The 2007 film Zodiac is based on the mysterious California criminal in the 60s and 70s, but
interestingly leaves certain crime scenes out of the movie, like the first incident,
which took place in December of 1968 on Lake Herman Road in Benicia.
The movie simply opens with the second confirmed case, the July 4th 1969 ordeal in Blue Rock
Springs, but in each crime scene that follows, we only see certain details about the Zodiac.
This isn't just done to build suspense and make the movie scary; there is a specific
reason that director David Fincher held back information the way he did.
This was the director's first foray into non-fiction, and given the ongoing nature of the case,
he wanted to make the movie as accurate possible.
So the motivation for every Zodiac appearance was to base it off of the testimony of surviving
witnesses.
The Lake Herman Road shooting had no survivors, and so, was mentioned, but never shown in
the movie.
The Blue Rock Springs affair had one survivor, and the Zodiac is shown covered in shadow
with a light shining in our faces to fit the circumstances of that July 4th night.
The Lake Berryessa stabbing in September of that year also had a survivor, and we see
the Zodiac dressed up to hide his identity, as described by the living victim.
And the Presidio Heights occurrence doesn't give the viewer any information that the kids
who called in the felony wouldn't have been able to see for themselves.
This was done to ensure that the filmmakers were sticking to the truth.
The first confirmed victims were a couple who both died in 1968, so the filmmakers don't
really have an account of the events, so in order to create the scene on film, they would
have to make stuff up.
To see other examples of the painstaking dedication to accuracy, and the meaning behind some of
the many posters that appear, stick around to the end of this video.
Welcome to Things You Missed.
I believe this is the first non-fiction episode of Things You Missed.
The only partial exception would be The Conjuring franchise movies, which are still fictional
stories, but they are based on real life characters.
So far Zodiac is the only movie I've covered that adapts only real life events.
The obvious reason, is that this is a horror channel, and it's often considered rude to
turn someone's real life horrors into popcorn cinema, but Zodiac does an excellent job of
being accurate, respectful, and still having kills that very suspenseful and scary.
"Not many people have basements in California..."
"I do."
In fact it does much better than many fictional horror movies.
I'm not gonna name any names.
Not gonna name The Turning.
Not gonna name Black Christmas 2019.
Not gonna name Countdown.
Definitely not gonna name Brightburn...
The depictions of the Zodiac weren't the only aspects where extreme attention to accuracy
was paid.
The opening logos of the film are reminiscent of the logos used by those studios during the
60s, complete with dust and scratches on the film to make it feel as if we're watching
an old movie.
The wardrobe department used all available information to recreate what each victim was
wearing, and I quickly figured this out throughout the movie, all the newspapers seen on camera
are real prints from the Zodiac investigation.
"In the far corner, there's a stack of the day's newspapers for the San Francisco Chronicle,
and there is in the movie too.
You could walk onto the set, pick up the third newspaper from a stack of twenty at
the bottom, open up to page 37 and read the article that was in the Chronicle that day.”
The production had access to information that the general public did not, so it's not always
obvious how much care was taken to get these things right, but one scene where it was obvious
was the infamous Melvin Belli broadcast, where the Zodiac demanded that the prominent attorney
appear on the talk show A.M.
San Francisco.
Fincher's approach was not just to make an entertaining movie, but also to create a competent
piece of journalism.
After reading the script, which is based on the main character Robert Graysmith’s book,
which we actually see on shelves in the latter half of the movie, Fincher wanted to go even
deeper and meet the surviving figures in the investigation for the purposes of maintaining
authenticity and journalistic integrity.
In a way, the movie, in its pursuit of getting all the little details right, became the ultimate
knowledge database for details about the case.
As we see in the film, part of the obstacle that prevented the case from being solved
was that you had several different police departments with jurisdiction over certain
areas, who didn't always communicate and share the info with each other as well as they could
have.
This next one isn't necessarily a Thing You Missed in the movie, but it's definitely something
that you wouldn't know if you had just watched the movie.
We see at the end, the aftermath.
"In 2004, the San Francisco Police Department deactivated their Zodiac investigation."
The movie Zodiac was released on March 2nd , 2007 and that same month, the case was reopened in San Francisco, where it
remains open today.
If you’re curious, the biggest update came in 2018, where some of the letters sent in
to the newspapers were sent to a lab, where it was thought that some new forensic testing
could maybe match DNA from the back of the stamps, however, as of 2020, still no results have
been reported.
I do find it somewhat ironic that a movie would be what theoretically reopened the case
in San Francisco, because one of the theories about the Zodiac was that he was a big fan
of movies and pop culture, leading the detectives at one point to go after a suspect named Rick
Marshall, who worked at movie theaters on two separate occasions.
“The Zodiac Killer is obsessed with movies.
He recorded his murders on film.
I tried to tell the police but they wouldn’t follow through on it.”
What?
What, no, no I wasn’t alive in the 60s.
I SWEAR.
It is at one point suggested that the Zodiac symbol could be related to the crosshair imagery
seen in a film leader, and Graysmith makes a connection in which one of Zodiac’s cyphers
appears to reference a film called The Most Dangerous Game in which a hunter goes after
humans for sport.
Zodiac is also rich with cinema references, most notably to one 1971 action flick called
Dirty Harry.
“This is about a movie about a couple of killers.
Harry Callahan.
And a homicidal maniac.
The one with the badge is Harry.”
It’s loosely based of the Zodiac murders, with an antagonist named Scorpio, which is
one of the twelve Zodiac signs, who sends threats to the San Francisco Chronicle.
There are so many connections here.
I hope the use of a crosshair symbol was not lost on you.
Dirty Harry also takes place in San Francisco and in a Zodiac featurette, the screenwriter,
James Vanderbilt, suggests that Dirty Harry was actually based on Detective Dave Toschi,
the real life version of the Mark Ruffalo character.
“Mark was able to bring that wonderful humanity that you don’t expect to find in the guy
who Bullitt was based on, and Dirty Harry was based on...”
And the diner where Toschi likes to eat in Zodiac is called Callahan’s diner.
“Harry Callahan.”
The movie that Toschi goes to see, where he first meets Robert Graysmith?
Dirty Harry.
A poster can be seen as he exits the cinema.
Then, at the last scene that Graysmith and Toschi share together in Callahan’s diner,
there’s this line.
“Just cause you can’t prove it doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
“Easy Dirty Harry.”
There would be even more significant movie references in Zodiac, that the Zodiac himself
would probably be proud of, but those wouldn’t be the only connections and Things You Missed
yet to come.
In Robert Graysmith’s book, he describes the crimes in great detail, but doesn’t
really talk about his personal life or the reason he becomes so obsessed with the case.
In the movie, we see the sad evolution of his personal life, and if you’re paying
close attention, there is a suggestion about why he becomes so fascinated with Zodiac.
It seems that Graysmith, or at least the movie version of Graysmith, may have been a crime
movie buff.
Here we see a poster in his living room for Alfred Hitchcock’s The Wrong Man.
Nearby is a poster of John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle.
Behind the couch is a poster for the 1955 crime flick, I Died A Thousand Times.
By the door, he’s got a poster for the 1955 movie, Illegal.
As we know, one of Graysmith’s strongest assets isn’t his movie knowledge, but his
knowledge of books.
By the phone is a series of book covers, for the original James Bond stories by Ian Fleming,
which I realize may fall more under action, but they definitely still have aspects of the crime
genre.
At one point, Robert suggests the idea of tracking books that Zodiac may have used to
develop the code used in his cyphers.
“Now I started thinking that if you can track these books, then maybe you can track
the man.”
We’ve seen this tactic used once before in a crime movie directed by David Fincher,
and the crime I’m referring to is not stealing the idea for an $800B website.
I’m talking about Se7en, where we see Detective Somerset who similarly tries to solve a themed
serial killer case by using library records.
“Ask yourself.
What would he study to do the things he’s done?
What was that just now?
Jack the Ripper, for instance.”
“Where are we going?”
“Library.”
Obviously, that came out before Zodiac, but Zodiac is based on events that happened before
Se7en.
So I wonder if Fincher was already an enthusiast of the Zodiac case before he made Se7en, than
that’s what inspired him to put in that plot point.
Supposedly, Fincher was the first name they went to about directing Zodiac, because he
had already made the definitive serial killer film.
There’s also a possible reference to another Fincher film.
A much sillier one.
Let’s roll the clip.
“Now a question of etiquette.
As I pass, do I give you the ass or the crotch?”
This can’t be a coincidence right?
“Excuse me.”
“Dave.”
It CAN’T.
BE.
A coincidence…
Well, there's one thing that’s definitely not a coincidence in this.
In the background of this scene at the police station, there’s a cameo appearance from
Bryan C Hartnell, the real life survivor of the Lake Berryessa attack, who can be seen
as an adult in the documentary, This Is The Zodiac Speaking.
Another possible pattern in the Zodiac case that gets brought up in the film and the book
is that each of the attacks that Zodiac has proven his involvement in have some kind of
connection to a body of water.
LAKE Herman Road, Blue Rock SPRINGS, LAKE Berryessa, which was actually a reservoir,
but still water, and then WASHington and Cherry, the weakest example of the bunch.
So there are also aquatic references in the movie, like Graysmith’s favorite adult beverage
being something called an Aqua Velva, the first shot of the film looking out over the
water and a poster in the movie theater organist’s house for Key Largo, a crime / noir movie
set next to the ocean in Key Largo, Florida.
As I mentioned before, one of the frustrating parts of this case was that years and years
would go by where nothing new would happen, and I think this stagnation is symbolized
perfectly when Graysmith eventually goes to visit his old pal, Paul Avery and finds him
in the middle of a game of Pong.
Instead of pausing it, the game continues to run, with neither side making a move the
entire time.
The film’s ending, like the real case, doesn’t offer closure to the plot, but I find the
film does give closure for a couple of the characters.
Graysmith at one point tells his wife that it’ll be over when he’s able to look Zodiac
in the eye and know that it’s him.
In the book, the hardware store scene is a mission to try to gather more information
about Arthur Leigh Allen, primarily to get a real handwriting sample when he
doesn’t suspect it, but in the movie all we see is the eye contact between Graysmith
and Allen; the smile slowly disappearing from his face as he realizes who this visitor is.
The very last scene provides closure for another character, and it brings the entire movie
full circle.
The first character to appear on screen was Mike Mageau, and 22 years later after pointing
out the man that forever changed his life, he would be the last character to appear,
before a cut to black.
The end credits music is the same music that they listened to on the radio that night.
While we may never know for sure who the Zodiac killer was, this scene tells us that for the
oldest confirmed survivor, the case was closed.
But as one case closes, another one opens here on Things You Missed because in the next
episode I’ll be wrapping up my series of David Fincher analysis’ with my personal
favorite, sorry Zuck, it’s Gone Girl.
Remember to subscribe to CZsWorld for new horrors every week, ring the deathbell for
notifications and I’ll see you in the next one.
Assuming we stay inside.