The Zodiac Killer
The Zodiac Killer
R | 07 April 1971 (USA)
The Zodiac Killer Trailers

The San Francisco area is beset by a series of seemingly random murders without motive or pattern. The police are taunted by phone calls and letters. Could the maniac be the violent truck driver, or the seemingly mild-mannered mailman, or even a cop?

Reviews
Interesteg What makes it different from others?
Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.
Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.
Griff Lees Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.
RanchoTuVu A cheapo expose on the Zodiac murders that occurred in the San Francisco Bay area in 1968 and 1969 that benefits from its year of release in 1971, not too far removed, the stringent budget which lends the project a degree of authenticity, as well as the focus on who the film portrays as the killer, a postal clerk who loves rabbits, and buries one that died near a cross, in a strikingly bizarre scene. Compared with the film that came out in 2007, this one stands up pretty well, especially for connoisseurs of films like this, no-budget but an eye for creativity. It made it on to the TCM Underground films, a wise decision by the program director.
sol1218 (Minor Spoilers) Very likely the very first of a series of Zodiac movies that stated when the real life Zodiac Killer hit the headlines back in the winter of 1968. This endless string of Zodiac killings has captivated the imagination of both the public as well as the law enforcement agencies all over the country for almost 40 years with the killer, if he's alive, still at large.Were given two, not one, possible Zodiac Killers at the start of the film "The Zodiac Killer" with frustrated truck driver Grover and introverted post office mail carries Terry. Both persons have very serious personal problems in dealing with people. Grover is sensitive about his job as a truck driver as well as him being bald and wearing a very obvious wig when he goes to bars to pick up women which, in his mind, is the reason he has trouble making it with them. Grover doesn't seem to realize that it's really his attitude towards women looking at them as pieces of meat which is the reason that he turns them off on him.Grover is also very resentfully at his ex-wife Helen for keeping him from seeing his daughter because of his unfitness of being a father; besides everything else he's also a drug and alcohol abuser. That eventually leads Grover to break into his ex-wife's home and after holding off the police, holding his daughter as a hostage, is gunned down and killed off in the movie.It's then when were introduced to the real, in the movie that is, Zodiac Killer Terry the Mailman who's a strict vegetarian and loves animals having about a dozen pet rabbits that he keeps in cages in his apartment. It's only too bad that Terry doesn't have the same humanitarian feelings for his fellow man and woman as well.Terry is a strange sort of nut in that almost all of the murders that he commits in the movie are totally unrelated to each other and for the most part are that of persons who have nothing but affection towards him. Besides murdering a number of couples making out in cars and in the woods Terry also murders two frail and elderly women, in the most shocking and bloodcurdling scenes in the movie, for no other reason then them having their cars break down! In those two murders Terry seems to get more turned on in murdering these two senior citizens then any of the young and pretty women that he murders in the movie!After murdering some dozen victims Terry just fades into the woodwork, like a termite, as he disappears into the mass of humanity of the city of San Francisco. Were given some insight to Terry's mindset at the very end of the movie but it's a little too late for his already long list of victims. Terry were given to believe has been suffering from extreme mental trauma because of his father being committed to a mental institution; does Terry feel that his fathers mental illness is hereditary? And is that the real reason for his unstable and murderous actions throughout the movie?Better then you would expect from a bargain basement triple movie DVD "The Zodiac Killer" doesn't drag at all keeping your attention despite a number of unconnected scenes involving Terry's fascination with this reincarnation and blood-cult, that he's the only member of, that also believes in the lost Continent of Atlantis.When the movie sticks to the Zodiac Killer angle it's doesn't let it' audience down. But when it strays into uncharted territory like the Atlanits murder cult and Terry's many super closeup, that take up the entire screen for long stretches at a time, it not only become boring but very annoying as well. The most interesting and shocking thing that the film "The Zodiac Killer" brings out is that a person like Terry, personable soft-spoken and dependable, can be someone that you've known all your life but in reality, with the secret and murderous double life that he leads, never really knew at all.
wilburscott Mean-spirited and brutal film is mainly a fictionalization of the events that happened when the Zodiac killer raised hell in California back in the late 60's-early 70's. Our chipper killer (who resembles a young Merle Haggard) goes around raising hell. When he's not braining women with car hoods or spare tires, he's knifing couples or worshiping his altar where he believes the spirits of all the people he killed will be his slaves in the afterlife! Wow, is this guy one nutty dude! Gotta love the Doodles Weaver cameo, too, and how he likes his women "plump and dumb". Everyone knows some filthy old man like that, don't they? Obviously made by people who were not too hip to film-making, the film is shoddy and poorly shot, but the sheer outrageousness of the situations is good for one look at least.
latherzap ...words said by the newspaper editor who receives the Zodiac's first letter, spoken in a bad-acting style appropriate for this movie. SPOILERS, I guess.Bad film loosely based on the true Zodiac killings. At first we get a red herring in the form of an overacting bald guy (he abruptly gets angry when the subject of his wife comes up, "She's no good! She's no good, I tell ya!"). But it turns out the neighborhood postman is Zodiac. Zode owns many rabbits, and when one of them dies he tearfully says "Why are evil people allowed to live, when innocent rabbits like Leo must die!". Later in the local diner somebody talks about eating rabbit stew, and a frustrated and sad Zodiac pipes up that "nobody should eat rabbits". The rabbit subplot comes across as rather comical.Anyway, the killing continues. There is a scene where Zodiac is sitting at a campfire with a woman he just met. She has a guitar, and Zodiac asks her to play a specific song. He cuts her off and says, no, he wants to hear the end of the song when some character dies. So she sings a brief and non-gruesome line like "I've been shot, and now must die"- and Zodiac smiles and starts laughing. It's supposed to be disturbing but is actually kinda funny. This guy is apparently so excited at the mere mention of death, it reminded me of how Beavis and Butt-Head would giggle and manage to find sexual innuendo in just about every word in the dictionary.Zodiac continues his dull rampage throughout the rest of the movie. At the end he is walking free in the city, as his sneering voice-over says something like "cops can't search me without a warrant, and if they don't read me my rights I get off free!". It's the kind of dialogue that's calculated to anger people who fall for politicians that talk about getting tough on crime, the sort of cliche thing a criminal would say in a Death Wish movie before Bronson blows him away.Not a hilarious film, but it does provide a few chuckles. Other things to watch for: 1. The lifeless acting of the teen couple in the VW bus near the beginning. 2. The little boy in the park who runs from Zodiac and obnoxiously grumbles "I don't like him". 3. Watch the end credits closely and you'll notice the producers give their thanks to the "San Francisco Cronical".