This Article Originally Ran On Blumhouse.com
Ten years ago this week, David Fincher’s masterpiece, ZODIAC, hit theaters and, like so many beautiful things, the world all but ignored it. Audiences didn’t show up and it won exactly one award; Best Director at the Dublin Film Critics' Circle Awards. In truth, while we all know the movie is perfect (don’t @ me), the snubbing is something we fans of horror are used to. Be it based on a true story or pure fiction, the scary movies rarely get credit, and slashers like ZODIAC get even less.
Yes, ZODIAC is a slasher movie. Not only that, it is the greatest slasher ever made. If you don’t believe me, stick around and let me convince you.
Based on the all too true story of the Zodiac murders, Fincher’s film, written by James Vanderbilt and based on the book of the same name by Robert Graysmith, ZODIAC is a movie with multiple themes, and all of them work. Obsession, destruction, loss, fear, time; each of these elements gets their due respect and then some. Adding to Fincher’s genius is a cast that any director would kill for including Jake Gyllenhaal as Graysmith, Mark Ruffalo as inspector David Toschi, and Robert Downey Jr. as Paul Avery, each of them at the top of their game giving performances that will stick with you for days after seeing the movie.
And, like I said, it is all for a slasher movie. ZODIAC hits almost every hallmark of a slasher film and it does it so carefully yet nonchalantly, it is easy to miss. Let’s first break down the pieces of a slasher and then we’ll take it bit by bit…
A Masked Killer who is always a step ahead
A holiday/date specific killing
An impressive kill count
An innocent Final Girl forever dirtied by the events
Incompetent Cops
Red Herrings
A strong mystery
The killer seemingly defeated but left with a chance to return
Clearly, the Zodiac is the masked killer always ahead of the authorities/the people looking to stop him. Now, we only see Zodiac’s mask once, but it sure as hell makes a statement. Zodiac is creepy in so many ways, from the phone call to the police, to the letters, to the masked costume, that his presence looms over every scene.
The movie opens on the Fourth of July, marking the slasher staple of a specific date or holiday being a part of the story. The Zodiac’s birthday, which is close to Christmas, also plays into the story; the killer needs to take a life on the day of his birth. Days and years are an important part of the movie in general. The story starts in 1969 and takes us through the 1970s, and Fincher uses the changes of the San Francisco skyline to help show how much can change in a decade while so many things stay the same, but more on that later.
Zodiac’s letters and calls are important parts of slasher movies too. From Billy in BLACK CHRISTMAS to Ghostface in SCREAM, the killer contacting his prey and those trying to catch them are as old as the slasher genre itself.
The kill count is where things get interesting. Zodiac for sure killed five people - David Arthur Faraday, Betty Lou Jensen, Darlene Elizabeth Ferrin, Cecelia Ann Shepard, and Paul Lee Stine - but he claimed to kill over thirty people. Even if we go with the confirmed five, Zodiac’s kills are in line with your usual slasher movie. Michael Myers has four kills in HALLOWEEN, for example.
Every slasher needs their innocent survivor, and Robert Graysmith hits all the marks here. Played by Gyllenhaal, Graysmith is wide-eyed and full of odd optimism. Fincher keeps reminding us of just how innocent Graysmith is. We are introduced to him rushing about with his son, letting us know that Graysmith is a family man, but maybe not great at being one. At the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, we quickly learn that Graysmith doesn’t smoke, drink or even curse. Later we’re told that he’s an Eagle Scout. He’s also very studious, listing reading as his hobby twice in a row and having he loves solving puzzles. Graysmith is like Batman if Batman was afraid of fighting.
Like every Final Girl (or in this case, Finale Guy), we see Graysmith’s innocence eroded as he is forced to sacrifice parts of his life to the killings. Graysmith’s obsession grows throughout the movie, and the more time he spends trying to solve the puzzle of the Zodiac, the more the world moves around him. He goes from being a single father of one kid to married with three kids, but he seems to have no real connection to his children. He uses them to help work on his obsession and loses them to it. The city he lives in moves on from the horrors of the Zodiac and grows, adding new buildings and changing from a hippie utopia to an expensive but progressive city on the bay. Other serial killers come and go - in the director’s cut, Fincher spends a quick moment centered on the capture of the Son of Sam - but still the Zodiac is out there, and Graysmith can’t continue his own life until he has the answer. In slasher movie terms, Graysmith goes from Final Guy to Ahab (the person hunting the killer - Dr. Sam Loomis being their patron saint), following the path of two other slasher icons, Laurie Strode and Nancy Thompson.
I hate to call David Toschi an incompetent cop; Harry Callahan and Frank Bullitt are based on the man. George Lucas named Toschi station after him. Still, the movie, and the man himself doesn’t hide the mistakes made by Toschi and the San Francisco police in the hunt for the Zodiac. From the initial APB after the murder of Paul Lee Stine described the killer as an African American, leading to two officers who actually saw the Zodiac to ignore him. Zodiac’s letter sent after the killing of Stine tells us about the motorcycle cops racing the park instead of actually searching for him. The police of San Francisco, Vallejo and Napa can’t get on the same page, losing evidence and being unable to properly work together.
I suppose Toschi is more of an Ahab caught in the middle of the bumbling police, but he does represent the authorities, and we can’t ignore his own oddities and mistakes. Toschi seems to know nothing about his partner, inspector William Armstrong (played by the always underrated Anthony Edwards). Toschi doesn’t know it's Armstrong’s birthday, and he doesn’t realize that Armstrong is looking to get out of the horrible hours that come with homicide. What Toschi does know is that Armstrong brings him animal crackers - showing us that Armstrong knows his partner better than his partner knows him.
Fincher plays with this thread quite a bit in the movie; people not really knowing each other that well. Along with the relationship of Toschi and Armstrong, we see it with Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard when Cecelia is mistaken about Bryan’s major and with Graysmith and everyone at the CHRONICLE who mistake him for a goofball. Most of all, we see it with Arthur Leigh Allen (amazingly played by John Carroll Lynch) and everyone who knows him. Allen is a mystery, the mystery of the movie. Everything he says, everything he does, is an act he puts on to toy with those around him. Or maybe it isn’t an act. Allen sure seems like the prime suspect, but there are little bits and bobs that make us question it.
Is Arthur Leigh Allen a red herring? Maybe. There are at least two red herrings in the movie, Rick Marshall, and Bob Vaughn. We never see Marshall in the movie and he is pretty quickly, but without him, we would never come across Vaughn. Vaughn has a total of one scene and, played by Charles Fleischer, his scene may be the most intense. Every second in Vaughn’s home is building tension, and if Fincher wanted to get in a jump scare, this would have been the moment. Thankfully, Fincher is smarter than that; he knows that jump scares don’t fit here.
But, with the low lit single bulb basement, the sound of pounding rain, and Fleischer’s calm but uncomfortable tone, the whole bit is pure horror movie.
Back to Arthur Leigh Allen, the main suspect in ZODIAC…
Every slasher needs a great… well, slasher, and man oh man does John Carroll Lynch bring it. Lynch’s performance is the key to ZODIAC; a lesser performance would have sunk the film and taken away from the mystery that Fincher plays in. We watch Allen play with the police, all but telling him that he did it, but still, we have doubts right up until the last minute. Yes, Graysmith is convinced that Allen is the Zodiac, as is Toschi, but the evidence never quite matches up. In a way, Allen is caught; with so much attention on him he can’t keep killing, but he gets away, leaving, in some ways, room for what every slasher hopes for; a sequel.
You may think that placing ZODIAC in the slasher genre is offensive to those who the Zodiac actually killed, but using reality for the basis of slasher movies isn’t new. THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN is based on the Phantom Killer. HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER is based on Henry Lee Lucas. Even A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET is based on a true story. We tend to think of slashers as “popcorn cinema”; movies that are little more than time-wasting entertainment. Rarely do we look at the deeper meanings of some of these movies - how Wes Craven didn’t just make a movie about a guy who kills you in your dreams, but about how the failings of the generation before us leads to our struggles. We focus on the kills, but often overlook the characters; sure a lot of them are cookie cutter, but ones like Sidney Prescott and Tommy Jarvis, they stand out. They live with us long after the end credits roll.
Is Robert Graysmith any different? Can’t we all see a part of ourselves in him? In his struggle to stop an evil in his world? In his obsession with solving a puzzle? In his search for the goodness in all people, even the ones who look down on him?
It may have a better director than we normally see with a slasher and a better cast. It certainly had a bigger budget than any other slasher movie. It isn’t nearly as gory as the classic slashers, and the kills aren’t anywhere near as inventive as anything Jason has ever done, but at its heart, ZODIAC fits right in with the slasher genre. Maybe that was why it couldn’t win awards cause it sure as shit isn’t due to the quality of the film.
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