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Zodiac (2007)
In director David Fincher's lengthy yet taut crime-drama
thriller (with a script by James Vanderbilt), his sixth feature film
- it was a follow-up to some of his previous films, including the serial
killer thriller Se7en (1995), Fight Club (1999) and Panic
Room (2002). Fincher's very authentic, labyrinthine,
complicated film, spanning 22 years from 1969 until 1991, was mostly
a police procedural with fascinating characters - similar to the method
taken in Alan J. Pakula's All the President's Men (1976) and
Oliver Stone's JFK (1991).
There have been numerous true-life (and dramatic) exposes
about serial killers, including (to name only a few) Dirty
Harry (1971) (inspired by the Zodiac case), Spike Lee's Summer
of Sam (1999), Monster (2003) and The Hillside Strangler
(2004). Fincher's Zodiac was the only one notably backed
by a major studio.
The actual Zodiac killer was involved in the shootings
or stabbings of at least (probably more) seven individuals in four
different attacks in the late 1960s, in the vicinity of San Francisco
in Northern California. In three cases, the attacks were on couples,
and in some cases there were survivors. The Zodiac became infamous
for sending cryptograms and threatening letters to newspapers, notably
the San Francisco Chronicle. He also took credit for other crimes
(that he may or may not have committed), including the Cheri Jo Bates
murder in Riverside in 1966 and the highway abduction of Kathleen Johns in 1970.
The film meticulously followed the case (and Robert
Graysmith's dogged and obsessive investigation also), in terms of
sets, shooting locales, and costuming. Forensics experts and private
investigators were hired to research the facts and study handwriting
samples. There were references to the killer's interest in treating
victims as prey, due to his mention of the short story The Most Dangerous Game,
also a 1932 film.
The Zodiac's warnings first
came in a letter to the newspaper ("This is the Zodiac speaking"),
along with an encrypted note demanding that his missives be published
or else he'd threaten with a larger killing spree - later, he said
he would shoot out the tires of a school bus and then "pick
off the kiddies as they come bouncing out."
Although the random acts of violent manslaughter were
often portrayed off-screen, there were a few scenes of the Zodiac's
killings told with graphic detail, with the pained reactions of his
victims (and the subsequent detailed discussion of their deaths by
authorities). These were among the five killings the police felt sure
that the Zodiac committed.
- the opening blood-chilling
sequence depicted the first two murders on the fourth of July, 1969
in Vallejo, CA; Darlene Ferrin (Ciara Hughes) and Mike Mageau (Lee
Norris) were in their car in a quiet park parking lot late that night.
They were just "sitting, listening to music, talking". They noticed that they had been
followed by a dark car from Mr. Ed's, but then it abruptly left. Mike
asked Darlene: "Is that your husband?" - which she denied.
She tried to reassure an increasingly-nervous Mike: "It's nothing."
The Blood-Chilling Murder of Darlene and Mike In a Car
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- but then, the car returned, parked behind them, and a
mysterious hooded figure stepped out and shone a bright flashlight
in their faces. After Mike joked: "Man, you really creeped us
out," the killer raised his weapon (a 9 mm Luger) and began firing
- the couple's bodies were riddled with bullets. The deaths were extreme,
with spasms and spurting blood. Although the figure walked away, he
returned and unleashed more bullets into the limp bodies - but Mike
survived
- in another equally horrifying,
realistic sequence in broad daylight, another couple was picnicking
by Lake Berryessa in Napa - law student Bryan Hartnell (Patrick Scott
Lewis) and Cecelia Shepard (Pell James). A man dressed in black (with
a zodiac symbol on his chest) approached with a gun, and demanded: "I
want your money and your car keys." Bryan politely bargained with the man:
"We're not gonna do anything, okay? We're gonna
cooperate. Just tell me what you want us to do. You're welcome
to everything I have. If there's anything else I could do for
you? Maybe I could write you a check? Okay, I could give you
my phone number. You know, I might be able to help you even more
than you might think..."
- then, the intruder ordered Cecelia to tie up Bryan, with
rope that he provided. He came closer and threatened: "I killed
a guard escaping from prison in Montana...I'm not afraid to kill again."
He then tied Cecelia's hands behind her back, and told them: "I'm
taking your car and going to Mexico." A knife (at close-range) was
repeatedly plunged into Bryan's back, as his hog-tied girlfriend screamed
and watched in horror next to him. Then, she was also knifed and twitched
as she cried for help and died (reportedly, the "boy lived, the
girl didn't" - with eight stab wounds to the back).
- another murder was the shooting execution of cab driver
Paul Stine (Charles Schneider) on a Presidio Heights street corner,
after an aerial view of the taxi motoring through San Francisco at
night. At the corner of Washington and Cherry, the Zodiac passenger
committed the crime (one shot to the back of the head) while on a talk
radio program (on the soundtrack), voices discussed the Zodiac phenomenon.
- the main crime reporter for the Chronicle in the
case was neurotic, cocaine-using, hard-drinking, self-destructive,
chain-smoking Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.), both flamboyant and ineffectual,
and two dedicated SFPD lead homicide detectives:
- Dave Toschi (Mark Ruffalo), an attention-seeking,
hot-shot Inspector
- Bill Armstrong (Anthony Edwards), who ran into procedural
delays, bungling, and miscommunication which hampered efforts
- the Zodiac case ran into numerous bureaucratic snags
and was officially unsolved
- the SF Chronicle's editorial
cartoonist, Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal in the film), was also
an author about true crimes (including two best-selling books about
the Zodiac killer). After the official police case grew cold, the unassuming,
Boy-Scout like, naive Graysmith began to obsessively conduct his own
investigation. Although he found circumstantial evidence that couldn't
be substantiated, he named Arthur Leigh Allen (John Carroll Lynch
in the film) as the chief suspect
[Note: Allen was reluctantly cleared in 1971 by the
police's own handwriting expert (Philip Baker Hall).]
- in the film's most tension-filled scene that ended
up in the basement of an old house, during the course of his investigation,
Graysmith was speaking with Bob Vaughn (Charles Fleischer), and voiced
his belief that the Zodiac may have been Rick Marshall, a silent-film
projectionist. Vaughn was Rick's co-worker who played the organ at
the same silent movie theatre. Graysmith hypothesized that Marshall
had drawn some film poster advertisements that matched the Zodiac's
handwriting.
- Graysmith panicked when Vaughn corrected
him - Vaughn had drawn the ads ("Rick didn't draw any posters...Mr.
Graysmith, I do the posters myself. That's my handwriting.").
Creaking from upstairs floorboards caused Graysmith to fear death: "Are
you sure there's nobody else in the house?" He backed up and fled
upstairs to the kitchen door, that he found locked - causing more suspense
in the sequence when he turned to find Vaughn behind him. The door
was unlocked, and Graysmith fled into the rainy night
- at the end of the film in a chilling scene, set in 1983, Graysmith stood
face-to-face with the suspected killer, Arthur Leigh Allen, in a Vallejo
Ace Hardware store, where he was employed as a sales clerk
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The Sequence of the Attack on the Couple at Lake Berryessa
in Napa
One Suspect: Bob Vaughn (Charles Fleischer)
Chronicle's Cartoonist and Crime Author Robert Graysmith (Jake
Gyllenhaal) Questioning Vaughn
Graysmith with Vaughn:
A Tense Basement Sequence with Tremendous Suspense
Graysmith Cornered in House by a Locked Door!
Robert Graysmith Standing Face to Face with Suspected
Zodiac Killer Arthur Leigh Allen (John Carroll Lynch)
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