Some Thoughts From Me On The Zodiac (2007)

I have a thing about unsolved mysteries, especially those involving un-caught serial killers (think Jack The Ripper--or others that were ultimately solved--BTK, Green River Killer, etc.)--so I knew a thing or two about this case when the film came out in 2007.  There is always a risk when directors of merit tackle large film projects based on real events.  I basically look at the running time for such films and if the film is less than 110 minutes long--I pretty much figure it's isn't going to be that good, because real life is so much more complicated when placed in narrative terms, than an old fashioned movie script fabrication.  At 155 minutes, this David Fincher directed effort has become one of my favorite "based on a true story" films.

Still from the film showing the Zodiac as he was dressed at the Lake Berryessa attack

The film focuses on the work of writer and cartoonist Robert Graysmith (assayed by Jake Gyllenhaal in the film), who worked for the San Francisco Chronicle at the time that the first Zodiac letters posted to the paper's editor arrived there in 1968.  He published a book of his research as assertions of who he believed the Zodiac was (Arthur Leigh Allen) in 1986.  It is mostly this book that the script focuses on, but what I like about the script is that it widens out from the focus of the book, and includes a lot of actual history of the case, told in a very straight forward fashion (this comprises basically the first half of the film).  This includes discussions at the Chronicle, police work and other people with whom the person or persons who claimed to be The Zodiac Killer communicated.  

Actual wanted poster for The Zodiac

The film really, just by telling a true story, presents an almost perfect picture of the banality of evil and a serial murder case that seems to have be conceived purely as acts of violence as a pure concept; the fun of terrorizing seemed more of a high for this person(s) than actual murder--the murders seemed contrived to further this end rather than being the primary motivation in their own right.  What motivated this "concept" of terror and murder as an actual undertaking is any one's guess, but it is rather unique in the annals of crime.  Anyone who has actually read the letters attributed to The Zodiac (many have been discredited) will encounter a great deal of threats that were never carried out.  This says a whole lot about what the true motivations were for these horrific crimes; they seem contrivances of a bored individual who is clever, but by no means smart or particularly well educated--but highly motivated to keep writing (there are numerous misspellings in the Zodiac letters of words that are rather simple (including words from cyphers)--and they do not appear to be done on purpose--like for example, The Chronicle received a letter from a person claiming to be The Zodiac in early 1974 praising the film The Exorcist for being "the best saterical comidy I have ever seen"--the handwriting matched earlier authenticated letters).  In another case a woman who had a very close call with The Zodiac when she (at seven months pregnant) and her 10 month old daughter were kidnapped by this creep after he had pulled them over, he calmly told her "you shouldn't smoke, it's bad for you," and then just as calmly told her that he was going to kill her and her daughter (she got away from him with her child when he stopped at an intersection).  Talk about banal!!  It obviously made him rather angry though, because he returned to her car and gutted & torched it.  This says another thing about the character of this killer that does appear to be a shared trait of serial killers--they can't stand it when their sense of control is taken from them.

Another aspect to this crime spree is that it most likely involved more than one person.  No one can be sure, of course, and won't be until it is solved, if it ever is.  If one looks at several aspects of the story, there are at least two places where it seems that two individuals had to be involved, this includes a murder committed in San Francisco that is positively attributed to The Zodiac (see photo of a cabby shot Presidio Heights above).  Even Graysmith, who I don't believe ever came to this conclusion himself, thought another guy was the Zodiac during a period of time early in his investigation for his book.  If you are going to watch the film, look out for the super creepy scene where Graysmith goes to visit a independent theater owner, and finds out that the man has a basement, where he keeps film canisters (basements are very rare in San Francisco), upon questioning the man about his showing The Most Dangerous Game in his theater some years before, Graysmith mentions that the handwriting on the hand made poster for the film looked very much like that of The Zodiac Killer--he is then informed that theater owner made the poster himself!  The Most Dangerous Game, an early talkie from 1932 centers around a man who hunts people who are ship wrecked on his island (worth watching for another study of Violence As A Concept--and remade as The Beast Must Die [this time with werewolves] in 1974), a film mentioned in the Zodiac letters.  If indeed their were two people working together in the commission of these crimes, it further advances the notion that this must have been rather calmly planned--a concept carried out and apparently stopped when it is no longer "fun."  This is really the only explanation as to why these particular murders stopped--as no one seriously considered a suspect in the case has ever matched being in prison, otherwise incarcerated or out of the northern California area during periods of communication hiatus.

Actual composite of the Zodiac from Berryessa, see film image above.

Also if it is the case that more than one person was responsible for these crimes, it would also explain the persistence of any real advances in solving the case.  Around the time that the murders started, the FBI was in the midst of a real (and needed) change in philosophy about serial killer behavior and a change in the methodology in the way they went about hunting them.  When the FBI was created, it was widely regarded that serial killers always went about in twos; the reason for this wrong-headed notion I have never been able to find out, but suffice to say that it persisted for far longer than it should have.  In the late 1960's, after several of these creatures had been caught, it became clear that they were solitary people with deeply personal reasons for the motivation to maim, torture, kill and mutilate other people.  But, human behavior is never an absolute, so it stands to reason that a least one set of serial murders would have to be committed by two or more persons, just from a probability math point of view alone.  If this was the case with The Zodiac Murders, then the police and the FBI have been barking up the wrong tree.  A close examination of the victimology suggests this to be the case, especially the Presidio murder.

Whoever committed the murders, one person or two, they certainly didn't have the "normal" motivations of a serial killer.  As stated above the motive here seems to have been one of planned and carefully carried out, and very, very public set of crimes.  These person or persons would certainly have gotten a real kick from the fact that they spawned not one but two copycat murder sprees years later (assuming that they were still alive at the time); one in New York City and one in Kobe, Japan.  One was solved (NYC), the other was not.  Copycat murders are basically the only other murder motivation that is purely conceptual and are truly acts of violence as a concept.