ratebait

Let's talk about a few of the meritorious aspects of this film, the title of which already promises disappointment and disaster. Its biggest draw was arguably the female lead, whose claim to fame was not being a "Playboy Playmate," but being part of a scandal that took the nation by storm – congressmen's wives are not the kind expected to misbehave. Those who recall this affair might get some degree of satisfaction with seeing what the hubbub was about, and Ms. Jenrette does a credible job with her acting, at times even being allowed to chew up the scenery. (How impressive that she also had a hand in a reggae song on the soundtrack; as another pointed out, the choice of reggae was refreshing.)

David Broadnax came up short in the screen charisma department, although his rugged, handsome good looks (reminded me of Fred Williamson) were welcome with the dashing role he played; at first I thought he might have carried the day from the zombie menace in the same vein as the famously African-American lead of Romero's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. (Mr. Broadnax was reportedly not a healthy man, unfortunately having only fifteen years of life left from the time of this role.) That was before I got the notion that we were not going to be in for a swarm of zombies, as the title gave the impression, a fact that did not sit well with many of the reviewers here, horror fans with a one-track mind. (I was disappointed as well, but not to the point of giving up on the movie.)

Low-budget horror fans ought to be used to being taken in by misleading titles, a phenomenon not always the fault of dishonest filmmakers, but the distributors who are not above meddling with changes. Yet the title is not totally off-kilter; we are on an island, and the many killings that take place would be called a massacre. Regardless of the identity of the apparent "swamp thing" who went around committing the murders, it's not as though the film does not boast a zombie, That would be during the voodoo sequence, which succeeded in achieving a nice dosage of creeps; the mud-caked resurrected zombie was an interesting throwback to Val Lewton's I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE – not the kind of cinematic zombie that fans prefer to see in their brain-eaters.

I thought the pairing of two "hunks," the white and black heroes, was an innovative concept; often in movies, there is no confusion about who the real hero is. I also liked the suspense that was created up until around the point when the tour bus had been vandalized, and when the bus driver went out to make that abortive phone call for help; as he came upon a couple of disturbing developments, some genuine tension was created. We knew we would be in for it afterwards, in typical horror film fashion, with the absurd ways by which many of the victims were done in.

Some of the acting was -- as may be expected -- uneven, but the older villain by the film's conclusion got very high marks, as well as the female who turned out to be in cahoots with the skullduggery. When led at gunpoint by one of our heroes, the actress especially shined.

Many of the gripes that other reviewers have pointed out are justified; the film had potential, but turned out rather dull and senseless in many areas. The biggest letdown for me was the genre-switching plot twist at the finale, which made a mockery of the film's horror foundation, like something out of "Scooby Doo."

The missed opportunities are a pity. A group of tourists stranded {especially at night) in a foreign and threatening locale can be such a welcome premise, when done correctly. A horror film that got it right was 2007's ROGUE, where a tour boat breaks down in the Australian outback.

One of the disadvantages of forums where anyone is allowed to comment is that so many people can be so wrong. Let's try to keep in mind that Troma the production company is a far cry from Troma, the distributor. (In order to keep afloat, Troma concentrated its firepower during its later operational phase with the latter role.) Thus, the familiar product that Troma is known for, the grossly comical efforts such as THE TOXIC AVENGER, have nothing to do with independently produced films that have little call in the marketplace, and thereby are forced to slum their wares with a little outfit such as Troma. One reviewer, to give a glaring example, pointed to BLOOD SUCKING FREAKS and MOTHER'S DAY as two typical Troma films. Those films were made by creators having nothing to do with Troma, at a time before Troma even came into substantive being.

Spoilers may lie ahead, although I'd doubt anything of consequence.

Every documentary, no matter how much it attempts to be fair, has a point-of-view; that's only human. And it's not as though this one does not make an effort to add some credence to the possibility there was a second gunman. In addition, "Unsolved History: Robert F. Kennedy Assassination" is also somewhat off the hook for having been produced nearly a decade ago, so it cannot be accused of failing to take into account other evidence that has come into light, such as the thunderous one figured into the epilogue of "RFK Must Die (2007)" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1047517/): an audio recording has been discovered where more gunshots were fired than the accused assassin's weapon was capable of.

The problem is that "Unsolved History" went out of its way to make the case that Sirhan Sirhan must have been the one and only killer. Perhaps the producers were afraid that any other course would have opened up the possibility for criticism, since anything that challenges the established wisdom could be attacked as a conspiracy theory, and we all know such theorists are nutty as fruitcakes. (Not to say some are not.)

The basis of this documentary mainly revolved around the construction of the pantry site where RFK was assassinated. Their idea was to re-create the movements to see whether Sirhan was the lone gunman or not. There is absolutely no exploration about what Sirhan's motive could possibly have been, as was covered in-depth in the more recent documentary. In that one, we learned that Sirhan's personality was such that he would let loose the flies in the house without killing them. We learned that the authorities prevented the psychiatrist from conducting the hypnosis that would have allowed Sirhan to regress to the night in question. (The rather fantastic theory presented in "RFK Must Die" is that Sirhan was recruited by the CIA to serve as a fall guy, easily believable by the nation because of Sirhan's ethnicity -- Palestinians were depicted in the press as nothing but terroristic evil. Manchuiran Candidates appear to be the stuff of fiction, but that documentary built a very convincing case.) Despite the fact that this program cannot be faulted for excluding evidence that came to light after its production, what is its excuse for avoiding the evidence that was already solidly in place? For example, a CBS reporter, Don Schulman, was an actual eyewitness who claimed immediately after the shooting that Kennedy's "bodyguard" (for those unfamiliar with the case, the security guard -- whose gun was not confiscated by the police for examination -- is thought of as the likeliest second gunman; this program mentioned he was a "racist," as far as possible motives, but I believe the other documentary examined possible CIA connections) had either "fired back" or "inadvertently shot Kennedy three times." (CBS denied the account, and Schulman apparently was put through hell to the point of closing himself off to the matter. His is not the only example of witnesses at the scene who claimed troublesome things, and who were later intimidated by the authorities and others.)

One of the most peculiar aspects of "Unknown History" was the very amusing way in which it addressed the issue of the stains left by a firearm (on RFK's ear, according to the autopsy report) discharged at nearly point-blank range. Everyone had said Sirhan was several feet away, but the program went out of its way to try and show, by force-positioning the actor playing RFK, how it just might have been, albeit infinitesmally, possible.

LAPD Chief Darryl Gates announces off the bat that Sirhan was the one and only assailant, the view that the program appeared to side with. To its credit, the program did not ignore that the LAPD destroyed a lot of the evidence, which then makes one wonder as to why a potentially conflicted speaker as Gates would have been given so much of the spotlight.

For example, the point is stressed that the extra bullet holes found on the walls cannot mean much, as they were marked by a motorcycle cop who had no experience with such matters -- as though identifying two bullet holes next to each other in a wall would have entailed the skills of a rocket scientist. (Perhaps the holes might have been the work of very artistic termites.) Curiously, right afterwards, we are told that an FBI agent had marked these holes, and as the program interviewed the man, evidently he was the first one to have done so -- and not the motorcycle cop. The narrator tells us that this issue boils down the the word of the FBI agent vs. the word of the LAPD chief, who either minimized or denied the existence of the extra bullet holes. Tough choice, right? Who would you believe, an FBI agent who would have had no reason to lie (unless he was a nutty conspiracy theorist in disguise), or Darryl Gates, whose reputation did not come across as sterling when his department was charged with nefarious activities time and again, and the man who proposed before a Senate Committee that casual drug users be shot.

There are certainly powerful forces at work that have reasons to sustain the beliefs that both Kennedy assassinations were the work of loners, because the hell that would be unleashed, were the probable truth be known, would be too hot to handle. But one wonders why the makers of a purportedly independent documentary would go out of their way to support the "common wisdom."

The IMDb correctly discourages comments from referencing other comments, but since ZAAT has the honor of being one of the IMDb's lowest rated films, it's appropriate to pay a nod to one of the chief forces behind its low rating. This main reason ties in with the peculiarity of a rarely seen and relatively unavailable film getting as high as over 2,000 votes.

A reviewer from Tennessee got to the heart of this matter in his 2007 IMDb user's essay; he addressed another IMDb comment that bemoaned the majority of the reviewers having only seen ZAAT in its Mystery Science Theater 3000 dissection, which also happened to be the way the Tennessee reviewer saw the film. The MST3K crew cut out over a half-hour, so the IMDb reviewers who based their thoughts on the MST3K's put-down presentation didn't even see the whole film. "Why in God's name would I want to see 30 more minutes of this trash!" was the Tennessean's response.

It is patently unfair to review a film on a version the purpose of which was to poke fun at the film. It is as if a film is judged not by watching the film, but by reading the MAD Magazine satire of it. And it especially becomes unfair if the satirized version has been abridged -- that's like a book reviewer who reviews a book based on only some chapters.

Add to this formula the cynicism of a newer generation, who thinks it's "cool" to put down media-presented efforts; by doing so, such people think they are being smarter, and what a nice way to feel better.

Of course ZAAT is a "bad" movie. Amateurish and logically-challenged -- for example, why would the sheriff not have drawn his gun on the approaching monster? (But don't get me started on the many places this movie has gone wrong; at this writing, there are about 70 reviews you can read, most of which will happily point out the absurdities.)

Yet I entered into this debacle with exactly such low expectations. And yes, there were drawn-out scenes that were not easy to sit through. All in all, however, if you know what you're going to be in for, you accept the vehicle for what it is, and it is your attitude that is going to affect your judgment, and your ultimate enjoyment.

I can honestly say there are many uninspired and forgettable films that are far more polished and professional than ZAAT, but for all ZAAT's inanities, I could appreciate the effort that went into ZAAT. The producer obviously had a very low budget (I'd imagine his contacts with the Florida Marine facility might have inspired the "plot" -- without money, a film can be designed around the locations and other assets), yet still managed to come up with a stupidly imaginative film.

I appreciated the quality of the monster suit, for one thing -- given what must have been the restraints of the budget and the local special effects talent. Some of the dialogue was actually pretty clever. The fact that a black character was chosen as one of the heroes was admirable -- it was only a few years earlier that Romero's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD had helped break the mold in this area, at least for horror movies. The director and/or editor also tried hard at times to add some excitement, for example with the insert shots during the attack on the scientist in his house. And the female victim was very beautiful. (With a movie like this, you've got to appreciate what you get.)

I'm giving the film a few undeserved stars as a reaction against the numerous IMDb snobs who don't even have the decency to watch the real thing. And for those who have taken in the real thing, what DO these people expect when they watch a locally made monster movie from the 1970s that defines the word "cheesy"? On that level, ZAAT delivers in spades.