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The Zodiac

["anamal" is not a misspelling - it is the way the word appeared in the Zodiac letter]

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Perhaps some of you have seen the recent film, Zodiac, based on the events surrounding the infamous serial killer and his crimes. Personally, I enjoyed it more than any other new film I have seen this year. Could it be that I am a trifle biased, having been fascinated by the case for years? Perhaps. But even from a totally objective viewpoint, it is still a superb piece of cinema, I think. Director David Fincher did an excellent job of making the film entertaining whilst staying taughtly accurate to the case, often with great detail. Overall, the film was stylish, creepy, surprisingly humorous, with flavorful period detail and perfect use of music and score. The cast did a fabulous job as well, particularly Mark Ruffalo as eccentric San Francisco detective David Tosche. However, I am afraid that, with the popular audience - most of whom being vaguely familiar with the case, if at all - the film may perpetuate the misconception that the late Arthur Leigh Allen was the one and only Zodiac killer. I have read several messages on the Zodiac board on IMDb, as well as messages on Zodiac-related videos on YouTube, that indicate many are taking the movie at face-value, and drawing conclusions based solely on the evidence and information put forth in the motion picture. David Fincher certainly does his best to make Allen look guilty throughout, even ending the film with a scene of the only surviving Zodiac victim to have seen the killer without a mask, Mike Mageau, pointing Lee out in a lineup of mugshots. (There was the little part in the epilogue, explaining how Allen's DNA did not match that taken from a Zodiac letter, but in the minds of the audience, visual images and dialogue will likely trump any text footnote.) While it is true that Arthur Leigh Allen reamains the best suspect in the case, it is an equal fact that every single piece of evidence linking Allen to the murders, is completely circumstantial. I won't even mention the handwriting discrepency, as I believe this "science" is highly subjective, but the search for a fingerprint and ballistics match were total dead ends, as well. Was Arthur Leigh Allen the Zodiac? Quite possibly. Or perhaps none of the known suspects were the notorious killer at all.

That said, I am bit disappointed the film failed to make any mention of perhaps the second best Zodiac suspect, Lawrence Kane. There is a great deal of circumstantial evidence connecting Kane to the Zodiac as well - almost as much as Allen - including one of the Zodiac's ciphers, in which Kane's name and astrological sign can be found adjacent to one another. The sister of Zodiac victim Darlene Ferrin even claimed to have seen Darlene with Kane shortly before her murder. (Perhaps this will be covered in the director's cut to be released next year? I hope so.)

The film remains great, but before you make any conclusions, just be sure to research the case on any of the numerous Zodiac sites avaiable throughout the internet. If you are interested, I suggest starting with TheZodiacKiller: http://www.zodiackiller.com/index2.html

Case closed.

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