Based on the non-fiction novels Zodiac and Zodiac Unmasked by Robert Graysmith, which were released in 1986 and 2002, respectively, Zodiac is a 2007 American mystery-thriller film that was directed by David Fincher from a screenplay by James Vanderbilt. Along with Anthony Edwards, Brian Cox, Elias Koteas, Donal Logue, John Carroll Lynch, Chlo Sevigny, Philip Baker Hall, and Dermot Mulroney playing supporting roles, the movie stars Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, and Jake Gyllenhaal.
The movie chronicles the hunt for the serial killer known as the Zodiac Killer, who terrorized the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1960s and early 1970s while teasing police with letters, blood-spattered clothing, and ciphers sent to newspapers. The case is still one of the most prominent unsolved crimes in American history. For 18 months, Fincher, Vanderbilt, and producer Bradley J. Fischer independently investigated and studied the Zodiac murders. Utilizing the exception of the slow-motion murder scenes, Fincher shot the majority of the movie with a digital Thomson Viper FilmStream Camera.
On March 2, 2007, Zodiac was released by Paramount Pictures in North America and Warner Bros. Pictures in other regions. It garnered generally favorable reviews and compliments for its script, directing, acting, and historical authenticity. Several prizes, including the Saturn Award for Best Action, Adventure, or Thriller Film, were nominated for the movie. On a $65 million production budget, it brought in approximately $84.7 million globally. Zodiac was ranked as the twelfth best movie of the twenty-first century in a 2016 BBC survey of reviewers.
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The Zodiac or Arthur Leigh Allen?
The tragic reality of a real-life crime is depicted in David Fincher’s Zodiac at its conclusion.
Simply put, there is insufficient proof to identify Arthur Leigh Allen as the Zodiac murderer. On a case that was truly puzzling, Allen was the most plausible suspect. Strangely enough, he passed away from a heart attack before being accused. The conclusion of Zodiac reveals that the case was closed following Allen’s death since it was widely believed based on circumstantial evidence that he was the murderer. Let’s examine the reasons why Allen wasn’t the murderer.
Robert Greysmith, a significant character in the movie Zodiac, wrote the novel with the same name that served as its inspiration. His book detailed Northern California’s terrorization by the enigmatic serial killer. In the film, a police officer (Mark Ruffalo) and two reporters (Jake Gyllenhaal and Robert Downey, Jr.) get fixated with learning his identity. As the killer claims his victims and taunts the authorities in letters, their fascination grows.
Was Zodiac depicted in the film?
Without exaggeration, “Zodiac” is among the best movies to come out in the last 20 years. The enormous, multi-part story that is David Fincher’s fusion of a journalistic inquiry and a serial killer thriller cannot, by design, have a truly satisfying conclusion. Why? because the Zodiac Killer eluded capture. But “Zodiac” believes it knows who the murderer was, and it isn’t hesitant to present this hypothesis and let the viewers form their own opinions. So let’s explore the movie, the true story that served as its inspiration, and the “Zodiac” conclusion that makes it all make sense.
Who is the name of the Zodiac Killer?
The Case Breakers, a group of more than 40 former police investigators, journalists, and military intelligence personnel, claim that Gary Francis Poste is the Zodiac Killer. The investigation team said that it had built its case on forensic data, images discovered in Poste’s personal darkroom, and a few of the serial killer’s coded notes.
The Case Breakers’ assertions that Poste is the Zodiac Killer are contested by others. The murder of Cheri Jo Bates in 1966 and the evidence the group claims it gleaned from studying the file serve as the basis for the Case Breakers’ conclusion, according to Ryan Railsback, Riverside PD’s PIO, who spoke to “TMZ.” According to Railsback, their initial suspicion that the Zodiac was to blamewhich was based on letters they had at the timewas just a red herring that wasn’t worth looking into further. They maintain that they would have done so if there had been a good reason to do so.
Enter Frank Falzon, a former San Francisco Police Department homicide inspector who worked as Dave Toschi’s partner and was initially in charge of the Zodiac case. After Toschi departed the case, Falzon took over the file and he also thinks Poste isn’t their man. Falzon claims that among the hundreds of names they had on file, Poste’s name, as far as he can remember, never emerged as a likely suspect. Toschi, his partner, always thought Arthur Leigh Allen was the Zodiac Killer, but as was already mentioned, Allen was exonerated by DNA evidence.
If anything, I hope that this raises awareness of Fincher’s Zodiac, one of his best works of cinema. Zodiac received positive reviews from critics, but despite having a $65 million budget, it only made $33 million domestically despite earning $84 million internationally. It’s a film that delivers scene by scene with gut-wrenching anxiety but it’s not a straight-up serial killer thriller and I think that’s why mainstream audiences didn’t immediately flock to it. With a cast featuring Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Brian Cox, Anthony Edwards, Donal Logue, and many more, I’d say no time like the present to rediscover this modern-day classic, especially with the Zodiac back in the headlines.
Ross Sullivan: Zodiac Sign or Not?
- The former administrator of the Florence American Cemetery and Memorial, Joseph alias Giuseppe Bevilacqua, was named as a suspect in the Zodiac and Monster of Florence murder cases by Italian journalist Francesco Amicone in 2018. Amicone claimed that Bevilacqua confessed to killing the victims in both incidents on September 11, 2017. The investigations into Bevilacqua brought on by Amicone’s probe were concluded in 2021 at the request of Pm Luca Turco, the Attorney in charge of the Monster investigation. Turco stated that “this journalistic inquiry is marked by suggestions, assumptions, and asserted intuitions, and it does not contain any factual element likely to rise to the dignity of a clue” in support of his request. Additionally, Pm Turco pursued legal action against Amicone for slandering Bevilacqua.
- Newspaper editor Richard Gaikowski was the subject of a MysteryQuest program from the History Channel in 2009. Gaikowski was employed by the San Francisco counterculture periodical Good Times at the time of the murders. Gaikowski resembled the composite sketch in terms of appearance, and Nancy Slover, the Vallejo police dispatcher who was contacted by the Zodiac shortly after the Blue Rock Springs Attack, recognized the Zodiac’s voice in a recording of Gaikowski.
- In his book The Black Dahlia Avenger, retired police investigator Steve Hodel makes the case that his father, George Hodel, was the Black Dahlia murderer, who also killed Elizabeth Short. His father’s Los Angeles district attorney’s office previously concealed files and wire recordings were made public as a result of the book, proving that the senior Hodel was in fact a leading suspect in Short’s slaying. In a letter that was later written and included in the updated edition, district attorney Steve Kaye stated that if George Hodel were still alive, he would be charged with the offenses. A police sketch, the correspondence between the Zodiac Killer and the Black Dahlia Avenger, and an investigation of disputed documents were all used by Hodel to make the circumstantial case that his father was also the Zodiac Killer in a subsequent book.
- Lawrence Kaye, afterwards Lawrence Kane: Kane was identified in a photo lineup by Kathleen Johns, who claimed to have been kidnapped by the Zodiac Killer. Kane resembled the man he and Eric Zelms met, according to patrol officer Don Fouke, who may have seen the Zodiac Killer after the death of Paul Stine. Donna Lass, a potential Zodiac victim, and Kane both worked at the same hotel in Nevada. After sustaining brain injuries in an accident in 1962, Kane was given an impulse-control disorder diagnosis. He was detained for prowling around and voyeurism. A French-Moroccan business consultant named Fayal Ziraoui asserted in 2021 that he had cracked the Z13 cipher and that the answer to the riddle was “My name is Kayr,” which is probably just a mistake for Kaye. Others contested Ziraoui’s ability to crack the encryption.
- Richard Marshall was charged with being the Zodiac Killer after allegedly making a murderous suggestion in private, according to police sources. In close proximity to the locations of the Bates and Stine killings, Marshall lived in Riverside in 1966 and San Francisco in 1969. He was a projectionist and fan of silent movies, showing Segundo de Chomn’s The Red Phantom (1907), whose name was reportedly referenced in a 1974 Zodiac letter. Marshall “makes good reading, but in my opinion is not a very good suspect,” according to detective Ken Narlow.
- It was revealed in February 2014 that Louis Joseph Myers told a friend he was the Zodiac Killer in 2001 after realizing he had liver cirrhosis and was approaching death.
- Upon his passing, he asked that Randy Kenney call the police. Myers passed away in 2002, but Kenney is said to have had trouble convincing the police to help and take the allegations seriously. There are multiple possible links between Myers and the Zodiac case; Myers supposedly worked in the same restaurant as victim Darlene Ferrin and went to the same high schools as victims David Farraday and Betty Lou Jensen. Myers was stationed overseas with the military between the years 19711973, a time during which no Zodiac letters were received. According to Kenney, Myers admitted that he targeted couples because he had experienced a difficult split with a partner. Despite their skepticism, the case’s officers think the story is plausible enough to look into if Kenney can provide solid proof.
- Formerly unknown identity thief Robert Ivan Nichols, also known as Joseph Newton Chandler III, committed suicide in Eastlake, Ohio, in July 2002. Investigators learned that he had stolen the identity of an eight-year-old kid who had died in a vehicle accident in Texas in 1945 after they were unable to find his family after his death. Nichols’ efforts to conceal his identity raised suspicions that he was a dangerous fugitive. At a press conference in Cleveland on June 21, 2018, the U.S. Marshals Service revealed his identification. He matched police sketches of the Zodiac, lived in California, where the Zodiac operated, and some Internet sleuths speculated that he might be the Zodiac Killer.
- Ross Because of the potential connection between the Riverside murder of Cheri Jo Bates and the Zodiac Killer, Sullivan is now a subject of interest. Coworkers at Riverside City College, where Sullivan worked as a library assistant, suspected him of the murder because they claimed he disappeared for a number of days. Sullivan looked like a Zodiac sketch and was wearing military-style boots with patterns similar to those at the Lake Berryessa crime scene. For his schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, Sullivan was admitted to the hospital numerous times.
- Dennis Kaufman asserted that Jack Tarrance, his stepfather, was the Zodiac in 2007. The FBI received many things from Kaufman, including a hood resembling the Zodiac’s. News reports state that the FBI’s DNA testing on the objects was found inconclusive in 2010.
- Lyndon Lafferty, a former member of the California Highway Patrol, said that the Zodiac Killer was a 91-year-old resident of Solano County, California, who went by the alias George Russell Tucker. Lafferty found Tucker and laid out an alleged cover-up for why he wasn’t pursued using a group of retired law enforcement personnel known as the Mandamus Seven. Because the authorities did not view Tucker as a suspect, his death in February 2012 went unreported.
- Gary Stewart said in a book he wrote in 2014 titled The Most Dangerous Animal of All that he had come to the conclusion that Earl Van Best, Jr., was the Zodiac Killer as a result of looking for his biological father. The book was turned into a documentary series for the FX Network in 2020.
Who was the spooky character in Zodiac?
Robert Graysmith couldn’t help but be curious one soggy September night in 1978.
The identify of the legendary Bay Area serial killer known as the Zodiac was revealed to the San Francisco Chronicle cartoonist a month earlier via an anonymous phone call. The unknown speaker introduced himself and began an hour-long talk by saying, “He’s a person named Rick Marshall. Graysmith unexpectedly received a new lead after the killer’s series of murders in 1969 went unsolved. The informant said that Marshall, a former projectionist at The Avenue Theater, had rigged movie canisters to explode and concealed evidence from his five victims inside of them. The unidentified caller instructed Graysmith to speak with Marshall’s silent film organist Bob Vaughn before hanging up. Graysmith discovered that the bomb-packed canisters had just been delivered to Vaughn’s house. The voice commanded, “Get to Vaughn. ” Check to see if he warns you not to watch certain movies from his library.
Graysmith went into Marshall’s past and discovered some coincidences after years of working independently on the unsolved case. His new suspect had used a teletype machine like the killer and was a fan of the early-twentieth-century film The Red Spectre, which was mentioned in a 1974 Zodiac letter. Marshall’s felt-pen posters outside The Avenue Theater even contained writing that resembled the Zodiac’s cryptic, cursive style. When Graysmith occasionally went to the posh movie theater, he saw Vaughn playing the Wurlitzer and the Zodiac’s crosshair symbol was painted on the ceiling. Too many overlapping hints were present. He needed to go to Vaughn’s residence. Graysmith tells me that we were aware of a connection. I was utterly terrified.
Graysmith’s nightmare visit was transformed into one of the scariest movie moments ever by filmmaker David Fincher almost three decades later. It happens toward the end of Zodiac, as Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) drives Vaughn (Charles Fleischer) home in his noticeable, bright-orange Volkswagen Rabbit through the rain. Once inside, the atmosphere rapidly turns ominous. Vaughn takes a terrified Graysmith down to his dimly lit basement after revealing that he, not Marshall, is the author of the movie poster’s handwriting. The floorboards above Graysmith squeak, suggesting another’s presence, while the organist combs through his nitrate film records. Graysmith rushes upstairs to the locked front door and rattles the doorknob after Vaughn informs his visitor that he lives alone. Vaughn then slowly takes out his key and opens the door from behind. Graysmith dashes out into the rain, appearing to have just escaped the Zodiac’s grasp.
The encounter in the third act is ultimately a red herring. Vaughn was never seen as a trustworthy suspect. However, those five minutes of tense tension transform a procedural into actual horror in a film full of routine police work and dead ends. The scene represents the pinnacle of Graysmith’s neurotic preoccupation with discovering who the Zodiac is, a glimpse into the potentially lethal lengths and depths he’ll go to crack the case, and a momentary rejection of the otherwise objective perspective of the film. According to James Vanderbilt, the screenwriter of Zodiac, “It’s actually very distinct from the rest of the movie. It sort of gives you the shock that the majority of the movie is trying so hard not to.
The basement sequence is, to put it simply, a classic Fincher adrenaline rush scene supported by years of meticulous study, attention to detail, and last-minute studio forethought. Graysmith still gets chills thinking about the movie even though it came out 13 years ago.
Zodiac stopped, but why?
Serial killers may cease their crimes if something in their lives changes, according to the FBI’s National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime. Zodiac may have chosen a safer course because he was so close to being captured the night of Stine’s death. Another hypothesis is that the fear he instilled in the populace replaced actual murder. Additionally, aging itself may temper predatory tendencies.
The murderer may have overcome dissociative identity disorder, also known as multiple personality disorder, according to a psychology professor who wrote a book about Zodiac. His drive to kill vanished as he recovered. It’s also possible that Zodiac ceased killing people because to an event outside of his control, like being institutionalized, being imprisoned, or even passing away.
Is the Zodiac Killer still at large?
In Northern California between 1968 and 1969, the enigmatic Zodiac Killer is thought to have fatally stabbed or shot at least five victims. He was known to write sarcastic letters and cryptograms that frequently referenced the police and the media and contained astrological symbols. Never has The Zodiac Killer been apprehended.