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Scientist Dr Leopold (Marshall Grauer) has spent his time and research
to cross men and catfish to create a new superrace, much to the disdain of
his colleagues, who wouldn't allow him human guineapigs. So he first tests
Zaat, his drug to turn a human into catfish-man (henceforth referred to as
monster), on himself - et voilà, he becomes a monster (Wade Popwell), and
soon enough, he goes out on a killing spree, killing the scientists who
have turned him down first, then other people as well. And he abducts a
woman to turn her into his monster consort, but with no success. Eventually,
the local sheriff (Paul Galloway) and marine biologist Rex (Gerald Cruse),
who are investigating the murders call in Martha (Sanna Ringhaver) and
Walker (Dave Dickerson), the good people from gouvernment agency INPIT
(?), to help them investigate, and eventually, the four of them come to
all the right conclusions, that Dr Leopold has been conducting some
sinister experiments that must have created a monster. But when the three
men go out monsterhunting and leave Martha behind, they overlook the
possibility that Martha might be the monster's next target, the woman he
might want to turn into his monster consort. In the finale, our heroes
do everything in their power to free Martha and destroy the monster, who
wants to presently poison all water for humans, and Rex and the sheriff
even lose their lives in battle ... but all to no avail, the monster
survives, and Martha has apparently been turned into a maritime creature
(even if other than Dr Leopold, she still looks quite human). Somehow,
this film more than anything looks like a continuation of the tradition of
1950's indie drive-in monster movies, where the budget is way too low to
bring the story properly alive - and thus the monster costume looks cheap
to ridiculous, large scale problems are treated on a small scale, the
science the film is based on is grossly off, the scientist's lab looks
very hodge-podge, and the film is devoid of any real setpieces. Now this
was all ok and charming in the 1950's, when the genre was still relatively
new and innocent, but not so much so anymore in the 1970's, when people
should have known better. That's not to say the film's a total waste of
time (unless of course you're really not into bad movies), there are still
things to laugh about - it just makes you wonder why films of this ilk
were still made in the 1970's.
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