First Look ’25: Zodiac Killer Project

The Zodiac Killer remains America’s deadliest uncaught serial killer, so any half-baked theory about his identity deserves a Netflix documentary. At least that is what documentary filmmaker Charlie Shackleton (probably rightly) figured. Deciding to essentially “sell out” and go true crime, Shackleton tried to buy the rights to a former California highway patrolman’s expose/memoir of his off-the-books Zodiac investigation. The negotiation went smoothly until the rights-holders suddenly backed out. Undeterred, Shackleton explains the film he would have made, using material already in the public domain in Zodiac Killer Project, a sort of docu-curio that screens during this year’s First Look.

By the time the deal unexpectedly fell through Shackleton had already done a lot of prep work, including scouting locations and pre-interviewing potential on-camera subjects. The focus of his film would have been the late Lyndon Lafferty, who had a fateful encounter at a rest stop with the man who would become his prime suspect for the Zodiac murders.

Ordinarily, Highway Patrol is not in charge of serial killer investigations, but the police took his information and started sniffing around his suspect, until higher-ups declared him off limits. Considering this a cover-up, Lafferty assembled his own team, largely consisting of retired law enforcement friends, who worked the case without official sanction.

In fact, that sounds like a very commercial premise, so it is easy to understand why Shackleton thought his unmade Zodiac Killer Project could have been a nice payday. Basically, he explains shot-by-shot, what might have been. The visuals are mostly static shots of prospective locations, like the library that would have served as the police station.

Frankly, the real revelation in Zodiac Killer Project are the ways Shackleton quite offhandedly admits he would have deceived viewers and distorted the truth, for dramatic effect. For instance, he causally admits he would have implied Lafferty had been present for his suspect’s first police interview, even though he seriously doubts that was true. It just would have made better TV.

Shackleton also skewers the very genre he hoped to join, illustrating each of his hypothetical scenes with half of dozen split screens from previous true crime productions that show nearly identical imagery. It starts with the grainy, dreamlike opening credits and precedes to the description of the suspect’s hometown as “a nice play to raise a family,” but it always “had a dark side.” Plus, every other cop is nicknamed “the Bulldog.”

The Zodiac Killer: The Film that Tried to Catch a Killer

It was sort of like the play within Hamlet devised to make the king betray himself. In 1971, the Bay Area was like Whitechapel circa 1888. Fear of a serial killer stalking the streets had good people hiding in their homes. Restauranteur Tom Hanson had the novel idea of using a quickie exploitation film to trick the Zodiac into revealing himself. It sounds crazy, because it was, but the killer’s preoccupation with his media coverage was well-established by that point. Hanson is certain he met the Zodiac face-to-face during the film’s initial one-week run in San Francisco, but he could never prove it (at least not yet). The behind-the-scenes story is truly stranger than fiction, but the film itself is mostly a weird artifact of exploitation cinema. Freshly restored by the American Genre Film Archive (AGFA), Hanson’s The Zodiac Killer (trailer here) releases today on BluRay.

Perversely, the first half-hour of Zodiac 1971 seems intentionally designed to foster sympathy for the Zodiac, by making the residents of San Francisco appear so repugnant, we wouldn’t mind watching them get bumped off. However, around about the second act, we learn Jerry, the vegetarian, rabbit-keeping postal carrier is in fact the Zodiac, who kills for both satanic and Freudian reasons. He is a little upset when Grover, the misogynistic, dope-addicted deadbeat dad with an appallingly bad toupee takes credit for the Zodiac murders. This rather pushes him even further off the edge.

By any rational aesthetic standard, Hanson’s Zodiac is a rough go. It is sort of like watching America’s Most Wanted re-enactments directed by Harold P. Warren, of Manos: The Hands of Fate fame. Yet, it terms of historical significance, it deserves to be preserved on the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry. Frankly, it is hard to separate the film from its origins and context. Indeed, it is impossible to watch each head-shakingly awkward scene and not wonder what the Zodiac thought of it.

Considering the severity of Hanson’s budget constraints and the on-the-fly nature of the production, Hal Reed (probably best known for The Doberman Gang) and Bob Jones are better than you might expect, as Jerry the Zodiac and Grover the creep, respectively. This is definitely on the low end of the exploitation scale, yet it has a sinister energy you can’t quantify, but viewers will immediately pick up on. In terms of tone, it is sort of like three-parts Herschell Gordon Lewis’s Blood Feast (mostly sans the gore) and one-part Charles Pierce’s original The Town that Dreaded Sundown.

Ray Cantrell & Manny Cardoza’s screenplay is often fanciful, but the most terrifying thing about the film is how much was true, particularly the fact the Zodiac remains at large. This might be the rare film that would be better as the subject of someone else’s film rather than as a viewing experience to savor and repeat. Still, you have to give Hanson credit. He hatched an utterly insane scheme that maybe came mind-blowingly close to succeeding. Perhaps he should take the film on tour. The San Francisco police never closed the case and the FBI is still taking regular tips. Regardless, Hanson’s The Zodiac Killer is a unique piece of cultural history, so it is nice to have it preserved and available on BluRay, from AGFA and Something Weird.

Awakening the Zodiac: He’s Back

The Zodiac Killer arguably inspired two of the nastiest copycats ever. At least the New York and Kobe, Japan Zodiacs were eventually caught and unmasked. To this today, the identity of San Francisco’s original Zodiac Killer remains a mystery. Some assume (or hope) he has long since died, but the notorious serial killer is about to come out of retirement in Jonathan Wright’s Awakening the Zodiac (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Mick Branson compulsively bids on unclaimed storage lockers, because it is the irresponsible, reality-TV kind of thing to do. He thinks he and his pawn-shop owning crony Harvey Something are onto a sure thing, but this locker turns out to be complicated. There were not a lot of good re-sale items, but they did find home movies of the Zodiac Killer stalking his prey. Harvey proposes using the locker’s paper trail to track down the murderer and collect the $100,000 reward. Zoe Branson recognizes a bad idea when she hears one, but she reluctantly agrees, because they need the money.

Unbeknownst to the Bransons, the Zodiac Killer is still quite spry and rather put out that the storage company sold his unit out from under him after only three weeks (actually, our three amateur sleuths totally agree with him on that one). While the Bransons noisily chase down leads and Harvey Who sets his mind on cracking the cryptic coded messages the killer left behind to taunt the police, the genuine Zodiac gets back into the killing habit.

Straddling horror and mystery, Awakening is a nifty character-driven genre film that smartly incorporates the known facts and established urban legends surrounding the Zodiac case. The Bibbs are also a dim-witted but brightly appealing couple, who are easy to root for. It is sort of like watching Jeff Bridges and Kim Bassinger in Robert Benton’s Nadine get caught up in an exponentially more sinister caper.

Matt Craven supplies the perfect counter-point as the colorfully anti-social Harvey X. Kenneth Welsh from Twin Peaks and Nicholas Campbell and Stephen McHattie, both from Canada, also add plenty of creepiness in their suspicious supporting roles. Indeed, the entire cast clearly enjoys the crisp, sardonic dialogue written by Wright, Jennifer Archer, and Mike Horrigan.

This is the sort of under-heralded genre film that over-delivers and far exceeds expectations. The ending is a bit of the usual let-down, but the set-up of the first two and a half acts is tense but fun. Highly recommended for fans of serial killer thrillers, Awakening the Zodiac opens this Friday (6/6) in New York, at the Cinema Village.