No matter what title you know this movie by — Blood Waters of Dr. Z, Hydra, Attack of the Swamp Creatures or this one — this movie lives and breathes (well, gills kind of breath water) Jacksonville, Florida. That’s where its co-writer, director and producer Don Barton came from and that’s where this was film, using real locations like Rainbow Springs, Green Cove Springs and Marineland.

It mostly played Jacksonville drive-ins and some southern states before our friends at Aquarius Releasing got a copy and played it in New York City for all of a day, with former employee Ron Harvey telling Fangoria, “One of the all-time worst releases was Blood Waters of Dr. Z. We played it on 42nd Street, where it lasted until about 4:00 on a Friday afternoon before the theater pulled the picture! It had done like S200 business all day long.”

Capitol Productions re-released the movie in 1983 and two years later, it was re-released again as Attack of the Swamp Creatues with new cast and crew names.

Zaat is the tale of scientist Dr. Kurt Leopold (Marshall Grauer, in his one and done role), who takes his formula ZaAT and transforms human beings into sea creatures, starting with recreating himself as a catfish human. Yes, a catfish. He’s now played by Wade Popwell, who also only made this film, and is a creature that occasionally still wears athletic shoes despite being a merman.

He also makes catfish that can walk and starts poisoning the town’s water, forcing a cop and a scientist to engage in the kind of relationship that you may have seen in a movie called Jaws as they try to stop the world from being zaat-ed.

There’s also a government organization called INPIT, which sends two of their scientists to track down Leopold and bring him in, except they mostly are concerned with the welfare of some kids playing folk music.

That said, unlike nearly every amphibian on the loose movie I’ve ever seen — like Creature from the Black Lagoon and its sequels*, Slithis, Humanoids from the Deep, Encounters in the Deep, Demon of Paradise — this one has the creature pretty much end the film in triumph, wiping out nearly every human and even transforming the female scientist into a willing slave. Also worth noting is that one of the scientists is bit by a snake and in a moment of reverse-Cannibal Holocaust, it was totally real. As he was wading through the water, that little snake just swam up and took a chunk out of his arm.

That said, he does not have his own fan club like Slithis. I carry my card in my wallet so that Slithis knows where I live and that he should let me live.

*Revenge of the Creature was also shot at Marineland, but it’s an incalculable number of times better than this film. I also own a limited edition blu ray of Zaat because, well, I like junk.

Do you hate comic relief in horror movies?

How about an entire movie of it?

This movie stars Gaspar Henaine, better known as Capulina, who often partnered with Marco Antonio Campos as the double act Viruta and Capulina. His nickname, El Rey del Humorismo Blanco (The King of White Humor) is because he’s known for clean and innocent humor.

Shockingly, I kinda dug this ridiculous movie that looks like it was shot with an eye to the TV Batman, packed with sound effects and no small amount of silliness.

Count Dracula lives with several female vampires, which seems like a pretty good deal for him, but then a spear accidentally drops on him and he dies. For one hundred and fifty years, strong men are brought int o save him, but they all fail and are killed. Capulina comes in as a handyman and book, he bumps into the spear and Dracula is back among the living.

Rossy Mendoza shows up in this as Pampa, who is the Count’s main wife. She was known as Mexico’s Smallest Waist and The Body. She’s in the same category as Lyn May, Princess Lea and Angelica Chain, as they are all burlesque performers who became famous for their appearances in Mexican exploitation movies. You may recognize her from Santo vs. the Kidnappers, Night of San Juan: Santo in Black Gold and La Laamada del Sexo, which from the description reads like a giallo, a fact made positive by the knowledge that George Hilton is in it.

This movie somehow is family friendly and filled with the most fetching vampire women this side of Hammer. Mexico, you’ve done it again.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Boris Karloff’s last film, this Mexican/American combo platter is really something else. Much like Isle of the Snake People, Fear Chamber and House of Evil, the main action was filmed by Juan Ibáñez while Jack Hill took care of the American footage and anything Karloff appears in.

The story takes place in Gudenberg, as Professor John Mayer (Karloff) has invented a laser weapon that runs on nuclear power. As he tests it, he nearly shoots down a UFO, which leads to aliens coming to our planet to shut down his plans.

That’s what they claim the plot is, but man, this has some twists and turns and veers off into some strange places. Which, you know, is just how I like it.

Karloff has an assistant, Dr. Isabel Reed, which is pretty woke for 1890 to have a female mad scientist. She’s played by Maura Monti, the Mexican Batwoman and she just might be in love with their Igor, who is named Thomas (Yerye Beirute, who was made for roles like these and as the big heavy in movies like Ladrones de Cadaveres). Sure, he just happens to be a sex murderer and an alien gets in his brain and all his victims suddenly become radioactive and this run-on sentence should explain just how convoluted this movie is.

Somehow, Christa Linder (Night of 1000 Cats) figures into this as Karloff’s niece and the eighty-year-old horror hero — never far from oxygen and frequently sitting — gets possessed by aliens who finally make him blow up his entire house just to prove a point that man is not ready for nuclear power.

I watched this whole thing and really was baffled by every single minute, which is often how I judge a movie that I love. Bring on the nonsense!

Giovanni (Jean Sorel, Perversion Story) is shot in an underground car-park by a mysterious man and as he dies, he flashes back on his life — including jealousy, adultery and worse — in this 1971 giallo known here as The Double.

While vacationing in Morocco with his stunning girlfriend Lucia (Ewa Aulin, Candy, Death Smiles On a Murderer, Death Laid an Egg), Giovanni grows jealous of an American named Eddie (Sergio Doria, Cave of the Sharks). In retaliation, he forces himself on Lucia’s mother Nora (Lucia Bose, The Legend of Blood Castle) and then becomes obsessed all over again that she’s also in love with Eddie. To top all of that off, he soon finds the American’s body in her apartment, so he disposes of the body to protect her. But if she wasn’t in the country when it happened, who killed the man?

Oh yeah, and between being caught in a mother-daughter triangle with Lucia and Nora, there’s also the gorgeous — and face-painted in one scene — Marilù Tolo to deal with.

Romolo Guerrieri also directed another giallo I really enjoyed, The Sweet Body of Deborah, and his artistic sensibilities elevate this film as well, starting with the Sunset Boulevard conceit of the main character getting killed off before we discover anything about him. And even more interesting is the fact that the more we learn of him, the less we like Giovanni.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Marisa Mell is the female George Eastman. No, she doesn’t act like a wide eyed gigantic maniac in every movie. It’s just that no matter what movie she appears in, just her name being in the credits guarantees that I will watch the film.

Also known as …dopo di che, uccide il maschio e lo divora (…After That, It Kills the Male and Devours It), which is one of the best titles ever.

A wealthy landowner  named Don Miguel (Stephen Boyd, who was in Ben-Hur) is haunted by his dead mother and missing wife, who may have been murdered, when he meets a gorgeous runaway named Marta (Mell), who may have killed the man who she was running from.

I haven’t seen any of José Antonio Nieves Conde’s films before, but this movie makes me want to watch every single one of them.

The strange thing is that this movie pretty much became true in a way, as Boyd and Mell fell in love, as they made this and The Great Swindle one on top of the other*. Despite Boyd not wanting anything to do with Mell at first — was the man made of stone? — he eventually fell for her and they married in a gypsy ceremony near Madrid, cutting their wrists and sealing their blood. The couple was so possessed buy the mystical and sexual desire they felt for one another than they even went to have it exorcized in another ritual.

Boyd had to run from her, as the relationship physically and mentally exhausted him. As for Mell, she’d tell the Akron Beacon Journal that “We both believe in reincarnation, and we realized we’ve already been lovers in three different lifetimes, and in each one I made him suffer terribly.”

In the same year that all this happened, Mell was also dating Pier Luigi Torri, an aristocratic nightclub owner who fled the country after a cocaine scandal. Arrested in London after it was discovered he had a $300 million dollar gold mine and had also scammed a bank, he somehow escaped his jail cell and ran from the police across rooftops, escaping to America for 18 months. Evidently, Mell dated Diabolik in art and in life.

So let’s talk about the Mell relationship in the film instead of reality. She has come to live with Miguel, who collects insects and has two servants who keep things tidy. She enters his life by claiming that she is on the run for a self-defense murder. Miguel decides to protect her from the police because she looks like his wife Pilar (also played by Mell) who has left him or was killed. He’s also tormented by the death of his sainted mother while she may not be who she says that she is.

Oh yeah — and now Marta is acting as Pillar to throw the police off the scent of the man who she either wants to marry or destroy.

Marta is a gothic-style giallo but is also dreamlike throughout. There’s a continual obsession with placing Mell in front of mirrors. And for someone who was rarely used outside of her sex appeal in films, she’s absolutely haunting here. Somehow, Spain put this movie forward for Oscar consideration and if I ran those popcorn fart boring awards, I would have given this every single award.

Sure, this movie rips off Hitchcock, but it also wallows in sin, which is what I demand from the giallo that I come to adore. Somehow, someway, this aired on broadcast TV as part of Avco Embassy’s Nightmare Theater package, along with A Bell from Hell, Death Smiles on a Murderer, Maniac Mansion, Night of the Sorcerers, Fury of the Wolfman, Hatchet for the Honeymoon, Horror Rises from the Tomb, Dear Dead Delilah, Doomwatch, Witches Mountain, Mummy’s Revenge and The Witch. Man, how did any of those air on regular TV?

*Credit to the Stephen Boyd Fan Page and Marisa Mell: Her Life and Her Work for this information.

Translated as No Way Out, this movie is also known as Devil’s Ransom, La Machination, Terrori, The Victims, Diabolical, The Devil and His Diabolical Mistress and Photos of a Decent Woman. 

While this was sold to me as a giallo, it feels closer to a krimini film, as the genre had not yet fully begun to ape — bird? cat? — Argento yet.

Gilbert Mardeau (Philippe Leroy) is a bank courier stuck in a loveless marriage with Michele (Marisa Mell, so obviously this is science fiction because Marisa Mell is literally the entire reason why I have suffered through some movies). He has a woman on the side (Lea Massari, who no offense, but is a major step down) and a problem: someone has kidnapped his son and wants big money or he’ll never see him alive again.

Piero Sciumé only directed one more and this is it. It’s definitely not a straight-up black gloved, knife wielding killer movie, but the end has some nice psychedelic visuals, Mell is actually really solid as the mother driven to do unspeakable things and setting it in Stockholm is an interesting change of pace.

Obviously, for giallo completists only, but if you read this far, look in the mirror and realize that yes, you are one.