Zotz! ** (1962, Tom Poston, Fred Clark, Jim Backus, Cecil Kellaway, Margaret Dumont, Mike Mazurki, Julia Meade) – Classic Movie Review 8005

Director William Castle’s soppy 1962 fantasy comedy chiller Zotz! is not one of his best movies, with only the slightest elements of horror and faint moments of humour breaking through from the gloom.

Tom Poston stars as Professor Jonathan ‘John’ Jones, a professor of ancient languages, who discovers an ancient artefact – the Zotz coin – that gives him vast special powers to inflict pain, slow time and kill. But, when the US government dismisses him as loopy, enemy foreign spies come after him for the coin and its powers.

However, there are quite a few silly laughs and the cast of nice old-timers (Fred Clark, Jim Backus, Cecil Kellaway, Margaret Dumont, Mike Mazurki) is certainly an attraction, giving it some appeal. Ray Russell’s shaky screenplay is based on Walter Karig’s novel.

Also in the cast are Julia Meade, Zeme North, James Millhollin, Carl Don, Jimmy Hawkins, Bart Patton, Judee Morton, Michael Westfield, Russ Whiteman, George Moorman, Elaine Martone, Susan Dorn, Albert Glasser and Louis Nye.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 8005

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