We've yet to see who the killer is or what he truly looks like, so we get to meet a few suspects. And as usual, when it comes to these types of killers, their narcissistic fueled bravado doesn't exactly match up to the miserable losers they really are.

Our first suspect, Grover McDerry (Bob Jones), is a truck driver, bad toupee-wearer, and one-half of a bitter divorce settlement. The mere mention of his ex-wife will trigger a near psychotic episode in our boy, Grover. Returning to his apartment, Grover gets his mail from Jerry (Hal Reed), the postman, but all he gets are bills. After catching hell from his land lady on the back rent, Grover finds more bad news as his wife, Helen (Dion Marinkovich), is there waiting for him. Wanting her child support payments, she warns that if he refuses to pay he can't see their daughter anymore.

Grover, of course, goes ballistic and threatens to kill her.

We leave Grover for a while, to get a peak into the life of a postal worker: Jerry heads home, listens to some strange stories from his neighbor about dames being plump, and evil, and as dumb as leftovers. (The hell?) One wall of Jerry's apartment is dominated by a series of rabbit hutches. He checks in on the animals, but is overwrought when discovering that Leo, his favorite bunny, has passed on. (You have to feed them, ya know.) Cradling the deceased bunny, Jerry laments over why evil people get to live when innocent woodland creatures have to die (when you don't feed them.) 

Moving back to Grover, he's preparing for a night on the town by donning a hideous helmet of hair (Style B: The Ted Koppel), a plaid leisure suit, and then completes his accessorizing with a snub nosed revolver. (And yes I think we're supposed to notice the poster of the naked woman with large breasts tacked onto his mirror.) He heads to a singles bar, and miraculously, attracts not one, but four, women! They prove quite a handful. Grover spots Jerry and begs him for reinforcements. Jerry turns him down, so Grover accuses the timid man of being "a fagot." Grover quickly apologizes, and Jerry, with his manhood on the line, agrees to join the party.

Commandeering a corner booth, Grover warns the ladies not to touch his hair, but the hair helmet inevitably gets knocked off. It was an accident, but Grover is humiliated. He goes bonkers and Jerry must push him away before he takes his anger out on the toupee tipper. Both men leave the bar.

Out at lover's lane, a young couple take part in some passionate pre-marital necking. When a flashlight illuminates the cab, the man opens the window to see who's spying on them -- and is shot dead. The woman tries to get away, but the killer empties his revolver into her.

The next morning, while the cops investigate the crime scene and chase their tales with the usual suspects, we find Grover and his toupee in bed, recovering from a hangover. Jerry's hungover, too. They meet by happenstance in a cafe, and Jerry is appalled that they're offering rabbit stew as the special. Grover, meanwhile, is having no luck schmoozing the surly waitress, who eventually tells him to get bent. Rebuffed and rejected, Grover storms off.

That evening, the surly waitress offers to give the short order cook a ride home. They get into the car and begin to talk about life's problem, when we spot a flashlight coming toward them. Bang. Bang. Bang.

The police fear they have a spree killer on their hands. Pittman (Ray Lynch) is the detective in charge of the investigation, but with no leads, no witnesses, and no motive, means the investigation is going nowhere fast. Having a record for narcotics possession, urinating in someone's drink (!?!), and several assaults on women, Grover is brought in during the latest round-up of suspects for questioning. He realizes during the interrogation that they're looking for a killer and he's a suspect. When they ask to look at his gun, he loses his temper and tells them to take a flying leap. Interview over.

Meanwhile, at the San Francisco Chronicle, a reporter receives a package: a letter from the killer, who calls himself Zodiac, and a copy of his manifesto. He wants the paper to print that manifesto exactly, and also warns that if they don't, he will kill more people. He also taunts them with a strange cipher. If they can break the code they will have his true identity. The reporter calls Pittman and turns the letter and cipher over to him.

The paper still prints the story.

After his dust up with the police, Grover goes to his ex-wife's house and demands to see his daughter. Helen refuses, accuses him of being doped-up again, and threatens to call the police if he doesn't leave. She has custody and there's nothing he can do. Wanting his half, Grover heads to the garage and retrieves a saw (and I don't think this is quite what Solomon had in mind...) The police arrive just as Grover rousts his daughter, Judy, out of her bedroom. He pushes Judy away, draws his pistol and fires. The cops return fire and chase him into the backyard. As they close in, Grover screams out that he is the Zodiac before the police shoot him dead. Grover's body falls back into the pool, and sinks to the bottom.

Case closed? Nope. Pittman receives a phone call. The caller read the papers, and says, Grover's claims were a hoax. He is the real Zodiac, and provides details that back up his claim. He asks Pittman if he solved the cryptogram yet, and taunts him, saying, "Solve it and you solve me." Before the killer hangs up, he demands more headlines.

At the other end of the line, our true culprit is revealed -- and it's Jerry. (Insert your own gone postal joke here.) He turns to a strange shrine covered in runes and odd symbols, and rants about how the people he killed will be his slaves in the next life -- and that it's necessary to collect more slaves. Jerry ends his rant by announcing that Atlantis shall rise again.

We next have two vignettes: One is unintentionally funny, as a young couple stumble upon Jerry having a cookout on the beach. Jerry demands that the girl sing "Auld Lang Syne". She does, but Jerry's odd behavior turns things sinister, so they excuse themselves. As they leave, the boyfriend exclaims "There's something weird about that guy." (And your first clue was...?) The second vignette finds children playing at a playground, under the less than attentive eye of their parents. One of the little rodents gets stuck up a tree -- and guess who pops up out of nowhere to help? Old psycho-boy himself. After he helps the kid down, the mother comments on how nice and helpful the young man was.

Next we have the Zodiac killer's most infamous murder. A young couple lounge by a lake. Wearing a black hood and black sweatshirt, with the Zodiac symbol stamped on the front, Jerry tromps out of the forest. I guess only around San Francisco is this kind of thing not considered normal, so the couple doesn't panic at his appearance until he pulls a gun. Jerry says he's an escaped con, and claims he will only tie them up and steal their car. But after he binds them, he brutally stabs them both to death. 

Jerry gathers a few souvenirs and leaves the cops a message, written in lipstick, on the victims' car. While he writes, he flashes back to the killings, and I believe he's writing the note with only one hand because the other hand is busy. (You figure it out.) The message claims responsibility for all the killings, so far, giving their date and location, and he even goes so far as to call the police and report the latest attack, himself

His murder lust satisfied, if ever so briefly, Jerry returns to his mail route, where he is mistaken for the pizza boy by a desperate woman. She drags him into her apartment, but Jerry emerges seconds later, pulling his pants up, with a desperate, donut-glazed look in his eye. (Is the man sexually frustrated, lost without a clue about the horizontal bop -- is this why he's turned homicidal? I believe we're supposed to think so.)

That little incident triggers more homicides. Jerry offers to help an old woman fix a flat -- a flat he caused by shooting out the tire. But he beats the woman to death with the spare, and then knocks the car off the jack so it lands on top of her, just for the heck of it. His reign of terror continues as he next kills a taxi driver, shooting him in the face after driving him to where he wanted to go. (Nice friggin' tip.) People heard the shots and called the police. They throw out a large net, but again, Jerry's perceived normalcy gets him through the dragnet. He even flags down a passing patrolmen, saying he spotted the killer -- who went thataway. Jerry laughs as the car roars off.

Later, Jerry's in his favorite watering hole, listening to a radio report about his latest homicidal escapades. The bartender can't believe they haven't caught that degenerate yet. Jerry offers that maybe the killer is as normal as he is. The bartender says the killer would never be able to fool him like that. After Jerry leaves, we see the Zodiac sign drawn in the spilled salt where he was sitting. The bartender comments on how nice a guy Jerry is as his bar towel erases the evidence.

Pittman is beginning to grasp at straws and reluctantly agrees to consult the famed psychic, Aaron Kozlow. After making their way through his entourage, the psychic gives them a reading -- despite Pittman's obvious skepticism. He senses vibrations that tell him the killer is a charmer, but is really frightened of women. He used to be a civil service employee. Now he works with automobiles; a body shop, a detailer, and has access to many automobiles. The psychic also keeps hearing water. (What? Is he hearing Atlantis surfacing? What a quack.)

While the cops consult the psychic hotline, Jerry is back on the rampage. He kills a man in an elevator, taking an ear as a souvenir. He then picks up a hitchhiker, who realizes his dubious intentions and tries to get away. But Jerry runs her down and stabs her to death. On his way back into town, Jerry stops to help another stalled motorist. He checks under the hood and asks the elderly driver to help. Instructing her to hold the carburetor open while he tries to start it, Jerry slams the car hood shut on top of her, and then crawls on top of it and starts jumping, crushing the woman underneath. Finished, he drags the body into the car and pushes it over a cliff.

His murder lust seemingly satisfied again, Jerry pays a visit to a local institution to visit his father. (At least I'm going to assume it's his father.) He passes Mr. Quigley (George Fryette), whose recuperating from a heart attack, resting in a rollaway chair outside. Jerry says hi and heads in. He finds the cell -- What kind of hospital is this? -- where his father is being held. The conversation is completely one sided. Jerry begs him to say something, anything, to give him a sign of affection. Jerry hears his father urinating, followed by a toilet flushing. Jerry flies into rage over this repeated rejection, so a doctor asks him to leave.

On his way out, Jerry sneaks into another room and kills a patient. Outside, he pushes Mr. Quigley's chair down a hill. The old man careens out of control and crashes into a subway entrance, but he's already dead; his heart couldn't take the ride.

Our movie ends with Jerry's narration, escorting us as we walk down busy street. No one is aware that a homicidal maniac walks amongst them. He taunts the audience further, saying the police won't do anything to stop him. They can't stop him. He's still on the loose, and there are plenty more like him running amok. And he won't stop -- ever, because "I like what I'm doing too much." His psycho babble continues -- it is not I who am crazy, it is I who am mad blah-blah-blah -- I can't get it up.

As he helps an old lady to cross the street, Jerry signs off, promising us all that "I'll be seeing you."

This is not the end

I will give this wonky film a lot of points for at least attempting to let us know who the victims are (were?). Before each person is killed, the film takes a brief hiatus as we get a quick peak into their lives before they're ended -- by no fault of their own. It's an attempt to show that these are real, normal people, just caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. It seems a little silly, but the film wouldn't have worked without them, because it helps bring home the film's big central theme of the randomness of the killer.

Films like this bug me. I don't know if it's the low-budget auteurness -- the skanky noir, if you will -- that gives it a quasi-documentary feel, making things seem a little too real, or what. You get the feeling, an almost impending sense of dread, and dare I say helplessness, that this is something you really shouldn't be watching at all. It is grim, gritty, and rings true despite several instances where it gets more than a little goofy.

The movie's central theme rings loud and clear. Are we really safe? Probably not. Jerry is a putz. Just like you and me (without the homicidal tendencies of course.) Hannibal Lector is a work of fiction, and his exploits are pretty damned ridiculous. As are most films depicting nigh-omnipotent serial killers. (A genre I really don't care for and find extremely silly -- including Silence of the Lambs.) So unlike it's brethren, The Zodiac Killer doesn't glorify the killer, and that makes it infinitely harder to watch and endure.