You know, it sure is creepy that madman isn't caught yet.
The Zodiac's killing spree was still very much in the news when The Zodiac Killer was filmed in the San Francisco area in 1970 and premiered there the following year. Directed by Tom Hanson from a screenplay by Ray Cantrell and Manny Cardoza, which sticks close to some of the details of the case while inventing a slew of ancillary acts of wanton violence for him to commit, the film starts out as a dual portrait of two potential Zodiacs. One is volatile truck driver Grover (Bob Jones), who's sick of the constant grief he gets from his ex-wife over the child support he's behind on, so he dons a wig and poses as a successful businessman while out prowling the bars for sexual conquests. The other is bitter mailman Jerry (Hal Reed), whose problems with women are even more deep-seated, to the point where his only meaningful relationships are with his rabbits. Steeped in misogyny and casual homophobia, the atmosphere in The Zodiac Killer is so toxic, it's a wonder it doesn't spawn a dozen psychopaths instead of just the one.
The first double murder -- of a clean-cut couple parked by a reservoir after attending a concert -- comes after Grover has been humiliated by a potential pick-up at a Christmas party and Jerry has shown just how uncomfortable he is around women. The main cops on the case, Sgt. Pittman and Officer Heller (Ray Lynch and Tom Pittman), enter the picture soon after, but just because they keep popping up doesn't mean they ever get any closer to catching their man. Their man, meanwhile, kills two more people seven months later and, hungry for publicity, mails letters to the newspapers, one of which is read over the phone to Sgt. Pittman by its disbelieving recipient. Shortly thereafter, Cantrell and Cardoza eliminate one of their suspects by having him essentially commit suicide by cop, with Hanson confirming the real killer's identity when he makes an angry phone call to the police to complain about someone else getting credit for his handiwork.
It's at this point that The Zodiac Killer shifts gears and tries to provide a fuller psychological profile of the fiend. A man of many facets, he's shown helping a small boy out of a tree one minute and donning a black hood to menace a couple sunning themselves the next (and by "menace," I mean holding them at gunpoint, tying them up, and stabbing them viciously and repeatedly). And he looks positively elated when he calls the police to brag about his latest crime, but that's where the film diverges from the historical record since many of the Zodiac's subsequent attacks -- braining a lady with a spare tire, cutting off the ear of an old man he corners in an elevator, stomping on the hood of a car after getting the owner to check the engine, sending an old man lounging outside his father's nursing home careening down a city street -- are a bit beyond the pale. And this is not to forget the Zodiac's black-magic rituals before his personal altar and repeated assertions that he's "gathering slaves" to serve him in the afterlife. (Naturally, the number he's shooting for is twelve.) Frankly, that's no less outlandish than the wildly inaccurate claims of the psychic Pittman and Heller consult in a last-ditch attempt to get a bead on the killer, who's given the floor in the film's final moments to taunt the viewer directly ("Well, now you know I exist. What are you going to do about it?") over footage of him helping an old lady across the street. How can say how many more old ladies this menace has helped cross streets in the 45 years since then?
