Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
A high school production with little substance., December 31, 2005
After watching "Riverman" that was recently done about Washington serial killer Gary Ridgeway, I was curious to learn more about the zodiac killer. Upon seeing this movie in the rental store, I took a chance. It seemed professional and though it was a fictionalized story about the "return" of the Zodiac, I was eager to check it out. Riverman was on TV and had good acting and a great script. Easily a "made for television" movie to talk about.
Then I rented this movie...
...I'm still gagging from my consequences.
This is not a professional done film in any way. It's an amateur attempt at filmmaking. The story follows a young man who by appearance is the average Joe. Well that's because he is just that, some guy they pulled off the street to act in this next to nothing budget film! We follow his exploits as he becomes obsessed with the Zodiac killer's past to the point that he decides to become the Zodiac killer of the present!
Packing around a nickel-plated .45 pistol in a backpack, he finds his victims by stalking them, and usually there is some motive of some sort. Deeper into the film he starts corresponding with the journalist who wrote the book about chasing the Zodiac killer. The journalist, now retired, starts talking with the boy and they become online pen pals of sorts. They meet for coffee and discuss the different aspects of the original killings.
Soon the old man suspects something is amiss with the boy and starts to suspect the worst. Not wanting to be caught off guard, he continues to speak to the boy, who the whole time is walking around the streets of wherever blowing people away.
In the end, the killer starts using a different mode of killing. He knocks his victims out with some sort of nerve agent that is in the form of pills that he adds to water. He dons a gas mask and waits for them to succumb to the gas before...you guessed it, shooting them with a .45 pistol. Only in the end it is bittersweet because he ends up getting killed by the nerve agent by none other than the journalist, who now I assume, will take up the identity of the zodiac killer and continue on...
I laugh just thinking about the errors done in the initial story. For one, anyone committing serial killings in a metropolitan area with a .45 pistol that does not have a silencer on it is going to attract immediate attention. Why is it he can shoot people in an apartment complex, walk out past people, and no one does anything? If a gun of this power goes off in an apartment building on the first level, and your outside, you're going to hear it. Yet of course there are no witnesses to these crimes, and everyone apparently in this community is deaf and blind because they see and hear nothing.
The lighting is horrible. Goodness, could we at least watch a film or read a book on HOW to make a movie before doing a project like this? Reminds me of projects we did in high school, only I think ours were better.
The packaging of this DVD is very misleading. Okay yes, there are not names of cast in it like Dennehy, Sheen, or Heather Graham. However, this movie is professionally packaged and right up they're alongside the likes of "Flightplan" "Jarhead" and "Elizabethtown". The still pics on the back don't tell me it's a below B-grade film, and it's description sounds like it's a "thriller" that is "action packed" with "suspense at every turn".
The film shots are again, amateur, and at times I kept wondering if I was watching a foreign film from the 70's. Nope, again, those are better done as well. Ulli Rommel was behind this movie, and upon looking into his other movies on several different review sites, the result is the same: Amateur filmmaking with a big enough budget to market.
The story, if given to a director like say, like Michael Mann (Heat, Miami Vice, Collateral, the Insider) could be a good modern day serial killer movie, with some good actors and say, L.A. or Miami as the backdrop of the film. That unfortunately, is a pipe dream.
The Zodiac Killer does nothing but kill your time, and is not only a poor film, but unrealistic. It is below B-grade. I forced myself to watch it all the way through only so I could make sure to tell others what they are getting into if they rent this film
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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Why no ZERO STARS, July 24, 2005
UGGHHHH...... is it possible to really TRY to make a film and have it be this bad ?
I have seen High School film study projects that were 200% better !!
Seriously !
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
I ACTED in the movie..., October 4, 2006
... and I didn't even get paid for it... despite the director's (ulli) promises. So - maybe that's a measure of how bad a production it was...? But I thought I'd get this out to the public - just let people know what sort of production and director this is... I played the computer hacker. (it was fun to do, though! - and I'm not even an actor!)
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