Ten years ago, I read Robert Graysmith's Zodiac. The book was scarier than any horror movie. After putting it down, I checked the lock on my door. I made sure no intruders were lurking in my apartment. I'm not joking. It's that spooky.
The reason, I suspect, the Zodiac killer is the scariest of all serial killers is that he never got caught. While Charles Manson rots in jail, and Ted Bundy feeds worms, the Zodiac killer could still be on the loose. We don't know who he is. We don't know where he is. He could be behind you right now. Another reason the California-based serial killer frightens is that since he outwitted hordes of police, he could certainly outwit you.
Zodiac sent encoded messages to the police which neither they nor Naval intelligence could crack. A married couple, two teachers who dabbled in cryptology, decoded some of them. A few remain uncracked. In the late 1960s to the early 1970s, the Zodiac killed anywhere from five to thirty-seven people. Just as he remains a mystery, the scope of his killings do too. Zodiac had a flair for the theatric. In addition to giving himself the name "Zodiac," the killer occasionally dressed the part. He donned a black, squarish executioner's mask upon hunting humans. He had a fetish for striking near water, or in places with aquatic names, e.g. Riverside, Lake Herman Road. He also killed in geographic patterns. He told police that if police placed a radian angle upon Mt. Diablo on the map, they could discover a pattern for his attacks. Just glancing at this note frightens me.
Zodiac taunted the police. For years, beginning in the late '60s, he mailed letters to the police and media, which usually began "This is the Zodiac speaking," ridiculing his "blue meanie" opponents. Killing was a game to him. The original Dirty Harry movie was based in part on the case. The Zodiac threatened to kill a bus full of school children. He never attempted to make good on the threat as Dirty Harry's nemesis did. On the other hand, the Zodiac never needed to ask himself if he "felt lucky." The police never caught up to him as Clint Eastwood caught up to the demented killer in Dirty Harry. The Zodiac escaped the police's dragnet, and, like Jack the Ripper, will likely escape history's efforts to track him down. On the big screen, the good guy won. But in real life, the villian did.
Four decades after he started killing, the Zodiac stars in a movie in which the villian wins. David Fincher, the excellent director of Fight Club, has made Zodiac, a film based on the chilling Graysmith book. I am frightened, but I will see it tonight--not knowing if the real Zodiac is sitting behind me or not.
That movie looked amazing when I had no idea that it came from the director of Fight Club, one of my all time favorite movies. Now that I know that it was, I can hardly keep myself from running out to my house to head to the nearest cinema.
I suspect the reason the killings stopped is the killer either died or was locked up for some other offense. A serial killer being able to start killing and then stop is the rare exception.
If not, old age will take care of the problem anyway.
Yea, I agree. I saw the movie, and thought it was quite good. Maybe a half an hour longer than it should have been, however.
The man who the movie suggests was the killer is dead. I won't tell you who that is, since there are multiple suspects in the film.
I got the same impression on the film's length.
Dan,
Scale of 1 to 10? Faithful to the book? Recommend to the readers of FlynnFiles?
