It's a pretty well-known fact that giant-fish-monster movies, like "Creature from the Black Lagoon," are almost always cheesy and horrid. "Dr. Z," however, is such a waste of celluloid that it makes "The Horror of Party Beach" look like "Citizen Kane."

First of all, there's the title. There is no actual Dr. Z in "Blood Waters of Dr. Z." Instead, we have Dr. Leopold (maybe his first name starts with a Z?), played by an actor so terminally dull that the only lines he gets are as voice-over narration (voiced over, I might add, by someone who sounds way too evil to be the same actor).

This narration, right at the start of the movie, is about the only joy here for a true bad-movie buff. "Dr. Z" gives us stock footage of tropical fish swimming around doing tropical fish stuff, while Dr. L gives us a monologue about sargassam, the weed of deceit, and other fun stuff. Once you've watched this, you might as well turn "Dr. Z" off; there's nothing left to see.

After the monologue, we cut to Dr. L in his secret basement laboratory. This lab is filled with stock B-movie Evil Laboratory Machines, complete with random beeps, binking lights, and absolutely no purpose whatsoever. The Doctor pushes some buttons here and there, monologues some more about walking catfish, gives himself some sort of injection, and lowers himself into a kiddie pool. This is where the presumably frightening, mercifully off-camera transformation takes place.

Dr. L emerges from the kiddie pool as a Generic Walking Fish Monster (played by an actor named Wade Popwell), wearing a costume obviously made out of papier mache. He then goes over to his inexplicable giant circular Day-Timer, crosses off the "Turn Into Fish" notation, and goes out to terrorize.

After this point, it quickly becomes even more boring and formulaic. Fish Guy descends into a river bed with a squirt bottle, spraying catfish with a magical solution that will apparently also turn them into Fish Monsters. (The scene is unintentionally hilarious, and the plot point is quickly forgotten.) Then the monster kills a few people, carries off several women, and is followed by a group of Generic 70s Actors. I used to think it was impossible to make a monster movie with virtually no action, but "Dr. Z" proved me wrong.

When the movie isn't merely boring, it's baffling. The Female Scientist Who's Only There To Get Carried Off By The Monster gets virtually all her information on Dr. L from a mysterious, heavily accented radio announcer. This announcer's existence is bizarre enough, but he announces that Dr. L discovered two new elements, one of them "A-subscript-t". I just have two questions about this: one, how could a scientist allegedly brilliant enough to discover elements honestly believe that turning into a slow, weak Fish Monster would let him take over the world? Two, "At" is the elemental symbol for astatine -- were the screenwriters too stupid or lazy to check the periodic table to make sure that their fake element didn't have the same symbol as a real one?

Thankfully, this one eventually ends. Still, it's wretched but surprisingly un-fun, a deadly sin for a Fish Monster movie. Only watch this one if you're a serious fan of the genre or if you're watching the MST3K version.

Rating: One and a half turkeys (two and a half if you're a big fan of fish monster movies).

Scenes to watch for: The opening monologue and Fish Guy spraying the catfish.

Best line: "...ATTACK!"

Things that make you go "Huh?": Half the plot points and ultimately why the movie was made.