A Killer Movie About a Killer Who Loved Movies
There are films that capture the grandeur of true crime, and then there’s The Zodiac (2005)—a low-budget, moody horror-drama about one of America’s most famous unsolved cases. With a measly $1 million budget and a box office return smaller than the average Super Bowl snack bill ($86,872, to be exact), it’s easy to dismiss this as a cinematic footnote buried beneath David Fincher’s 2007 behemoth. But here’s the twist: The Zodiac is quietly effective, atmospheric, and grimly funny in ways the bigger film could never be.
Where Fincher’s Zodiac is an epic autopsy of obsession and procedural tedium, Bulkley’s The Zodiac is the stripped-down fever dream version—claustrophobic, bleak, and unafraid to lean into melodrama. If Fincher served you a gourmet five-course meal of paranoia, Bulkley just microwaved a suspicious burrito at 3 a.m. and said, “Eat this or die.” And honestly? It kind of works.
The Premise: Small Town, Big Panic
The movie opens with the infamous 1968 Lake Herman Road murders. Two teens are shot, and Vallejo suddenly feels like the set of a horror film—probably because it is one. Detective Matt Parish (Justin Chambers) is assigned the case, and it eats him alive. Imagine Columbo, if Columbo chain-smoked, alienated his wife, and let a twelve-year-old Rory Culkin watch him spiral into madness.
The Zodiac strikes again on July 4th, because what says patriotism like gunning down a couple in a parking lot? Soon the media circus begins: letters, ciphers, and late-night phone calls from a killer who, if nothing else, had impeccable timing and a flair for trolling. Parish becomes obsessed, the police flounder, and the town falls into a cycle of paranoia so thick you can practically smell the Brylcreem and fear.
The film ends, of course, without resolution—because in real life, there wasn’t one. Instead, we get a final taunt from the Zodiac: “I’m waiting for a good movie about me.” Joke’s on him, because he got at least two, and one of them is better than it has any right to be.
Justin Chambers: TV Doctor, Doomed Detective
Long before he wore scrubs on Grey’s Anatomy, Justin Chambers played Detective Matt Parish—a man slowly unraveling while chasing a killer who delights in being uncatchable. Chambers does surprisingly well, considering the script often asks him to do little more than scowl at coded letters and ignore his family.
He captures that exhausted cop energy perfectly: part caffeine, part despair, part “why the hell did I take this job in Vallejo?” He’s a man unraveling in real time, and the movie leans on him hard. Somehow, Chambers carries the weight, even when the plot dangles over the edge of TV-movie-of-the-week melodrama.
Robin Tunney and Rory Culkin: The Family Who Suffers
Robin Tunney, forever underrated, plays Laura Parish, the detective’s increasingly frustrated wife. Her main job here is to look concerned, pour coffee, and occasionally remind her husband that obsession is a terrible aphrodisiac. She does it well, because Tunney can make even domestic despair feel cinematic.
Rory Culkin, meanwhile, plays their son Johnny. His job is mostly to look wide-eyed, deliver sad lines in that delicate Culkin cadence, and remind us that while the Zodiac is terrorizing the Bay Area, the real tragedy is having to watch your dad lose his mind. He nails it. You half expect him to grab the camera and mutter, “And this is why I’m in therapy.”
Atmosphere: Moody on a Budget
For a movie with just a million dollars to its name, The Zodiac looks better than it should. Director Alex Bulkley clearly spent the budget on fog machines, whiskey-colored lighting, and just enough 1970s cars to keep the illusion alive. It’s not flashy—no sweeping aerials, no epic newsroom montages. Instead, it feels suffocating, small-town, and trapped in the Zodiac’s shadow.
The murders are staged with restraint. They’re not gory spectacles, but sudden, brutal interruptions—more about the aftershocks than the splatter. It’s not about cheap scares. It’s about dread. The kind of dread that makes you check your locks three times before bed and wonder if the guy down the street with the weird laugh is hiding ciphers in his sock drawer.
Humor in the Horror
Now here’s the kicker: for all its bleakness, The Zodiac is unintentionally funny in the darkest way possible.
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The killer’s letters are read aloud in that classic Zodiac deadpan, sounding less like a threat and more like someone ordering a pizza badly over the phone.
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Parish’s meltdown feels so exaggerated at times that you can’t help but laugh, especially when his obsession is framed like a bad marriage with paper ciphers instead of another woman.
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Philip Baker Hall plays Chief Perkins with such gravelly gravitas that every line sounds like he’s about to confess to being the Zodiac himself, just to shut everyone up.
The film isn’t trying to be funny, but its grim earnestness paired with a shoestring budget makes it strangely hilarious. It’s like watching community theater perform Se7en.
Why It Actually Works
Here’s the thing: for all its flaws, The Zodiac succeeds because it nails the hopelessness of the case. Unlike slick thrillers that promise catharsis, this one just wallows in futility. The killer taunts, the cops fumble, families break apart, and the audience is left unsettled—because the real Zodiac case is still unsolved. That’s not a bug. It’s the feature.
Where a bigger movie might chase twists and flashy editing, this one whispers: “Hey, evil doesn’t always get caught. Sometimes it just keeps writing letters.” That’s scarier than any jump scare.
The Ending: A Sick Joke from History
The movie closes with the Zodiac’s 1978 letter, where he wonders who will play him in a movie. It’s one of those rare meta moments that works, because here we are, literally watching a movie about him. The Zodiac got what he wanted, just not in the way he imagined: instead of eternal fame, he’s been immortalized in a modest indie flick where Justin Chambers glares at paper and Robin Tunney sighs a lot.
And honestly, that’s justice of a kind.
Final Thoughts: Small, Grim, and Weirdly Effective
The Zodiac is not the definitive film about the case. It’s not flashy, not stylish, and not particularly polished. But it has something most horror dramas don’t: a willingness to sit with futility, to embrace the claustrophobia of obsession, and to lean into the absurdity of chasing a ghost.
Yes, the budget is thin. Yes, the pacing sometimes sags. Yes, the killer’s voiceovers sound like they were recorded in a bathroom stall. But damn it, the movie has atmosphere, grit, and the guts to end on a note of despair instead of a Hollywood bow.
It may not have made much money, but it left an impression. Sometimes, the best horror isn’t about flashy kills or slick editing—it’s about a gnawing sense of unease that lingers long after the credits roll. And if you’re laughing nervously while checking the locks on your door, well, that’s the Zodiac laughing too.
