pleasants would find embarrassment in a film at that
Speaker 1: stage of his career, because it's not like this would
Speaker 1: have been the first the first bad movie he was in.
Speaker 1: This come before after Puma Man Uh, I don't recall,
Speaker 1: but either either way, there were definitely some Puma Man's
Speaker 1: in there before Halloween. All Right, we'll come back to
Speaker 1: more about the music in a bit, but let's uh,
Speaker 1: let's start with the screenwriter, or one of the screenwriters
Speaker 1: and the director, Don Barton, who lived nineteen thirty through,
Speaker 1: so he was he was very much alive to see
Speaker 1: the renaissance of of Za, the resurgence of that, and
Speaker 1: in fact, the disc that we watched featured introductory commentary
Speaker 1: by Don Barton thanking everyone for their support of the creature. Here. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he shows up right at the top of the film.
Speaker 1: And I should point out this disc it like it's
Speaker 1: one of those that doesn't even have a menu in it.
Speaker 1: It just you just put it in and it just
Speaker 1: plays that the only option is play. Um. But it
Speaker 1: starts with him talking and he Don Barton says, uh.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy one, my film production company in Jacksonville, Florida,
Speaker 1: decided that the time was right to make a feature film,
Speaker 1: meaning this was his first feature film. He'd only done
Speaker 1: one other movie before this, which we'll talk about in
Speaker 1: the second, which was a short film. But he says
Speaker 1: he sat down with his staff to discuss ideas quote,
Speaker 1: and we decided that our first motion picture should be
Speaker 1: a creature feature. Uh so this turned into an idea
Speaker 1: I think talking with some writers and associates of his
Speaker 1: about a man catfish creature that terrorizes a small town
Speaker 1: in his quest for revenge. And then Don Barton says
Speaker 1: that the initial theatrical release was very promising. He doesn't
Speaker 1: elaborate on what exactly that means, but he says that
Speaker 1: due to unspecified mishaps, the film had been unavailable for
Speaker 1: like thirty years at the time that it was rereleased.
Speaker 1: So I wonder, I mean, there must have been some
Speaker 1: way people got it, because the they must have gotten
Speaker 1: a tape of it for Mystery Science theater. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure what. Yeah, I think even that there was some issues,
Speaker 1: if I am to understand correctly, like there was some
Speaker 1: there's a situation where a sci fi channel I think
Speaker 1: at the time, aired it and then Barton's people got
Speaker 1: in touch with them and there was some back and
Speaker 1: forth about like the rights, but it eventually got worked out. Okay,
Speaker 1: that that that makes sense, But um man, when I
Speaker 1: was watching this preamble by Don Barton. At the beginning
Speaker 1: of the movie, I kept thinking, who does this guy
Speaker 1: remind me of his something about his voice and the
Speaker 1: way he talks, And then I realized, he reminds me
Speaker 1: of the TV news host Bill Moyers, who used to
Speaker 1: do like I think he worked for Uh, he did
Speaker 1: his specials for PBS, and then I think you worked
Speaker 1: for CBS for a while. Um. But so like I
Speaker 1: got that feeling like, oh no, this is like Bill
Speaker 1: Moyer's introducing a PBS special on that that's going to
Speaker 1: feature interviews with Joseph Campbell. Yeah, it does have that
Speaker 1: kind of vibe. Now, yeah, we mentioned Jacksonville already, h
Speaker 1: and we will mention Jacksonville some Moore Barton was Jacksonville based.
Speaker 1: He was a producer and director. This was his second
Speaker 1: and last directorial credit, following They're Out to Get You.
Speaker 1: But he was apparently involved throughout his life in the
Speaker 1: Florida film industry, having co founded the Florida Motion Picture
Speaker 1: and Television Production Association, and he also produced documentaries, training films,
Speaker 1: TV commercials, etcetera. And this is actually more of the
Speaker 1: genre that They're Out to Get You was, So They're
Speaker 1: out to get You? I was really looking for an
Speaker 1: online copy of it, and I couldn't find anything. But
Speaker 1: but if somebody out there has better sleuthing capabilities, please
Speaker 1: send this our way. Um, this is not an entertain
Speaker 1: mint film. They're out to get you from nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: nine is an educational short that I think was supposed
Speaker 1: to be shown to retail employees. So it's like one
Speaker 1: of those you know, harassment or ethics training video workplace
Speaker 1: videos they show you on the first day at a
Speaker 1: new job, except it is about shoplifting, and the plot
Speaker 1: of it is that there's this young criminal, or at
Speaker 1: least this is the alleged plot. I had to find
Speaker 1: a summary. Somebody wrote online. There's a young criminal named
Speaker 1: Tony Alto who steals cars for a living, and he
Speaker 1: gets caught and sent to prison, and in prison, his
Speaker 1: cell mate turns out to be this, uh, I don't
Speaker 1: know this the smooth guy who's going to tell him no, no, no,
Speaker 1: stealing cars, you're doing it all wrong. Here's what's up shoplifting,
Speaker 1: And he explains to him why shoplifting is a much
Speaker 1: better way to to make a living by stealing, And
Speaker 1: so as you go through the narrative, I think it
Speaker 1: shows the tricks that shoplifters could be using in your store,
Speaker 1: or your store or yours. So it also sounds like
Speaker 1: it's just in general, a shoplifting training video for very
Speaker 1: either side of the equation. Well, it's kind of like
Speaker 1: how Dare was supposed to scare kids away from doing drugs,
Speaker 1: but instead it was just kind of like, you're all
Speaker 1: the different kinds of drugs you could do. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: let's talk very briefly about the additional story credits UM
Speaker 1: Ron Kivitt and Arnold Stevens and also Lee oh Lar LaRue.
Speaker 1: Not much to report here though. Ron Kivitt was apparently
Speaker 1: an investigator on History Channels ancient aliens at one point.
Speaker 1: So was he investigating aliens? I guess or pyramids? One
Speaker 1: of it was, you know, one of the two, probably, um.
Speaker 1: But that that's the main creative force behind the picture
Speaker 1: that we're going to discuss here at the top. It's
Speaker 1: time to get into the cast. And the film is
Speaker 1: initially concerned with only one human being and devotes a
Speaker 1: good twentysomething minute to just him. Uh, and that is
Speaker 1: our our signature character, our our our main character. Dr
Speaker 1: Curt Leopold played by Marshall Grower. Now this is his
Speaker 1: one and only film role, and for a long time
Speaker 1: I assumed that he only did the physical performance that
Speaker 1: we're seeing Marshall Grower and somebody else's providing that just
Speaker 1: overly sardonic voiceover that we're talking about that again. It's
Speaker 1: just like Vincent Price turned up to eleven Vincent Price
Speaker 1: without any uh you know, humanity left in it at all.
Speaker 1: The you know, the the voice of just a uh
Speaker 1: an overacting demon. But he apparently did the narration as well.
Speaker 1: Um Leopold, the character, the human character never speaks on cameras,
Speaker 1: not a single time, but we have just this voiceover
Speaker 1: at length describing what he's planning to do, what he's doing,
Speaker 1: um what you know, his ultimate aspirations are. Uh it's
Speaker 1: it's a lot of fun. But I would say Marshall
Speaker 1: Grower is is just delightful in this film because the
Speaker 1: voiceover is just it, it's so rich, it's just so overdone.
Speaker 1: And then physically he has this weird combo of sinister
Speaker 1: awkwardness and this kind of outsider sadness, which when you
Speaker 1: throw in the sort of film quality of Z, it
Speaker 1: feels like you're watching a window into someone's personal hell.
Speaker 1: You know, Dr Leopold is a human with the personality
Speaker 1: of a car that's having maintenance problems. He's having trouble accelerating,
Speaker 1: he's releasing dark, foul smelling exhaust, like he needs to
Speaker 1: get his catalytic converter replaced. But also the thing that
Speaker 1: I realized about him that there's a scene early in
Speaker 1: the film where he's walking along a beach, but he's
Speaker 1: not dressed for the beach. He's wearing long slacks and
Speaker 1: the shirt tucked in and his heads hanging down and
Speaker 1: this kind of like sad like puppy dog way, except
Speaker 1: he's he's a little he's more drabbed than a puppy dog.
Speaker 1: And you know, there's this acoustic guitar strumming in the background,
Speaker 1: and he's just this beacon of shabbiness. In some shots
Speaker 1: he's giving off strong, hairy Dean Stanton fumes. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's a that's a good comparison, that kind
Speaker 1: of drawn haggard appearance. Yeah, But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: he has a haircut that doesn't quite match. Because I
Speaker 1: don't know how to describe his his haircut. It's very
Speaker 1: strange it's kind of messy and mappy in the front,
Speaker 1: but also to make it weirder. So it's a haircut
Speaker 1: that I think I've basically only seen on women before.
Speaker 1: It's a cut style that's kind of puffy up in
Speaker 1: the back and raises up towards the back or the
Speaker 1: crown of the head, and then goes flat down toward
Speaker 1: the front. Do you do you know what I'm talking about? Um,
Speaker 1: I'm having a hard time picturing his hair in my head.
Speaker 1: All my picture is that face and then later that
Speaker 1: that bod uh we'll get to um. Uh. Well, anyway,
Speaker 1: he's a he's a profound screen presence. Imdbat is not
Speaker 1: list birth and death dates for Grower, but I was
Speaker 1: looking around and I think I've found him as being listed.
Speaker 1: Is buried in a cemetery in Jacksonville, and he lived
Speaker 1: nineteen two through And uh, if I have the right
Speaker 1: guy here, and I'm pretty sure I do, he was
Speaker 1: he was pretty active in the Jacksonville theaters, so uh,
Speaker 1: and I would not be surprised if that's where. Ultimately
Speaker 1: a number of these actors come from, actors that in
Speaker 1: many cases have no other movie credits listed to them.
Speaker 1: Thinking about this guy being active in Jacksonville theater got
Speaker 1: me off on a tangent that I actually think about
Speaker 1: a good bit when we're watching these B movies, especially
Speaker 1: locally produced B movies, movies that are, you know, not
Speaker 1: a product of l A but you know, come out
Speaker 1: of Florida or somewhere else in the country. Uh. And
Speaker 1: it got me thinking about how acting talent translates across
Speaker 1: from stage to screen and and the disconnect that can
Speaker 1: occur when somebody spans these two worlds. Because I was
Speaker 1: thinking about a story where a longtime close friend of mine,
Speaker 1: he used to do some local theater directing in Tennessee,
Speaker 1: and he was at one point directing. This was years ago,
Speaker 1: but at one point he was directing an adaptation of
Speaker 1: a Tennessee Williams play, I think, and he ended up
Speaker 1: working with this actor who, according to him, was just
Speaker 1: magical on stage, you know, one of the best actors
Speaker 1: he had ever worked with, and and was it was
Speaker 1: spell binding. But we found out this guy had also
Speaker 1: been in a few movies and I don't recall the
Speaker 1: exact titles, but they were just like Z grade horror movies,
Speaker 1: you know, Choo, p Acabra, Rampage nine or something like that,
Speaker 1: and so we we watched these and this amazing local
Speaker 1: theater actor was, you know, just not especially impressive in
Speaker 1: a direct video horror context. And I remember having a
Speaker 1: kind of revelation at that point that like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: stay age talent and screen talent are not always interchangeable,
Speaker 1: and context really matters. Like somebody who can be a
Speaker 1: very good actor when they've got good material to work with,
Speaker 1: Like a lot of a lot of the people who
Speaker 1: do these Z grade horror movies are probably a lot
Speaker 1: of times doing Shakespeare or something, you know, in local theater,
Speaker 1: or they're or they're they're doing Tennessee Williams plays or
Speaker 1: something like that. But then when you put them in
Speaker 1: in a catfish monster movie, the whatever talents they've developed
Speaker 1: for those other acting contexts just don't really translate. But
Speaker 1: there's a good chance in any given B movie that
Speaker 1: there are plenty of members of the cast who are
Speaker 1: no names in the film world, but they're like the
Speaker 1: best actor in their local theater group and they're used
Speaker 1: to doing Shakespeare or whatever. Yeah, I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: that there are so many different ways you can cut it.
Speaker 1: I mean, on one hand. It's the difference between the
Speaker 1: stage uh and being told by director, yeah, we're filming
Speaker 1: this next scene in the basement of this building. Um
Speaker 1: or or just walk on the beach for a little bit. Yeah, um, now,
Speaker 1: I don't know what your motivation is, just you know,
Speaker 1: just just walk on the beach and we'll fill you
Speaker 1: in a bit. We're still writing that part, you know,
Speaker 1: stuff like you can imagine that the distance between the
Speaker 1: two projects. On top of just how you know, colossal
Speaker 1: and undertaking any level of film is not to take
Speaker 1: anything away from a stage production, which of course is
Speaker 1: also a colossal undertaking in in so many regards. But
Speaker 1: um but but but yeah, yeah, the the tools that
Speaker 1: that aid you in one dimension, uh might not aid
Speaker 1: you as well without some re tinkering uh in the other. Yeah,
Speaker 1: certainly true. But I mean, just I think it's important
Speaker 1: that people should always keep in mind if you are
Speaker 1: a fan of z grade horror movies and and the
Speaker 1: kind of stuff we talk about on this show, should
Speaker 1: always remember that whenever you're watching one of these films,
Speaker 1: there's a good chance that the actor who is completely
Speaker 1: failing in front of you right now is actually great
Speaker 1: in some other context. Now, Um, Leopold will eventually turn
Speaker 1: into a monster and will detail that at length. But
Speaker 1: when he is a monster, he is played by someone else. Uh.
Speaker 1: The monster is played by Wade Popwell, who lived through
Speaker 1: two thousand and six. This was his only film role,
Speaker 1: and he apparently answered a newspaper call for tall actors
Speaker 1: who were also experienced scuba divers. Oh yeah, this was
Speaker 1: a funny thing I read as one of the mini
Speaker 1: trivia facts claimed about this movie. I guess I'll cite
Speaker 1: several of these throughout the episode. There are a number
Speaker 1: of interesting facts that are claimed on the IMDb page
Speaker 1: for this uh for this movie that are unsourced, so
Speaker 1: I can't verify them. But at least the claim is
Speaker 1: that he was recruited through a newspaper ad. Like you say,
Speaker 1: it was basically like, we need a really tall person
Speaker 1: who's going to play a monster, and they got like
Speaker 1: tons of responses, like people were Florida was into this alright.
Speaker 1: The next acting credit to highlight here, Gerald Cruz played
Speaker 1: marine biologist Rex. He doesn't have a last name as
Speaker 1: far as I know. Um. This was his only film role,
Speaker 1: which ultimately surprised me because I thought he had a
Speaker 1: nice screen presence in this as the the African American
Speaker 1: marine biologist who is the first to realize that something
Speaker 1: is wrong. Yeah, this movie does something that a lot
Speaker 1: of these creature feature nature strikes back type movies do,
Speaker 1: which is there's somebody who's like the voice of reason,
Speaker 1: you know, the the cooler head who's putting together the
Speaker 1: evidence while everybody else around them is just sort of
Speaker 1: like reacting erratically and emotionally. And he plays the cool
Speaker 1: head in this movie like he's some He's the person
Speaker 1: who's out there saying like, oh, there's pollution in the water,
Speaker 1: and oh, here's this report of a catfish and this
Speaker 1: wound on the victim looks like a giant catfish claw mark.
Speaker 1: I think he at one point concludes, I'm not sure
Speaker 1: that really lines up with reality, but like that's the
Speaker 1: role he plays in the movie, and he's set opposite uh.
Speaker 1: For example, this sort of like redneck sheriff who's always
Speaker 1: got a piece of straw hanging out of his mouth
Speaker 1: or guess, piece of hay, and he's always like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't believe in monsters up. And that is Sheriff
Speaker 1: leu Krantz played by Paul Galloway who lived through um
Speaker 1: like everybody, and this wasn't in a tremendous much else
Speaker 1: but he played garage man, which I assume as a
Speaker 1: bit part in the in J. D's Revenge from nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy six and New Orleans crime drama starring Glenn Turman
Speaker 1: and Louis Gossett Jr. Um In this film, however, yeah,
Speaker 1: he plays the small town sheriff who is lazy, um
Speaker 1: and largely incompetent, but in the later portions of the
Speaker 1: film shows a little bit of hustle, but not quite enough.
Speaker 1: He's one of those characters who is uh not the
Speaker 1: antagonist of the film. He's not a bad guy, but
Speaker 1: he's just sort of he's a roadblock. He's just sort
Speaker 1: of getting in the way of what what needs to
Speaker 1: happen happening. Yeah, Now, another thing I should point out
Speaker 1: is that this is one of those movies where you
Speaker 1: see a few repeats during the credits. For example, Paul
Speaker 1: Galloway here, who plays the sheriff, he was in the cast,
Speaker 1: but he was also a unit manager. And then I
Speaker 1: saw in the credits that Ron Kivitt, who was one
Speaker 1: of the writers of the film, was also the technical
Speaker 1: director and did some of the costuming. And I think
Speaker 1: there were a few others like this, So it's not
Speaker 1: all the way to Neil Breen or Coleman Francis Tire
Speaker 1: where the directors also getting credits for catering and events,
Speaker 1: security and stuff. But the but there is some some
Speaker 1: repetition going on alright. A couple of other actors that
Speaker 1: will mention uh. Santa Ringhr plays h Agent Martha Walsh.
Speaker 1: Dave Dickerson plays Agent Walker Stevens. Both of these actors
Speaker 1: these were their only film roles, but these two will
Speaker 1: come back to them. There are Molder and Scully and
Speaker 1: that they know they work for a shadowy organization known
Speaker 1: as in Pit. Yeah, they get called in by Rex,
Speaker 1: the marine biologist. I could not have told you these
Speaker 1: characters names that for me. They were just Inpit Agent
Speaker 1: one and Inpit Agent two. Yeah. Now another character that
Speaker 1: the character is barely worth mentioning. And there's a deputy
Speaker 1: sheriff in this but it's played by an actor by
Speaker 1: the name of Rich Valerie who lived fifty two through
Speaker 1: was only in eight films, but they included small roles
Speaker 1: in Jaws three, The Road to Wellville and Night of
Speaker 1: the Hunter. Well, he was a Knight of the Hunter.
Speaker 1: Wait that Night of the Hunter Joe made for TV
Speaker 1: Night of the Hunter starring Richard Chamberlain and featuring Burgess
Speaker 1: Meredith and Ray McKinnon in a small role. Okay, that
Speaker 1: would make sense. Now for him to have been in
Speaker 1: the original Night of the Hunter, he would have to
Speaker 1: have been I guess three years old when he started
Speaker 1: in it. The original Night of the Hunter is is
Speaker 1: a scary movie, man, talk about spell binding actors. That
Speaker 1: that is one of the old time greats for me
Speaker 1: in terms of a screen presence that you cannot take
Speaker 1: your eyes off of. Robert Mitchum in that movie is
Speaker 1: scary as hell. Yeah, But what if we remade it
Speaker 1: in the early nineties with Richard Chamberlain in the role? Okay,
Speaker 1: that's supposedly awful. Um Okay, Now that's enough with the cast.
Speaker 1: That's enough with the humans uh and the monsters. Uh.
Speaker 1: We we need to talk to us a little bit
Speaker 1: about the music and then the next few people of
Speaker 1: note are responsible for the music of that and the
Speaker 1: music is that is is pretty great, even if it's
Speaker 1: a bit all over the place as well, which is
Speaker 1: kind of suitable. Uh. It encompasses more traditional late sixties
Speaker 1: early seventies film score work, um, which some of that
Speaker 1: I suspect is um is stock music. Um. But but
Speaker 1: then it also has um uh like folk rock. It
Speaker 1: has ambient synth in there. Um. Yeah, so there's some
Speaker 1: uncredited stock music and there periam dB by Trevor Duncan.
Speaker 1: So Um, it's kind of all over the place, but
Speaker 1: there's some some really interesting stuff in there. I was
Speaker 1: not really won over by the electronic music in this one,
Speaker 1: which mostly just took the form of like kind of
Speaker 1: painful high pitch noises and screeching. Oh really, I I
Speaker 1: ultimately really like, yeah, what it is like that it
Speaker 1: is kind of noisy at times. It kind of gets
Speaker 1: into that Doctor X territory where, uh, you know we
Speaker 1: discussed in that film there are these these these scenes
Speaker 1: that have ambient mad science noises in the background. It
Speaker 1: sounds a lot like it is some manner of like
Speaker 1: modern post industrial electronic score, and so that definitely has
Speaker 1: that vibe going on. Um. But but I actually really
Speaker 1: liked it. It's um in my opinion, I thought it
Speaker 1: was pretty effective. It synthy, kind of noise ambient and
Speaker 1: the electronic music like this in the film, and I
Speaker 1: suspect some of the background electronic weirdness is the work
Speaker 1: of Jack Tamill, a Floridian synth musician, and um, if
Speaker 1: you look him up on Spotify and other digital platforms
Speaker 1: like that, you'll find some rather haunting nature ambient recordings
Speaker 1: that he's done, such as Voices of the Everglades of
Speaker 1: Everglades State Park and Gator Bellows and the Everglades, both
Speaker 1: the collaborations with James T. Miller. But he also also
Speaker 1: put out some excellent space music in the nineteen eighties
Speaker 1: and nineties, including the Referee Has Vanished from nine eight six,
Speaker 1: meditative Massage from synthe Synthis Syntheist, I think it is
Speaker 1: from nine two, and then that's a religious affiliation. I'm
Speaker 1: a syntheist. And then there's a nineteen eighty album you
Speaker 1: put out titled Electroacoustic like Electro Slash Acoustic, which was
Speaker 1: released on Spectrum Records. UM, I can't. I couldn't find
Speaker 1: any of these available on in the normal places online,
Speaker 1: but I did find a YouTube upload that consists of Electroacoustic,
Speaker 1: The Referee Has Vanished and sounds from from from Zat's audio. Uh,
Speaker 1: and you can also look like you can still pick
Speaker 1: up electroacoustic used on vinyl. UM. I was listening to it.
Speaker 1: It's uh, it's it's pretty good. I enjoyed it. UM
Speaker 1: also not surprising the number one YouTube comment on that.
Speaker 1: On that track that I mentioned, it's our land chiming
Speaker 1: in and say thank you for coming with his real name. Yeah.
Speaker 1: If you know another Jack Tamill track, if you can
Speaker 1: look up um on band camp, there's a comp titled
Speaker 1: Escape from the Cage Volume two Into the Underworld, originally
Speaker 1: released by Oracle Music in nineteen nine. If you look
Speaker 1: that up, he has a track on there. It's called
Speaker 1: Ember Days and I thought it was rather nice. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that's Jack Tamill. That's the the electro uh, you know,
Speaker 1: synth noise background that you hear. But again the folk
Speaker 1: music that comes to us from Barry Hodgen and and
Speaker 1: Jamie de Frate's um and and that their story is
Speaker 1: kind of interesting as well. According to to the blog
Speaker 1: Bill Etric's Place, Bill is an o'calla based writer and
Speaker 1: blogger in Florida. Uh Defrate's lived in Jacksonville at the time,
Speaker 1: and he was a traveling musician having a supposedly open
Speaker 1: for the likes of Willie Nelson, Uh, Janice Ian, uh
Speaker 1: Little River Band. You know, it's said various people that
Speaker 1: were making the rounds in those days, and he ran
Speaker 1: a recording studio in Jacksonville and is still active. I
Speaker 1: looked him up. He has a or had a website.
Speaker 1: Uh some of these guys, their websites kind of come
Speaker 1: in and out, but uh, yeah, Jamie defrates. So you
Speaker 1: can look him up on on Spotify and you can
Speaker 1: find the music from Zach. It's pretty it's pretty nice. Interesting, Well, Rob,
Speaker 1: I regret having having yucked your your your your delicious
Speaker 1: synth music, and maybe I should give it another shot.
Speaker 1: I just recall when I was watching it, there was
Speaker 1: frequently like a just high pitched noise that was starting
Speaker 1: to kind of make me feel a little woozy. Well,
Speaker 1: but but then again, you have to remember, like that's
Speaker 1: kind of what the music is supposed to do in
Speaker 1: a film like this. It's to build that sense of
Speaker 1: unease and uh an alienation and fluid ian weirdness. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm there, Seth. Give us just a little taste of
Speaker 1: some of that Jack Tamil music before we move onto
Speaker 1: the plot. All right, Joe, let's get into the plot
Speaker 1: of this baby. Yes, let us tell the story of
Speaker 1: of a man who dreamed he was a catfish? Or
Speaker 1: was he a catfish dreaming he was a man? A
Speaker 1: true tale of metamorphosis of mythic proportions. Absolutely, So the
Speaker 1: movie starts, of course, the version we watched has that
Speaker 1: that great intro from Don Barton again with the Bill
Speaker 1: Moyers energy for me. But uh, then it gets right
Speaker 1: into the film with stock footage. I doubt this was
Speaker 1: shot for the film. It was. It looks like something
Speaker 1: from a nature documentary where he's showing off sargassum seaweed
Speaker 1: as we have just discussed on the core episode from yesterday,
Speaker 1: and uh and in a real nice prickly looking fish,
Speaker 1: and we we get voice over that at first I
Speaker 1: thought was a poem. It really sounded like he was
Speaker 1: reciting a poem because he says, sargassum the weed of deceit,
Speaker 1: sargassum fish, mighty hunter of the deep. Okay, so that's
Speaker 1: almost like a close and near rhyme there, so you
Speaker 1: think he's developing a poem. But then the stuff he
Speaker 1: starts saying after that doesn't really fit. He starts saying,
Speaker 1: what an inspiration you have been in my plot, your
Speaker 1: life of hiding, waiting, stalking your prey at just the
Speaker 1: right moment attack. I love you. What are you the
Speaker 1: poetry police, Joe? You're saying this isn't poetry. Oh I
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean I I What I was trying
Speaker 1: to figure out was whether the movie thought it was
Speaker 1: a poem or just talking. I mean, yeah, anything, anything's
Speaker 1: a him. If you say it is, now it is.
Speaker 1: It is such a startling start to this picture because
Speaker 1: again it's it's clearly stock footage, and then the voiceover
Speaker 1: is just amazing. And I do love the idea of
Speaker 1: somebody on early nineteen seventies forty two Street in New
Speaker 1: York City walking into this picture, um, you know, thinking
Speaker 1: they're getting some sort of sleazy monster movie, and they're
Speaker 1: hit with documentary footage right off the bat, and just
Speaker 1: the guy who sounds kind of like Vincent Price telling
Speaker 1: this fish that he loves it. Yes, I love you,
Speaker 1: and then he goes on to admire various other species
Speaker 1: for minutes at a time. You know, the shark, I
Speaker 1: admire you. Soon, I'll swim with you. They'll be afraid. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very good. And the scorpion fish and objectively ugly, beautiful fish,
Speaker 1: like a fish that is beautiful in how ugly it is,
Speaker 1: and he's like, you are gorgeous. They think I'm insane.
Speaker 1: They're the ones who are insane. Yeah, it's it's pretty tremendous.
Speaker 1: Another thing that's cool, though, is that actually the stock
Speaker 1: footage they select, I don't know what it's originally from,
Speaker 1: but whatever nature documentary it is, they got some cool footage.
Speaker 1: Because monster Science moment here they catch a sargassum fish
Speaker 1: eating another fish whole, like just spreading its mouth wide
Speaker 1: and clamping down over this fish's body, and the fish
Speaker 1: that it eats is almost as big as the sargassum
Speaker 1: fish itself. This reminds me that in the actual science
Speaker 1: episode we recorded yesterday about this organism, I neglected to
Speaker 1: mention that apparently sometimes when it eats another fish, uh,
Speaker 1: it's since it's it's you can actually see the prey
Speaker 1: inside of it through its semi translucent skin. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I've seen that. So that's so wonderful. I love it.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be it like like Dr Leopold here,
Speaker 1: but but I do like it a lot. Oh, I
Speaker 1: don't know if we mentioned that's how he follows up.
Speaker 1: So he's looking at the sargassum fish and he's saying,
Speaker 1: I of you, but then he says, I hope I'll
Speaker 1: be a good imitator. Yes. Um. Basically he's he begins
Speaker 1: to lay this out through you know, ultimately like twenty
Speaker 1: minutes of narration, uh that that he is going to
Speaker 1: draw inspiration perhaps behavioral but also genetic uh inspiration from
Speaker 1: these organisms as part of his master plan. I think
Speaker 1: you already mentioned this, but we should stress it's like
Speaker 1: twenty three minutes into this movie before you see a
Speaker 1: human being who is not a mad scientist. Up until
Speaker 1: up until then, it is exclusively uh Dr Leopold looking
Speaker 1: like Harry Dean Stanton shuffling around on the beach and
Speaker 1: through the ruins of a marine park and uh and
Speaker 1: like stock footage of animals from the sea, and then
Speaker 1: a monster just sort of rambling around. Yeah. Most films,
Speaker 1: you know, they'd probably start off with like a teenage
Speaker 1: couple meeting they're relatable, and then they're killed by a
Speaker 1: monster or something like that. Not this film. No, it's
Speaker 1: just it's Dr Leopold in stock footage of fish. From
Speaker 1: the get go, we do get a teenage couple fooling around.
Speaker 1: Later in the movie when the monster is on a rampage,
Speaker 1: there's this, uh, this young couple that are like on
Speaker 1: a porch swing and they're making out and the guys like,
Speaker 1: I don't believe in monsters. And then of course a
Speaker 1: good hour and a half there you get what's probably
Speaker 1: an opening segment in most films. Yeah, um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: how to describe that? There is there is a powerful
Speaker 1: emotional resonance to the opening of this film when you
Speaker 1: first see Dr Leopold wandering around. I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: we've already tried to describe it nine different ways. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's Harry Dean stanton Ish, it's it's shabby, it's drab,
Speaker 1: it's sad, it's lonely. He is failing and and he
Speaker 1: is going to do science to fix it. Oh and
Speaker 1: of course we should mention that while we see him
Speaker 1: wandering on the beach, this is when the World War
Speaker 1: two Boys song is playing, and one of the lines
Speaker 1: in the song this just a kiss on the top
Speaker 1: of the head from the sun God. It's the part
Speaker 1: where he says saget sace through the sarcasm. Yes, the
Speaker 1: I could go on and on about just how wonderful
Speaker 1: that song is because the lyrics at once, the lyrics
Speaker 1: sound like lyrics that were composed after half watching part
Speaker 1: of the film, you know, just sort of like trying
Speaker 1: to loosely figure out what the plot is like it
Speaker 1: refers to your um, your calendar research, which it seems
Speaker 1: like a strange description of what appears to be going
Speaker 1: on in the in the motion picture. But also it ultimately,
Speaker 1: like I don't know, it ends up giving Leopold more
Speaker 1: depth because he's talking about you know, you know about
Speaker 1: you know, how he's wanting to change himself, um outside
Speaker 1: you change yourself to be inside what you already see,
Speaker 1: you know, which I guess it is kind of like,
Speaker 1: you know, which is a catfishy he's already a giant catfish.
Speaker 1: I don't know, it like it it ends up working
Speaker 1: for some weird reason, it just works very well. The
Speaker 1: true catfish was in eyed you all along. Uh Now,
Speaker 1: so I've got a question about how a filming location
Speaker 1: here matches up with reality. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: have any insight on this, but I'm wondering. So, after
Speaker 1: we see Harry Dean Stanton here wandering through this desolate
Speaker 1: beach landscape while the World War two boy plays, he
Speaker 1: wanders into a place that looks to me like the
Speaker 1: ruins of an off brand sea world. Like if if
Speaker 1: a Marine World type attraction was abandoned for years and
Speaker 1: just you know, things collected all over it as as
Speaker 1: the seasons came and went, that's what we'd be seeing
Speaker 1: that he walks through. I know that part of this
Speaker 1: movie was filmed at Marine Land of Florida, but from
Speaker 1: what I can tell, I think it was actually in
Speaker 1: operation at this time, not like an abandoned ruin. So
Speaker 1: I'm not sure exactly what we're seeing. Yeah, Like there's
Speaker 1: a scene where he's walking around or through what looks
Speaker 1: like what's previously a tank of some sort. Uh, and
Speaker 1: now it's just empty and as leaves and clutter in it. Um,
Speaker 1: I guess my thinking is is too fold on this.
Speaker 1: First of all, Um, just because Marine World was up
Speaker 1: and running didn't mean there were parts of it that
Speaker 1: maybe had fallen into disuse or weren't being used, you know,
Speaker 1: the outskirts of the facility, that sort of thing. Um. Like,
Speaker 1: I think if you go to any any play, you
Speaker 1: go to your local zoo or botanical garden, there's going
Speaker 1: to be a part of the property where you could
Speaker 1: probably film a scene for a monster movie, you know.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, it could just be off season.
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe it looks that bad just a winter
Speaker 1: that's well, that's the other thing. Like, we have to
Speaker 1: remember that Florida is Florida and it is a jungle, so, um,
Speaker 1: you know that we're talking about just like a few
Speaker 1: months without anybody paying attention to the maintenance of a place,
Speaker 1: and it will look like absolute ruin, you know, um,
Speaker 1: which I think is one of the appeals of certain
Speaker 1: Florida movies as well, the Florida Ruins. Yeah, okay, so
Speaker 1: I'm going to guess that this is actually part of
Speaker 1: Marine Land, Florida, um, which which is a place that
Speaker 1: has operated off and on and I think was also
Speaker 1: a filming location for Revenge of the Creature. A very strange,
Speaker 1: very strange floor to movie. Indeed. Yeah, probably the best
Speaker 1: uh Creature from the Black Lagoon movie, if one can
Speaker 1: can say such a thing about Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Speaker 1: It's the sequel to Creature from the Black Lagoon, and
Speaker 1: I think it's the one where the creators have realized that, like, oh,
Speaker 1: in the original Creature, the humans were definitely the bad guys, right,
Speaker 1: Like the creature didn't do anything, it was just living
Speaker 1: in its own place, and then humans showed up and
Speaker 1: they were like, let's shoot at it. And we're supposed
Speaker 1: to think that the humans are good for just going
Speaker 1: to a place where a monster lives and and killing it. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the Creature was the character that we we
Speaker 1: all relate to and associate with then, and I think
Speaker 1: a certain similar thing is going on in this film
Speaker 1: as well. I mean the Creature from the Black Lagoon
Speaker 1: or that they are both literally fish out of water.
Speaker 1: You know, they're they're they're they're they're literally outsiders, and
Speaker 1: you know that's that's the sort of thing you often
Speaker 1: relate to in a film like this. Though, I will
Speaker 1: say I will make a strong distinction, which is that
Speaker 1: I fully side with the creature because he's just hanging
Speaker 1: out in his place and they come there and start
Speaker 1: attacking him. That is the aggressor that that is is
Speaker 1: trying to work out scores in a way that is
Speaker 1: not productive. He could have like, if he was mad
Speaker 1: at his former co workers coworkers, he could have written
Speaker 1: them a letter saying like, here's what I think are
Speaker 1: are unresolved issues. Instead, he's like, no, I'll turn myself
Speaker 1: into a catfish critter and and come to your house
Speaker 1: and kill you. Right. He's very clear on this. It's
Speaker 1: not just I want to restore ecological balance. No, No,
Speaker 1: he wants to basically all but wipe out the human race,
Speaker 1: um hunt the remaining humans for sport, and proclaim himself
Speaker 1: ruler of not merely the Earth, but the universe. Uh
Speaker 1: so he has some grandiose plans here, Dr Leopold, you
Speaker 1: you are asking for more than as your due? Yes,
Speaker 1: But of course, so we see Dr Pold still in
Speaker 1: human form at the beginning. He goes back to his lab,
Speaker 1: which I think are probably some some places at Marine
Speaker 1: Land of Florida. I'm not sure, but there are places
Speaker 1: with like who's is attached to the ceiling and stuff
Speaker 1: like that kind of equipment that you would imagine might
Speaker 1: be in an actual marine biology lab or and I
Speaker 1: don't know, an animal marine veterinary clinic or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think they coppled together a lot of stuff too.
Speaker 1: Um like there's a black light some black light stuff
Speaker 1: back not black light dark room, um equipment in the
Speaker 1: back and went at one point, you know, so clearly
Speaker 1: you know they took some initial clutter. They filled it
Speaker 1: up with some other technological stuff. But it ends up
Speaker 1: looking looking good. I felt like it if I feel
Speaker 1: like this is an adequately lonesome and mad science e layer.
Speaker 1: Yes it is. It is very dingy, it is very damp,
Speaker 1: it is very dank. It is it doesn't look like
Speaker 1: a place you'd want to sleep. Uh. And of course
Speaker 1: we get some classic mad scientists dialogue while he's fiddling
Speaker 1: around with his equipment. He he says, the formula. They
Speaker 1: all laughed at my little jim Z. And we find
Speaker 1: out that that is a it's like a formula. It's
Speaker 1: like Z sub a a sub t. I think, yes, okay,
Speaker 1: so it's like a it's a it's a mathematical or
Speaker 1: chemical formula of some kind. Um. But he he tells
Speaker 1: the through the voice over. He says, it's very powerful. Uh,
Speaker 1: they'll have fish the size they've never seen before, walking
Speaker 1: fish who like human flesh. So he wanders around the
Speaker 1: labs a lot. He stops to tickle an octopus, which
Speaker 1: I liked. He just reaches into the tank and kind
Speaker 1: of like touches it a little bit um and then
Speaker 1: he starts doing voiceover about this one species of catfish,
Speaker 1: the walking catfish, which according to this is another one
Speaker 1: of those claims that was listed on IMDb unsourced. But
Speaker 1: according to the claims of the Kivett, one of the writers, uh,
Speaker 1: he got the idea of for this movie by reading
Speaker 1: an article about this species of catfish, the so called
Speaker 1: walking catfish or clarius. But track us. But anyway, this
Speaker 1: voiceover about the catfish, I wondered if this was actually
Speaker 1: written for the film, because it sounds like he is
Speaker 1: reading from an encyclopedia or a field guide entry. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I was wondering if somebody could find the text.
Speaker 1: But I was googling sections of what he says in quotes,
Speaker 1: and I came up with nothing. But I wonder maybe
Speaker 1: I'm just not looking for it quite the right way.
Speaker 1: But then he goes on a rant about how there's
Speaker 1: a problem with the walking catfish, which is that it
Speaker 1: is too small, and he tells it that you are
Speaker 1: not ready to battle humans. But then he says soon
Speaker 1: the whole world will know and respect us. Uh and
Speaker 1: I saw. I'm a little confused about his plan because
Speaker 1: he's he's going on about how all the humans will
Speaker 1: be killed, but then he also says that they will
Speaker 1: finally respect him. So I don't know, Maybe it's that
Speaker 1: they'll respect him before they are killed. Um, yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess at the very least. But also, you know, he
Speaker 1: does allude to the fact later on that some humans
Speaker 1: will be alive, possibly, so maybe those are the ones
Speaker 1: who will respect him. All right, well, no more screwing around.
Speaker 1: It's just time to inject myself with the giant needle.
Speaker 1: And that's what he does. He grabs this needle that
Speaker 1: is huge. It's like a you know, it's like a
Speaker 1: feather duster sized handle, you know, so it looks like
Speaker 1: it was designed for saltwater crocodiles, and it's full of
Speaker 1: some kind of green gatorade looking liquid and he just
Speaker 1: jams it straight into his arm. But that's just phase
Speaker 1: one of the transformation. First is the injection. Next comes
Speaker 1: the kind of a baptism. Yeah. Yeah, He's got to
Speaker 1: get into a tank. So he gets undressed. He's wearing
Speaker 1: these huge blue box or shorts with his butt kind
Speaker 1: of hanging out and that's funny. And then there's this
Speaker 1: pool of water and uh, I think there are there
Speaker 1: is some blood mixed in with the water, and then
Speaker 1: there are these Geiger counter sound effects in the background.
Speaker 1: So I think, suppose something is supposed to be radioactive,
Speaker 1: that this pool of water may be It could be
Speaker 1: that it's supposed to be heavy water, because later on, uh,
Speaker 1: some characters talk about how his laboratory. Dr. Leopold's laboratory
Speaker 1: used to do heavy water experiments, ties right into previous
Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to ball your mind. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: as we discussed in that episode, as soon as you
Speaker 1: get into a pool of heavy water, you turn into
Speaker 1: a catfish creature. So the science checks out. But then
Speaker 1: he he gets himself into this kind of winch gurney thing.
Speaker 1: I don't know how best to explain this. It's like
Speaker 1: it looks like a device that would be used for
Speaker 1: airlifting comatose dolphins. Yeah. Yeah, it's fittingly awkward and ritualistic.
Speaker 1: It's um it's an unsettling scene because he didn't just
Speaker 1: climb in. Yeah, he lowers himself into it on this thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So he gets in the gurney he lowers himself into
Speaker 1: the water with a rope, and then we get electronic
Speaker 1: beeps and Geiger counter clicks, and then finally he emerges
Speaker 1: and he is the creature. Uh, and then we will
Speaker 1: never want will never again the rest of the movie.
Speaker 1: See the actor who plays Leopold, he's just gone, that's right.
Speaker 1: All we have is this this fabulous monster. So it's
Speaker 1: not like a where catfish movie where he's changing back
Speaker 1: and forth. He's just he's just this creature permanently. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think this is one of the things I
Speaker 1: always that always captured my imagine a nation imagination about
Speaker 1: the film is that instantly we look at this and
Speaker 1: we're like, oh, sweetie, you have you have really done it? Now?
Speaker 1: This is this is not good? Um. But but he
Speaker 1: has different thoughts about it. Oh yeah. So as soon
Speaker 1: as he gets out of the water, he looks at
Speaker 1: himself in a mirror and he you think for a
Speaker 1: second he's upset, but but no, he turns it around.
Speaker 1: He says nothing at all like a catfish. But it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: And what is he talking about? Well, I would say
Speaker 1: that he looks like a cross between Grido and Alf
Speaker 1: except he's got a sort of like dirty or texture
Speaker 1: than either one of them. So it's like if you
Speaker 1: cross Grido and Alf, but then have that creature fall
Speaker 1: into a puddle of mud and dead leaves that gets
Speaker 1: stuck to him, and then uh, and then he's also
Speaker 1: got green fur around certain parts of his upper body.
Speaker 1: I think it's the parts where the sort of shirt
Speaker 1: part of his suit comes together, because it's it's similar
Speaker 1: to the white fluffy parts of a Santa suit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he looks a little bit like the Grinch at times,
Speaker 1: you know, and he has kind of like Grinch physique. Yes,
Speaker 1: he does. That. That's a very good comparison. I didn't
Speaker 1: think of that. Some parts of his body have a
Speaker 1: kind of peter pan garment shingled leaf texture, or maybe
Speaker 1: the Green Giant has some clothes that look like this,
Speaker 1: the shins in particular. But also he has a snout
Speaker 1: that ends in a leech mouth. Well, it's kind of
Speaker 1: like a leech mouth. It's like a red circle with
Speaker 1: with teeth in the middle, but they're not those circular
Speaker 1: leech like teeth. They're more just kind of like a
Speaker 1: dog's teeth with canines. It is not even remotely articulated though,
Speaker 1: like you know, painted on teeth basically, and according to
Speaker 1: the writer Ron Kivitt, this is another one of those
Speaker 1: IMDb trivias. Uh. The monster has this mouth that looks
Speaker 1: kind of like a leech's mouth because in an earlier
Speaker 1: version of the script, he was supposed to suck blood
Speaker 1: out of his victim, so he was going to be
Speaker 1: a vampire catfish monster. But I think they scrapped the
Speaker 1: sucking blood, but the costume was already made, I suppose. Okay,
Speaker 1: so he's transformed. And then we get to a part
Speaker 1: that I legitimate laugh out loud part of the movie,
Speaker 1: which is when he goes to his big to do
Speaker 1: list on the wall. He's got this wall how did
Speaker 1: It's like this giant disc shaped wall calendar that he's
Speaker 1: got his upcoming tasks written on. And we see him
Speaker 1: go up to the cell on this calendar labeled self
Speaker 1: transformation and he crosses it off like oh, there's one
Speaker 1: thing off my to do list. And then the next
Speaker 1: item on the list is another in stants of the
Speaker 1: word transformation, but it is next to a drawing of
Speaker 1: the outline of the state of Florida, and this this
Speaker 1: drawing is labeled F L. A period, which is which
Speaker 1: is the correct AP styling of abbreviation of Florida, Which
Speaker 1: makes me think we may have a journalist decorating this
Speaker 1: set um because I don't know if you remember, I
Speaker 1: mean that we we used to have to know AP
Speaker 1: style when we were writing for How Stuff Works, and
Speaker 1: uh yeah, yeah, I still I mean it's it's hard
Speaker 1: to shake. Yeah. Everybody just uses the postal abbreviations now,
Speaker 1: or maybe they didn't have the postal abbreviations in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy one. I don't actually know what any rate. This
Speaker 1: is the calendar research that Jamie Defrates was referring to,
Speaker 1: and I don't know too. I think this is just
Speaker 1: how you had to do things before modern project management
Speaker 1: software have to keep track. You just had to have
Speaker 1: a giant, uh circular uh calendar chart on the on
Speaker 1: the wall taking up enormous real estate and your mad
Speaker 1: science layer. Yeah, you had to draw a picture is
Speaker 1: of the state that you're going to transform. So as
Speaker 1: he draws Florida transformation, I guess of Florida. Another hilarious
Speaker 1: thing about this is that next to the drawing of Florida,
Speaker 1: there's a label of the ocean and it's just labeled
Speaker 1: Atlantic Ocean. But like, who was going to be confused?
Speaker 1: Wasn't he just making this for himself? Well maybe he
Speaker 1: wasn't sure, you know, after the transformation, you know, his
Speaker 1: brain might be a little foggy. That that's a good point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like he couldn't predict his future mental state, so he's like,
Speaker 1: maybe I will be confused and I will need to
Speaker 1: relearn geography at any rate. It looks it looks weird
Speaker 1: and um, and I like it. I actually made a
Speaker 1: Christmas tree ornament based on it. At one point. Oh
Speaker 1: that's good. So the Leo, the Leopold catfish monster goes
Speaker 1: out on the town. He goes out equipped with a
Speaker 1: spray bottle and just starts spraying nature I think with
Speaker 1: the ZA formula. So sprays snakes and frogs, and he
Speaker 1: sprays reads. At the water's edge, he goes swimming and
Speaker 1: then uses the spray bottle underwater to spray an octopus
Speaker 1: and a crab. You see him literally with the spray
Speaker 1: bottle like under the water, squeezing it. And now, yeah,
Speaker 1: so we have some some underwater photography going on in
Speaker 1: this sequence and then in some sequences to come, and
Speaker 1: I don't know if you noticed, Joe, but we have
Speaker 1: some very clear underwater sequences here, and I believe that's
Speaker 1: because they were filming in the various springs of Florida,
Speaker 1: which which even today they're not as clear as they
Speaker 1: used to be due to environmental reasons and runoff and
Speaker 1: so forth. Um, which is uh, you know, depressing, but
Speaker 1: but but even now, very clear waters and back in
Speaker 1: seventy one, Yeah, perfect place to shoot your monster movie,
Speaker 1: even if you were doing so on a budget. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I should have noticed that they really did not look
Speaker 1: like the cloudy, stagnant pond water I would imagine in
Speaker 1: in most of North Florida. Yeah. So yeah, we are
Speaker 1: twenty three minutes into the film before we finally introduced
Speaker 1: non Leopold humans and actual dialogue one Carrick human character
Speaker 1: talking to another human character. Unbelievable. So here we introduced
Speaker 1: the sheriff and Rex the marine biologist. And if it's
Speaker 1: not clear at this point, it becomes clear that they
Speaker 1: were sort of going for in the heat of the
Speaker 1: night thing here. Uh. This is based on a novel.
Speaker 1: Nineteen sixty seven movie directed by Norman Jewison saw a
Speaker 1: small town southern sheriff played by Rod Steiger teaming up
Speaker 1: with an African American homicide detective from up North played
Speaker 1: by Sydney Potier, And um, yeah, that is nowhere near
Speaker 1: in the heat of the night in terms of serious
Speaker 1: drama and cultural commentary. But it seems to be like
Speaker 1: that's what they were going for here. Uh they were
Speaker 1: they were they were thinking, hey, what if it was
Speaker 1: like in the heat of the night, except there was
Speaker 1: also a giant catfish. Yeah, this is something we've seen
Speaker 1: in in the number of these other like ecological monster
Speaker 1: movies from the seventies. They also seem to try to
Speaker 1: inject some social commentary in there. It's often kind of
Speaker 1: light and not super deep, but yeah, I think that
Speaker 1: is probably what they're attempting, is is Rex the marine
Speaker 1: biologists also supposed to be from out of town. I
Speaker 1: don't recall if if that was the case, but I
Speaker 1: don't remember if it's expressly stated that it. It feels
Speaker 1: implied that he's he's not from around here. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: And so there's a general suggestion that there's this this rigid,
Speaker 1: uh parochial, local white conservative infrastructure that does not process
Speaker 1: the introduction of knowledge about pollution causing monster attacks, uh being,
Speaker 1: it does not incorporate that information well, and it sort
Speaker 1: of requires the expertise of somebody who provides a different perspective.
Speaker 1: And so it's got in this case an African American
Speaker 1: scientist who may or may not be from out of town,
Speaker 1: but at least as reacted to that way. And of course,
Speaker 1: as we said earlier, the redneck sheriff and this is
Speaker 1: literally trueing on a on a hay stock when we
Speaker 1: first met him, and generally seems to be derisive of
Speaker 1: the concept of science and expertise. Yeah. Yeah, he's kind
Speaker 1: of a he's kind of a Floridian wig hum from
Speaker 1: the Simpsons. Yeah yeah. In fact, the sheriff, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of people in this movie that the sheriff shows,
Speaker 1: um he does not respect, and that includes hippies, the press.
Speaker 1: At one point we have a reporter who's trying to
Speaker 1: cover the issue, but the Sheriff's just like somebody ought
Speaker 1: to smash you flat. And then of course he's not
Speaker 1: fond of out of town or as scientists. I think
Speaker 1: he represents um Southern cultural rigidity. But that's enough human stuff.
Speaker 1: Then we come back to Leopold once more. That's right, Leopold.
Speaker 1: He comes back to the lab after he's been out
Speaker 1: there spray and stuff, and he he goes up to
Speaker 1: another thing on his big wall calendar and he says,
Speaker 1: Matts and your days are numbered again. I think this
Speaker 1: is voice over, and we have no idea who ma
Speaker 1: Utson is. But I think the point is he's got
Speaker 1: a grudge against some scientists who we worked with who
Speaker 1: told him that his theories were too extreme. I think
Speaker 1: this other scientist told him he was taking it too
Speaker 1: personal and he didn't like that. So he's going to
Speaker 1: get his revenge. Yeah, and this is where you begin
Speaker 1: to I mean, it's it's already been an awkward transformation.
Speaker 1: We've watched him move around that the month. I mean,
Speaker 1: his name is not Zat. Sometimes I think of him
Speaker 1: as that, though again Za refers to the chemical, not
Speaker 1: the monster. The monsters just Leopold giant fish. But he
Speaker 1: moves around so awkwardly, certainly on land, it's really hard
Speaker 1: for me to buy that this is better than your
Speaker 1: human form. And in the water, Okay, I guess he's
Speaker 1: marginally better in the water than the human would be,
Speaker 1: but um, it's already seeming to go and kind of rocky,
Speaker 1: and then he's like, you know what, I also, revenge
Speaker 1: is part of my plan. And then it's like, so
Speaker 1: he's not only going to attempt to unbalance the ecosystem
Speaker 1: and bring upon a new age of fish, he also
Speaker 1: has some petty revenge agendas in there. He also and
Speaker 1: we needs to commit murder crimes. Oh, he's got several.
Speaker 1: He gets sidetracked on a lot of stuff. So yeah,
Speaker 1: he's got revenge murders. And then at some at some
Speaker 1: point later on, I think he becomes lonely and he
Speaker 1: wants he wants a fish wife. Yeah, he goes the
Speaker 1: classic of Frankenstein's monster route, and yeah he wants a companion.
Speaker 1: And so that's addition. You know, it's just the budget
Speaker 1: on this plan is just getting blown out of proportion. Right.
Speaker 1: He decides he needs to at the last minute adding
Speaker 1: a bride of catfish action item and that that that's
Speaker 1: how things really go off the rails. Um. But so
Speaker 1: at first we just see him creeping around on various people.
Speaker 1: He creeps on Rex, the marine biologist, while Rex is
Speaker 1: out taking samples of nature. He creeps on a woman
Speaker 1: who's painting beside the lake, he creeps on a family
Speaker 1: while they're fishing, and then he ambushes them, sort of
Speaker 1: flips over their boat, and I think kills the dude.
Speaker 1: And I think the dude who was fishing was one
Speaker 1: of the scientists who doubted him. Yeah, yeah, that that
Speaker 1: seems gonna be the case. One of the problems is
Speaker 1: that we get less and less narration from Leopold as
Speaker 1: we go. And I don't know if that's by design,
Speaker 1: like he's becoming less and less human so there's less
Speaker 1: of that voice in there, or if they just ran
Speaker 1: out of time. I don't know, but we're increasingly on
Speaker 1: our own to figure out what he's doing and why
Speaker 1: he's doing and and even if he's doing something successful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so at some point he Leopold attacks another one
Speaker 1: of the scientists who doubted him, but he attacks him
Speaker 1: in his house, not in the water. And I was
Speaker 1: just noticing at this point, like, wait a minute, does
Speaker 1: Leopold even really have any catfish powers? I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess you were sort of alluding to that minute ago,
Speaker 1: but like, this murder could have just been done by
Speaker 1: a big human. He just attacks the guy in his
Speaker 1: house and chokes him. I think, Yeah, the only possible
Speaker 1: answer I can think of there is that human Leopold
Speaker 1: does look kind of shambily and puny. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if he could have pulled this off. So I guess
Speaker 1: arguably monster form is better, okay. But also at some
Speaker 1: point here evidence starts mounting that something weird is going
Speaker 1: on with pollution in the water, and the Leopold attacks,
Speaker 1: and Rex is on the case. Rex starts putting the
Speaker 1: pieces together. At one point he's out collecting data with
Speaker 1: a net and Leopold is swimming in the water underneath
Speaker 1: his boat and he tears up the net, and Leopold's like,
Speaker 1: nets are harmful to fish, we will use them for
Speaker 1: humans if any survive. Yeah, it's like, let's not get
Speaker 1: ahead of ourselves, Leopold. Yeah. But Rex ends up summoning
Speaker 1: these uh people we talked about before, the INPIT agents.
Speaker 1: INPIT I think is an acronym. I don't know what
Speaker 1: it stands for. I tried to look it up, and
Speaker 1: there is something called INPIT, but I don't think it
Speaker 1: is what is being referenced here, So I really don't
Speaker 1: know what it is. Rob. What would you say is
Speaker 1: the deal with them? International Nature Police Information Technologies I'm
Speaker 1: not sure. I guess they're kind of like they feel
Speaker 1: like they've arrived from a TV show. There's a TV
Speaker 1: show where they investigate strange nature happenings. They have their
Speaker 1: own van, they have jumpsuits. By god, it's like the
Speaker 1: A team is here. Yeah, they're the professionals. They're here
Speaker 1: just to get stuff done. But it does it does
Speaker 1: feel like they're coming from an entirely different television show
Speaker 1: and in in in indeed, they may feel like this
Speaker 1: if you're watching it unriffed for the first time, because
Speaker 1: a lot of the inpit stuff was cut from the
Speaker 1: bloodwaters of Dr Zu. Addition, on MST three k Okay. Now,
Speaker 1: they yeah, they arrived in this big camper like RV basically,
Speaker 1: and they are dressed in these red uniform jump suits,
Speaker 1: so they look kind of like they stepped out of
Speaker 1: Flash Gordon or something. And they compare notes with Rex
Speaker 1: and they talk about all the pollution he's found and
Speaker 1: how this might be affecting the mutant marine life attacks
Speaker 1: and uh, and so they start putting the pieces together
Speaker 1: along with Rex. Now we mentioned that unfortunately Leopold gets
Speaker 1: distracted from his transform everybody into fish. Well, I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's what he's ultimately his whatever it is
Speaker 1: he's doing. He gets distracted by deciding that he must
Speaker 1: make a bride of catfish. Um. So he goes back
Speaker 1: to the lady who's painting by the lake, who's still
Speaker 1: there it seems like maybe days later, and he kidnaps
Speaker 1: her and takes her back to the lab to turn
Speaker 1: her into bride of catfish. And it doesn't work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is um a lonesome and disastrous episode in the
Speaker 1: ascent of Dr Leopold here where. Yeah, she dies half
Speaker 1: transform still in the baptism cage thing and uh. And
Speaker 1: then afterwards he has to get rid of her body.
Speaker 1: And this is another This is another sequence that was
Speaker 1: cut from the MST version. What does he do to
Speaker 1: get rid of her body? Does he feed her two
Speaker 1: fishes or anything like that. Nope, He dissolves her in
Speaker 1: a big old vat of Hollywood acid or old friend. Ye,
Speaker 1: it's a great sequence. We have some like weird you know,
Speaker 1: the weird Tamil electronic music going on in the back ground.
Speaker 1: We see him test the acid on a fish. He
Speaker 1: dips fish in the ascid and it eats away half
Speaker 1: of it. This film is not concerned with wasting anybody's
Speaker 1: time there there that we're gonna we're gonna do some
Speaker 1: an acid scene and we're going to spend about fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes doing it. We've got to make sure that our
Speaker 1: catfish monster is doing quality assurance on his acid. Um.
Speaker 1: So we see Rex and the inpit agents set up
Speaker 1: traps for the monster. I guess at this point they
Speaker 1: suspect there's a giant catfish monster somehow, and they set
Speaker 1: up traps and then they chill in a camper. And
Speaker 1: this part also reminded me of Boggy Creek two. And
Speaker 1: the legend continues where they will set up traps in
Speaker 1: the woods and then chill in an RV. But eventually
Speaker 1: the catfish monster attacks them and they somehow scare it
Speaker 1: away I think with a camera flash. Uh. They end
Speaker 1: up getting photos of it, and it's a really good photo.
Speaker 1: If this is another place where that I mean, duck
Speaker 1: of Leopold is just really messing up, like, oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: now you're come being completely photographed. It's crystal clear. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So they get perfectly good photos of him. Uh. And
Speaker 1: there's one part somewhere in here where Leopold is I think,
Speaker 1: sad and defeated, and he goes back to his lab
Speaker 1: and you see that he is sad. I think about
Speaker 1: the fact that he failed to successfully turn the woman
Speaker 1: he kidnapped into into bride of Catfish, and so he
Speaker 1: starts drawing her. But the picture he draws of her
Speaker 1: does not look like the woman that he kidnapped. It
Speaker 1: looks like Elvira. Or maybe he was supposed to be
Speaker 1: drawing somebody else. And did he have like a long
Speaker 1: lost love? Is that implied in the movie. I don't
Speaker 1: think that's even implied, Okay, but but you know, we're
Speaker 1: left to figure out a lot of this on our own.
Speaker 1: So maybe it is. Or maybe he just was like,
Speaker 1: this is my this was my one shot had romantic happiness,
Speaker 1: and the kidnapping and forced transformation did not work, so
Speaker 1: I've got to do this alone. Maybe it was Elvira,
Speaker 1: or I guess at this time it would maybe it
Speaker 1: was Vampira. He was like Vampira, Yes she could have
Speaker 1: she could have been my companion in the fish world.
Speaker 1: But but alas at any rate, the main experiment continues, right,
Speaker 1: so Rex and the inpit agents they end up making
Speaker 1: the connection to Leopold one of the inpit agents, I
Speaker 1: guess Agent Walsh. She figures out that Leopold was working
Speaker 1: on a lab that was conducting secret experiments with heavy water,
Speaker 1: and he is attacking his former co workers from the
Speaker 1: lab he worked at, and so they asked the sheriff
Speaker 1: to check on those researchers. And uh. Then then, so
Speaker 1: I guess they're doing that. But then we spend a
Speaker 1: long time with the monster going out for a walk,
Speaker 1: just wandering around the streets at night. His posture as
Speaker 1: he walks, you've you've mentioned that his posture is awkward,
Speaker 1: and it really it's amusing in a way that's difficult
Speaker 1: to describe. It's kind of like a drunk guy trying
Speaker 1: to walk through the sand and flip flops, you know,
Speaker 1: where it's like hard to get solid footing and you've
Speaker 1: got things coming off your feet. So it's that kind
Speaker 1: of walk. Um. But another thing about this movie is
Speaker 1: that it does not follow the Jaws rule, you know,
Speaker 1: the rule that you should not show too much of
Speaker 1: your monster until the final act. This movie, the monster
Speaker 1: is on screen constantly, full view, bright lights. You see
Speaker 1: the whole thing for minutes at a time. It's just
Speaker 1: alf Grido, uh, front and center, wandering through the empty
Speaker 1: streets at night. You see him break into a drug
Speaker 1: store to get some kind of medicine. He smashes a
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff, I think, because that's because he's yeah,
Speaker 1: well he's um. He becomes injured at one point, so
Speaker 1: so so not only does the experiment seem to be failing,
Speaker 1: he becomes perhaps mortally wounded or at least like heavily
Speaker 1: wounded to where he's having to break into a pharmacy
Speaker 1: and wrecked the place and steal some drugs and so like,
Speaker 1: the whole plan seems to just be going completely off
Speaker 1: the rails at this point. Now one of my favorite
Speaker 1: scenes and this one I I laughed out loud at
Speaker 1: this one. Uh. This is a scene that that was
Speaker 1: cut from the MST Treat into the film. Uh, and
Speaker 1: it's ultimately a lost because it's hilarious. There's would have
Speaker 1: probably been a lot of fun riffing on this one,
Speaker 1: but it's it's what I think of as the hippie parade.
Speaker 1: So the sheriff here he goes to check on folks
Speaker 1: in town and find the youth enjoying a little folk
Speaker 1: music clearly and like some sort of abandoned building, and
Speaker 1: they're hanging out with none other than the actual real
Speaker 1: life Jamie de Frate's who is performing a song the
Speaker 1: B side to World War two boy Running Don't Make
Speaker 1: You Free. And so anyway, the sheriff, you know, he
Speaker 1: comes under in the midst of this. He sets down
Speaker 1: and he listens for a spell, you know, perhaps proving
Speaker 1: that he can hang you know, and and he's like
Speaker 1: he's enjoying the music. Yeah, it looks like he's enjoying.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, this is good. I can I'm seeing
Speaker 1: eye to eye with the young folk. Now. Um, but quickly.
Speaker 1: Another thing that made me laugh in the scene is
Speaker 1: that for just a moment, Leopold arrives and is watching
Speaker 1: through the window the monster, and he's also ambiguously kind
Speaker 1: of grooving, but then he just moves on. It's almost
Speaker 1: like it was meant to be a music video for
Speaker 1: this song, you know, because again, uh this these songs
Speaker 1: are featured in their entirety. Nothing is cut. Um. So
Speaker 1: the sheriff, you know, he enjoys it for a bit,
Speaker 1: but he's there with a purpose. He has to he
Speaker 1: has to protect these hippies. So the sheriff, uh you know,
Speaker 1: gets up and leads the hippies all mid song on
Speaker 1: a police escorted parade through town with with the with
Speaker 1: Jamie de Frate's playing the guitar the whole time and singing.
Speaker 1: And then so they have this procession through the small
Speaker 1: Florida town and then right into the sheriff's um office
Speaker 1: and then right into a jail cell and um. It's
Speaker 1: then explained that this is to keep them safe and
Speaker 1: that the hippie seem okay with it, but it's not
Speaker 1: clear for a moment, and it I found it kind
Speaker 1: of perversely humorous. It's like he he you know, the
Speaker 1: old sheriff. You think he's uh, he's you know ce
Speaker 1: an eyed I with the young folk, and he's looking
Speaker 1: after them. Now he's just arresting all of them. Uh.
Speaker 1: So they don't seem bothered by it, like they they
Speaker 1: all just go into the jail cell and they're just
Speaker 1: like cool man. Yeah, yeah, pretty much, and they're locked
Speaker 1: up and you never see them in the film again. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So a lot of the rest of the movie is
Speaker 1: just Leopold stalking around looking at things and menacing people,
Speaker 1: and then Rex and the Inpit Agents trying to track
Speaker 1: him down. That they're on his trail at this point
Speaker 1: and they're trying to find him. But at one point Leopold.
Speaker 1: A lot of what Leopold does is like look through
Speaker 1: the windows at people and spy on them. And at
Speaker 1: one point he observes the two Inpit agents kissing. He
Speaker 1: spies on them through a window, and I guess he
Speaker 1: gets jealous, so he decides at this point to kidnap
Speaker 1: Agent Walsh, one of the two Inpit agents, and create
Speaker 1: another bride of Catfish. Bride of Catfish two point oh right,
Speaker 1: So again really veering off schedule here with with with
Speaker 1: the whole plan because he's again heavily injured at this point,
Speaker 1: having to self medicate with stolen uh pharmacy drugs. But
Speaker 1: then he's like, gonna, I'm gonna try it again. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna try and transform this woman who is hunting me
Speaker 1: into my bride. Yes, So he kidnaps her from her house,
Speaker 1: takes her back to the lab and then and then
Speaker 1: Rex Walker and the cops Walker is the other Inpit agent.
Speaker 1: They figure out what's going on and they're chasing the
Speaker 1: monster down and that they split up to chase him
Speaker 1: and the other Inpit Agent, Walker uses this hilarious looking
Speaker 1: amphibious vehicle that looks kind of like a power wheel.
Speaker 1: It's very small. It's very cool, I assume from the
Speaker 1: non existent in Pit television series that I'm imagining in
Speaker 1: my head. Yeah, and and coming up as a scene
Speaker 1: where you see this Inpit Agent sort of wading through
Speaker 1: a swamp and he gets bitten by a snake. And
Speaker 1: this is another one of those IMDb trivia claims. It
Speaker 1: claims that the snake bite was not scripted. It was
Speaker 1: just something the guy actually got bitten by a snake
Speaker 1: while they were filming the scene and they just left
Speaker 1: it in the movie. Well, I don't know, I feel doubtful,
Speaker 1: but it looks kind of real. It looks it looks
Speaker 1: realistic and and but I also really like the way
Speaker 1: it plays into the ending of the picture. So so yeah,
Speaker 1: for a bit here we have this kind of double
Speaker 1: chase where where one agent is trying to chase down
Speaker 1: the monster and then we have Rex and marine biologists
Speaker 1: UM and the sheriff. Uh. They they are going to
Speaker 1: check out the laboratory to see what's up. See what
Speaker 1: old Doc Leopold was up to and then and then
Speaker 1: of course we also have Agent Walsh who has been kidnapped, right,
Speaker 1: So they go to the monster's lair. The sheriff fights
Speaker 1: the monster and loses and is strangled, so bye bye Sheriff.
Speaker 1: And then Rex he comes across Leopold's notes and he,
Speaker 1: I think, wants to understand them so we can understand
Speaker 1: what was going on here. You wonder if it's like
Speaker 1: that scene in the movie where where one scientist discovers
Speaker 1: what the mad scientist is doing, Like the good scientist
Speaker 1: is momentarily tempted. It's the last temptation of the good scientist,
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh, it's it's genius. Yeah. Um, but
Speaker 1: of course that shows up and uh and in violence
Speaker 1: and sus he he ultimately tries to save Agent Walsh,
Speaker 1: and I guess to a certain degree succeeds because what
Speaker 1: Za tries to do is he puts her in the
Speaker 1: cage as well. He forced he injects her with the
Speaker 1: green stuff. Uh, and then he's going to lower her
Speaker 1: into the za baptismal font um, but Rex disrupts that
Speaker 1: and then Rex is injured, possibly killed by the monster.
Speaker 1: And the monster. Yeah, it's so I wonder do all
Speaker 1: the main characters die, because we have this chase at
Speaker 1: the end where Rex tries to save Walsh. You see
Speaker 1: him get injured and then fall down, but I guess
Speaker 1: you never see him after that. A similar thing happens
Speaker 1: to the other in Pit Agent. He sort of gets
Speaker 1: injured and falls down, and at the end of the movie,
Speaker 1: I think we see him not moving, but it's not
Speaker 1: clear if he's dead or alive, And you think, well,
Speaker 1: at least Agent Walsh has been saved, as she did
Speaker 1: not get turned into a catfish, but something bad happened
Speaker 1: to her. I don't know exactly what it is. She
Speaker 1: is not upgraded to fish level, but she is sort
Speaker 1: of turned into a zombie human. Yeah, so I think
Speaker 1: she got half the treatment right. She's injected with with
Speaker 1: the ZAT, but then she's not actually lowered into the
Speaker 1: zap baptismal font to transform her body. Um and so yeah,
Speaker 1: the the ending of this film, I think is is
Speaker 1: actually pretty effective. It's it's haunting and kind of pitch
Speaker 1: perfect because throughout the whole film, we've watched Leopold stumble
Speaker 1: awkwardly around his grandiose dreams and voiceover so mismatched with
Speaker 1: his new body, his actual abilities, his focus, his mixed results.
Speaker 1: But in the end, against all odds, he achieves his goal.
Speaker 1: For the most part, he he wants. He strugg struggles,
Speaker 1: and stumbles into the ocean with his zap formula, like
Speaker 1: two tanks of it. Meanwhile, one of the male agent
Speaker 1: that was Snake that is like shooting at him with
Speaker 1: a rifle and seems to at least wing him, possibly
Speaker 1: kill him. But he gets that z into the ocean.
Speaker 1: And then meanwhile, even though he's unable to completely transform
Speaker 1: Agent Walsh into his catfish princess, she does. She wakes
Speaker 1: in the zombiefied state. She she wanders out onto the
Speaker 1: beach and the other agent tries to call to He's like, oh,
Speaker 1: thank goodness, you're all right, But she just wanders into
Speaker 1: the water, just just like a like a zombie. And yeah,
Speaker 1: we're left to pieces together because then we we kind
Speaker 1: of zoom out and some haunting music plays. Uh, so
Speaker 1: we just don't know, like did she is she? And
Speaker 1: uh she transformed enough that she'll survive in the water
Speaker 1: or she about to drown? Um, did enough Zach get
Speaker 1: into the ocean to bring about this new age of
Speaker 1: giant fish and bring down humanity. Um, I don't know,
Speaker 1: but it seems like that might be the case. So
Speaker 1: it seems like, uh, you know, despite everything, Dr Leopold
Speaker 1: has one. Yeah. I think the implication is that all
Speaker 1: the human characters die and he succeeds in throwing his
Speaker 1: formula into the ocean to create a race of atomic
Speaker 1: super fish that will conquer the world. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: quite an ending. It ends on a really good note
Speaker 1: where you were you kind of forget some of the
Speaker 1: awkwardness and weirdness and mismatched tonal choices. Now. Another one
Speaker 1: of the many claims about this movie online is that
Speaker 1: apparently the movie was originally supposed to end with, or
Speaker 1: at least include I think this would be at the ending,
Speaker 1: giant fish attacks like a giant catfish that was like
Speaker 1: rampaging around and destroying the town and uh, And apparently
Speaker 1: they filmed some versions of this, I think with miniature
Speaker 1: models of the town. But then they realized this does
Speaker 1: not look good, so they cut that part out of
Speaker 1: the movie. But one shot from the sequence allegedly made
Speaker 1: it into the film, which is yeah, which is where
Speaker 1: a catfish like a little catfish is squirming next to
Speaker 1: a fence. Yes, I I I saw this when I
Speaker 1: did my recent viewing of of that uncut, and and yeah,
Speaker 1: like suddenly there's this brief sequence that looks like like
Speaker 1: poor effects test footage of a walking catfish flopping around
Speaker 1: on a model of of like some landscape. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that seems to match up with what we're seeing here,
Speaker 1: but there's no context for it. When it actually shows
Speaker 1: up in the film, you just go like, what what
Speaker 1: was that? So I guess we mentioned the fact that
Speaker 1: when uh Dr Leopold first transforms and looks at himself
Speaker 1: in a mirror, he says, uh, nothing like a catfish,
Speaker 1: but it's beautiful. And I wonder was it intended that
Speaker 1: he would look nothing like a catfish even though he
Speaker 1: is half man half catfish, or did they just get
Speaker 1: whatever costume they could get and then they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: we better add a line and here sort of acknowledging
Speaker 1: it just doesn't look like a catfish. Yeah, maybe that's
Speaker 1: how it went down, or maybe that's what they told themselves.
Speaker 1: You know, they're like, no, this isn't quite what we
Speaker 1: went for, but it is beautiful. Let's devote oodles of
Speaker 1: of screen time to it. So weirdly, this is not
Speaker 1: the only killer catfish fish movie that I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: I It's been many years now, so I don't I've
Speaker 1: forgotten a lot of the details about it. But I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure that I watched a killer catfish movie about
Speaker 1: six or seven years ago called Beneath that's about people
Speaker 1: trapped on a boat who are being stalked on a
Speaker 1: lake by a killer catfish, and I recall it having
Speaker 1: a really good, subtle sense of humor. I think it
Speaker 1: might have been a Larry Fessenden movie, but oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I just looked it up and it and it is.
Speaker 1: Larry Fessenden h quite a filmmaker. He's made some very
Speaker 1: interesting genre pictures. The main moment of this movie that
Speaker 1: stuck with me is that there's one point where I
Speaker 1: think one of them has just been attacked by catfish,
Speaker 1: and the people remaining alive on the boat. Uh, one
Speaker 1: of them gets up and yells in the direction of
Speaker 1: the catfish, what do you want from us? Well, clearly,
Speaker 1: it's muck. They're here for the muck catfish one. Why
Speaker 1: would catfish want to eat humans, aren't they? They just
Speaker 1: sort of like suck up mud and I don't know
Speaker 1: it should have looked up some thing about catfish feeding
Speaker 1: behaviors before I opened my mouth on that. But but
Speaker 1: it's not a sequel to that, not that I can tell. Okay, No,
Speaker 1: it's just like it doesn't look anything like the Grito elf.
Speaker 1: It is just a gigantic Google eyed catfish. Well in
Speaker 1: the end that there's there's nothing else quite like it.
Speaker 1: It is. Uh. It is quite an impressive film, all
Speaker 1: the everything, and it comes together awkwardly but kind of perfectly.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's like it's it's it's the monster
Speaker 1: itself as film. Now you might be wondering where can
Speaker 1: I watch that? Well, that has been out on DVD
Speaker 1: and Blu Ray for years, but it's sadly looks like
Speaker 1: it's out of stock everywhere at this moment as we're
Speaker 1: recording this. Hopefully that will change in the future. It's
Speaker 1: also been available I think on Amazon Prime in the
Speaker 1: recent past, but it's not there right now. But you
Speaker 1: can watch the MST version Bloodwaters of dr Z. You
Speaker 1: can digitally obtain that most places, including Amazon Prime. Uh.
Speaker 1: For for our copy again, we rented our copy from
Speaker 1: Atlanta's own Video Drome and if you're in Atlanta, you
Speaker 1: can go there and rent various DVDs and blue rays
Speaker 1: or buy some cool merch And you can also check
Speaker 1: them out online at video Drome dot tv and you
Speaker 1: can buy stuff and they'll ship it to you, which
Speaker 1: is pretty cool. They should make Dr Leopold head motorcycle helmets,
Speaker 1: so you know, it's it's the zap Monster, but it
Speaker 1: goes on for the bike ride. In fact, you can
Speaker 1: do the whole thing, like the leather jacket is a
Speaker 1: zat jacket. Yeah. Well, you know, speaking of that, because
Speaker 1: that sounds like exactly the kind of thing that our
Speaker 1: Land would potentially do. If you're listening to this and
Speaker 1: you don't know the art of our Land, you can
Speaker 1: go to our Land art dot com and you can
Speaker 1: check out some of the stuff that he creates. All right,
Speaker 1: So there you have it. Um, that's episode two and
Speaker 1: uh and and what maybe a Florida movie trilogy we'll see, Um,
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not sure if we'll be back next
Speaker 1: week with another Florida movie or the week after that.
Speaker 1: It kind of depends on Joe's tolerance for all the
Speaker 1: Florida nests. These these motion pictures. Oh, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: generally game. All right, we'll see, but you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: it's nice to have a palate cleanser sometimes between films.
Speaker 1: So I don't know. Well, we'll see, we'll figure it
Speaker 1: out in the meantime. If you would like to check
Speaker 1: out other episodes of Weird How Cinema, we published this
Speaker 1: every Friday in the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast
Speaker 1: feed were primarily a science podcast, uh, and so are
Speaker 1: our primary episodes on scientific topics like the sargassum, seaweed,
Speaker 1: the organism, and the the environment. Uh. Those published on
Speaker 1: Tuesdays and Thursdays. We published Listener Mail on Mondays, and
Speaker 1: the listener Mail covers like everything Weird How Cinema, but
Speaker 1: also stuff to Blow your Mind. And then on Wednesdays
Speaker 1: we publish the Artifact, a short form bit about particular
Speaker 1: artifacts in the moments, in time, et cetera. So check
Speaker 1: all that out. Wherever you get your podcasts, you can
Speaker 1: find us and we just ask the you rate, review,
Speaker 1: and subscribe, give. The website allows you to do that
Speaker 1: huge things. As always to our wonderful audio produce Sir
Speaker 1: Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in
Speaker 1: touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
Speaker 1: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to
Speaker 1: say hello. You can email us at contact at stuff
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