It is a performances centric movie

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

This is a movie that failed--mostly because the writing was very poor and because William Castle was not very adept at comedy (this film and 13 FRIGHTENED GIRLS prove that). The idea itself, though weird and silly, could have worked--but the movie failed again and again--mostly due to a dopey script.The film starred Tom Posten as a goofy professor of ancient languages. His niece receives an ancient medallion from her boyfriend who is on a dig. Posten is happy when he notices that he can read this medallion and finds that it's a powerful charm--allowing the user to cause pain by pointing at someone, make them slow down or even kill. When he tries to show this to the US military, they think he's some kind of nut and the only ones who believe are the evil Russians. There's more to it than this, but frankly it all seemed like a kooky and less well made version of THE ABSENTMINDED PROFESSOR.As I said above, the script was really sub-par. Again and again, Posten's character (who was supposed to be a genius) behaved stupidly. When he was kidnapped by the Russians, though he had these great powers he forgot to use them until the end of the film. When he was trying to demonstrate his powers for his boss, he didn't make sure he had the medallion on him. These sort of brain-addled moments abounded in the film--and made it embarrassing and irritating to watch.A good idea but a failure.

Charles Miller's excellent review pretty much says it all. One can only hope Mr. Karig got a goodly sum for the movie rights. (Yeah. Sure.)If you have fond memories of this film -- and especially if you don't -- the novel is worth looking up, if only to see (as if you had to be told) how Hollywood hacks like William Castle can ruin an interesting story by assuming the audience is just too stupid to understand anything that might provoke thought. (One might also locate "The Circus of Dr. Lao", to see how George Pal butchered/eviscerated/raped a magnificent novel.)"Zotz!" the novel is unusual in that it has illustrations -- more like cartoons, actually. The only one I remember is that of a young woman coming to visit Dr. Jones who has her clothes blown off by a lightning strike.Regardless, your time would be much better spent with the novel than the film. Which is almost always the case.PS: Since writing this review, I got a copy of the novel and reread it. It's even better than I remembered, but it's not a story that lends itself to a straightforward film adaptation. That, however, does not justify William Castle appropriating the cheaply appealing part of the story, and ignoring everything else. Had he done it "properly", he would have anticipated "Indiana Jones" by 20 years.

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.

Here's something that you don't see every day. In "Zotz!", a college professor (Tom Poston) discovers an ancient coin which has three uses for whomever holds it: if you point to someone, the person feels a sharp pain; if you say "zotz" to someone, the person goes into slow motion; if you point to someone and say "zotz", it kills the person. Not only does he start using it throughout town - with some unintended consequences - but the Soviet Union gets wind of the story (so you know what that means).Overall, the movie was pretty (seeing him make Jim Backus move in slow motion was something), but the part about the Russian agents trying to steal the coin was sort of silly.