Zotz! (1962)

i must have seen a different film!!

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Best movie of this year hands down!

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

A professor of ancient Asian languages (Tom Poston) comes across a coin sent to his niece from a former student. After translating the coin's inscription, he finds that the bearer has godlike power: he can slow time, or even kill living things simply by pointing his finger and saying "zotz".This is one of the lesser known William Castle films, not even released on DVD until October 20, 2009 (which you should pick up in the magnificent Castle Collection available now). It is less horror, more science fiction and a healthy dose of comedy. We have the absent-minded professor, some goofy Russians, and some cheesy special effects. Critics have complained that the film cheapens the book for the sake of focusing on special effects: I don't agree. The effects are amusing, but not a focal point of the film for me.As for the book, which I confess I haven't read, it seems that Castle did not stray too far from the source. Written as an allegory about the danger of nuclear weapons during World War II, only one major change was made: moving the setting to the Cold War. The nuclear weapon analogy is there, and we have the hint of an arms race, which I think is a far more poignant issue than World War II's nuclear concerns.I enjoyed this film greatly. As I said, you must pick up the William Castle Collection. He's truly a master of the genre, and even forgotten films like this illustrate that. I hope this film's release generates a resurgence of interest in Castle's films, or at the very least additional showings of them at screenings and on networks such as AMC.

William Castle, director of low-budget horror flicks including the original "Thirteen Ghosts", takes on an adaptation of Walter Karig's novel with mixed results.The best thing about the movie are the changes made to the original novel. While it's rare when a movie improves on its literary source material, Walter Karig's book starts out with the promise of being like a Thorne Smith fantasy romp. There's the professor who accidentally acquires a magic power (in the book, to stun or kill by pointing his finger, but instead of yelling "bang" he yells "Zotz"). There's the beautiful femme fatale who may be a nemesis sent from the gods, and who first appeared nude on his couch in a thunderstorm.The novel then dissipates into a tedious cautionary tale about bureaucracy: the professor has a power that will ultimately lead to a bloodless victory in World War II, but even in a desperate war when the nation's self-defense is at stake he can't seem to he can't climb the chain of command in any military or civilian organization in Washington (in that way, the novel is more than relevant in the early twenty-first century). Part of his problem, too, is his own intransigence. He is so obsessed with the cult of personality, so swept away by his own powers, he refuses to outline or demonstrate his powers to anyone less than the president himself.The movie does a good thing by sweeping away all the bureaucratic detritus that made the book so ultimately tiresome. The movie changes the professor's powers (I won't relate that change but it's more family-friendly). The movie gives us a story that might well have been adapted from Thorne Smith in the early 1960s, in a Disney sort of way.Then there are the missteps. Tom Poston is a funny guy, graduating from the Steve Allen show with the likes of Don Knotts and Louis Nye. His movie persona, while likable, is less than dynamic. And the special effects have unfortunately dated. Still, it's a pleasant diversion. And more than "Thirteen Ghosts" it deserves a remake -- not from the book, but reworking this script.

I have always a vague memory of a movie I saw one afternoon back in the early 1970's when I was a little kid. I've been wondering for years what the name of it was and I finally found out what it was.The movie was about this guy who had this magic coin that would make everything stop or move very slowly. I recalled a scene with him sitting in a bathtub and a scene where someone is falling off the roof of a building, but falls very slowly because of the magic coin. I also had a vague memory of someone firing a gun, but the bullet being stopped in mid-air by the coin.Somehow I came across some info on IMDb for a William Castle film called Zotz! and realized that I had found it at last. I got a copy of it and watched it again after about 30 years. One thing that I had forgotten about completely was the scene where he is riding the bike with that bracket on the handlebars for reading a book. Strange how a long closed section of your memory banks can be reopened again years later.Zotz! wasn't as good as I'd hoped. I can see how a little kid might think it was fun, but it didn't really hold up that well for an adult. Castle's movie called "13 Ghosts" on the other hand is one that can be enjoyed by kids and adults as well.

Ya gotta admit it's a great title and Tom Poston is rather watchable for the nine-year-olds who are the target audience. It's just a silly chase over a coin with silly magical powers, and if one can overlook the Cold War propaganda was a fun fantasy for playacting with my little friends afterwards.Watching it again as an adult I found it rather charmless but not a total bore.