+1/2
Essentially a dramatic PSA, the "goal" of which, if you believe the opening title card, "is not to win commercial awards but to create an 'awareness of a present danger.'" That danger, of course, is the Zodiac killer (and, vaguely, others like him), who killed five people and wounded two others in late-sixties California. The killer himself, who taunted police with letters and cryptograms, claimed many times more victims, but without proof or official consensus. To this day, he has not been caught or conclusively identified. Bargain-basement effort (it's just as well that the filmmakers had no commercial aspirations) that casts the Zodiac (Hal Reed) as a bunny-loving mailman with afterlife issues and an institutionalized dad who wants nothing to do with him. The movie shows us his officially recognized crimes, then tacks on a few more, ostensibly to frighten the audience by suggestion -- since scaring them the old-fashioned way, with technical skill and a talent for cinema, was impossible. Of curiosity value only, and only to those interested in the Zodiac murders.
Essentially a dramatic PSA, the "goal" of which, if you believe the opening title card, "is not to win commercial awards but to create an 'awareness of a present danger.'" That danger, of course, is the Zodiac killer (and, vaguely, others like him), who killed five people and wounded two others in late-sixties California. The killer himself, who taunted police with letters and cryptograms, claimed many times more victims, but without proof or official consensus. To this day, he has not been caught or conclusively identified. Bargain-basement effort (it's just as well that the filmmakers had no commercial aspirations) that casts the Zodiac (Hal Reed) as a bunny-loving mailman with afterlife issues and an institutionalized dad who wants nothing to do with him. The movie shows us his officially recognized crimes, then tacks on a few more, ostensibly to frighten the audience by suggestion -- since scaring them the old-fashioned way, with technical skill and a talent for cinema, was impossible. Of curiosity value only, and only to those interested in the Zodiac murders.
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