Comments on: Zotz! Coins, Psycho Sticks, and Witch Deflectors

By: Gloria T. Zwick

Gloria T. Zwick — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:37:33 +0000

Back in the early 1960′s, I saw a black and white horror flick about a demonic man who gave dolls in gift boxes to people @ night. These dolls would leave the boxes and kill the adults in the home by sticking a needle through their neck while they were sleeping in bed. At the end of the movie, the demonic man and his dolls would enter a church and be killed by the shadow of a Crucifix. I would like to see this movie again, but I don’t remember the name.

By: Gun

Gun — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 23:25:26 +0000

This is right here, in the present, not the future.

By: Gloria

Gloria — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 21:00:45 +0000

This is right here, in the present, not the future.

By: Orlo B

Orlo B — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 13:08:05 +0000

I took my younger borther to the movie in Cooperstown, NY in the 1960′s I think. I still have my gold plastic Zots coin. My borther doesn’t even remember the movie. I saw the movie yesterday on TV for the first time in at least 45 years. Orlo

By: Vicki

Vicki — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 20:56:14 +0000

Does anyone know where Zotz was filmed?

By: Joe F

Joe F — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:42:40 +0000

I’m sitting here watching the movie I first saw as a 12 year old here in Chicago.
I remember the movie well and I still have my Zotz coin.

Here’s a scan of it

http://images1f.snapfish.com/232323232%7Ffp8%3C4%3Enu%3D3245%3E862%3E693%3EWSNRCG%3D323%3A738%3A85784nu0mrj

By: Helen

Helen — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 02:59:57 +0000

I remember the movie Zotz! very well and this will be my first time to see it since 1962!! And I’m stoked because I remember liking it a lot (hey, I was 9 years old–what do you expect!) But I definitely don’t remember any coin. I lived in a small town so it was probably a month or two after initial release before it even made it to the Princess Theater in Maryville, TN. I love reading these blogs–so many child hood memories.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 14:27:33 +0000

I had a ZOTZ! coin but it probably got thrown out during my move from my parent’s home to college. But I still have a packet of devil seeds for planting that promoted THE BROTHERHOOD OF SATAN, an unused bumper sticker for THE STEPFORD WIVES that reads “Something Strange is Happening in the Town of Stepford,” a miniature pack of satanic Tarot-like cards for Roman Polanski’s THE NINTH GATE, and a ROCKY punching hand puppet made in Taiwan that is a very poor lookalike of Sly Stallone (he’s got a Harpo Marx hairdo and a deformed sneer on his mouth, sort of like the face of FRANKENSTEIN’S DAUGHTER).

By: Jerry Kovar

Jerry Kovar — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 13:10:15 +0000

One of the give-aways from the early 70s was a barf bag to promote the German torture film MARK OF THE DEVIL. “The first film rated V for Violence” There’s an image here:

http://www.sleazoidexpress.com/devilvomitbag.jpg

By: jbl

jbl — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 05:21:41 +0000

I never got a Zots! coin, even though I did see the movie in a theater when it first came out. I have fond memories of that picture; I believe that’s where I first heard of drinking pickle juice. But we were in a small city, and the movie probably came to the number 3 theater in town (of 3), and they didn’t, as far as I can remember, have coins.

But speaking of 13 GHOSTS, since you mentioned it, it did have a gimmick, though it was only useful for watching the movie. I have seen it listed among 3-D movies of the time, but even though the gimmick involved red and blue (or turquoise or cyan) plastic windows, it was not 3-D in any way. Rather, the gizmo was a “ghost viewer”. The premise was that the ghosts were extremely scary. The viewer provided a way to see them clearly if you were very brave, and to hide them if they were too scary. The viewer consisted of a card a few inches wide with a red cellophane window running the width of the card and a blue-green window above or below the red one. When one of these really scary ghosts was about to come on screen, the picture would turn from black-and-white monochrome to blue-green monochrome. When the ghost appeared it was colored red. If you looked through the red window, the ghost showed up brightly against a dimmed blue-green background. But if the phantasm became too terrifying to bear, you could look through the blue-green window, and the red ghost would be blotted out; except for a vague outline all you could see was the background film in bright blue-green. After the ghostly episode the film would turn to ordinary gray again and it was safe to look directly at the screen. I have seen this movie a couple times on TV, and it is now shown entirely in black-and-white, though I’m not sure they eliminated the introduction about the ghost viewer from all versions.

I miss gizmos like that.