Zaat

The film begins with mad scientist Dr. Kurt Leopold in his lab where he has lived alone for about twenty years, comtemplating how his former colleagues laughed at his formula (which he calls Zaat), which can turn a man into a walking catfish. It is clear that he has a chip on his shoulder, however it becomes clear he is mentally unhinged when he injects himself with the serum, climbs into a basket above a tank of Zaat, and lowers himself in. After a few minutes, a man-sized catfish climbs out of the tank, looks in the mirror, and remarks that it is beautiful what he has done to himself.

His first act of revenge on the society that he feels has wronged him is to release several smaller walking catfish around the towns lakes and rivers, inconveniencing the townspeople. He then releases Zaat into the local water supply, rendering many of the townspeople ill.

His desire for revenge becomes more focused when he decides to kill the colleagues who laughed at his work. In his lab, he has a zodiac wheel, which he uses to symbolically record events. He places a picture of one of them, Maxson, on it noting Maxson's days are numbered. In a lake where Maxson is fishing, Leopold swims under Maxson's boat, overturns it, and proceeds to kill Maxson and his son. Maxson's wife gets away, but is in shock from the attack. Killing Maxson's son, who never did anything to Leopod, shows that Leopold is sociopathic, willing to kill anyone who gets in his way without guilt.

After killing Maxson, Leopold comes across a girl who is camping out alone on the shore of the lake. He approaches her, only to be turned away by her barking dog. Given his size and power, he is not scared of the dog, but he does not want the girl to become aware of him. The seemingly carefree girl carries on her business, unconcerned about the barking dog. Leopold retreats, knowing that he cannot sneak ashore, and that he will have to try for her some other time.

The girl's character was never given a name in this film, and Leopold never comments on what he wanted with her, but from the previous events it can be surmised that he would want a mate to bear his offspring. The girl, being young, would be ideal for this, and since she was camping alone, no one would immediately know that she was missing if Leopold abducted her.

Leopold has a bone to pick with another colleague, Ewing. He puts Ewing's picture on the zodiac wheel, and then proceeds to kill him at night in his own house.

His two colleagues now dead, Leopold returns to the lake where the girl is still camping, and lies in wait for an opportunity to get her. His perseverance pays off when she strips down to a yellow bikini to go swimming. She dives into the lake, swimming carefree until Leopold catches up with her underwater. He grabs her ankle, but she manages to struggle loose, and desperately tries to reach the surface, with Leopold close behind. Although she manages to reach the surface and scream, her signal for help is futile and short-lived. Leopold knows that she is camping alone and there is no one else near, and he simply comes up behind her and clamps his massive hand over her mouth, silencing her, and pulls her underwater, where he has the advantage since he can breathe underwater and she can not. He swims with her to his lab, as she struggles in vain to get away. Leopold pays this no mind.

This further reinforces the theme that Leopold is sociopathic. The girl was minding her own business, not bothering anybody, and Leopold sees her only as a mate to bear his offsping. He places no value on what she may mean to her family and friends, only his interest in her as a mate.

At the lab, the bikini-clad girl is laying strapped down in the basket next to the large tank of Zaat. She is unconscious, and Leopold is at a bench drawing a sketch of her face. He puts the sketch on the zodiac wheel next to a sketch of him to symbolize that she is his mate. In the sketch she is smiling; it stands to reason that if she knew exactly what Leopold wanted with her, she wouldn't smile, but Leopold wants her to be a willing mate. Also in the picture, Leopold drew her wearing a conservative blouse or high-collar dress, not the yellow bikini that shows off her endowments. He has probably determined that she is a carefree individual since she was camping alone, and given his arrogance due to his superior intelligence, Leopold might even go as far to think that she's probably just some airheaded bikini-clad blonde bimbo. Portraying her as a conservative dresser in the sketch may be a subtle attempt to convey what he actually wants in a mate - an intelligent, well-educated woman. But since this one was conveniently available, she'll have to do.

Leopold stands over her with a syringe full of Zaat. She comes to, screaming. Leopold, simply clamps his clawed hand over her face to silence her and injects the Zaat into her neck. The needle on the syringe is large and looks rather painful, but again, Leopold has no concern for her comfort. The girl passes out.

Leopold finalizes the arrangements to make the girl his mate. As the basket is hoisted above the Zaat tank, the girl comes to and is dunked into the tank kicking and screaming. She continues to struggle under the surface. An alarm sounds, the girl stops struggling, and the basket is hauled up out of the tank. Her body, partially transformed, lays still, and she stares ahead with dead, empty eyes. Leopold realizes that all his efforts have been for nothing, and smashes some equipment in a fit of rage. He is angry that all his work in capturing her and preparing her went for absolutely nothing; the fact that she is dead is perceived by him to be a mere consequence of this.

Having calmed down, Leopold goes to the zodiac wheel, and disgustingly snatches her picture off it, crumples it up, and tosses it into a vat of acid, dissolving it away. He then removes the girl's now pitiful outstretched frame laying inert in death, and carrying her body like a rag doll, places it in the vat of acid, where it is totally dissolved. Leopold has now removed any trace of her from his lab by destroying her body and the drawing. However, he has left Maxson's and Ewing's photos on the wheel, and made no attempt to be discrete at killing them or to dispose of their bodies. These seemingly inconsistent actions point to Leopold's sociopathy; since he knows Maxson and Ewing, he wants to preserve some dignity for them, and wants their bodies to be found, so that their families and friends can give them a proper burial. Even though Leopold hated them, he still knew them as people. However, he only saw the girl as a mate, albeit not the kind of woman he wanted, but she was conveniently available. Destroying her picture and her body showed that he had no perception of her as a person, and since she died, she may have been and unworthy mate for him, and coupled with his possible perception of her as an airheaded bikini-clad blonde bimbo, felt that she had no dignity worth preserving, and destroyed any and every trace of her being.

Leopold's insanity becomes even more evident in his next choice of mate. His choice is Martha Walsh, the lovely female member of a scientific team sent to investigate the weird happenings in the town (caused by Dr. Leopold). He draws a sketch of her and puts it next to his on the wheel. Martha also strongly resembles the first sacrificial mate, but, being a scientist, she is an intelligent, well-educated woman. Leopold grabs her after her male counterparts leave her alone, when she is wearing a summer gown. Leopold takes her to his lab, but two of her companions are waiting there and Leopold makes mincemeat out of them. He injects her with Zaat, readies her to be dunked into the tank, and makes his getaway, with canisters of Zaat. Martha's transformation does not go as planned, she does not get dunked into the tank, and she follows Leopold trance-like into the sea. Her boyfriend tries to stop her, but she pays no heed. Although he has not yet found a viable mate, Leopold has gotten away with a supply of zaat and the movie ends hinting that he will try to create another mate when the opportunity presents itself; though others believe that Leopold died in the final scene from shots fired by the boyfriend. The ending is purposefully left ambiguous.

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