The 2022 film, Night of the Zodiac, takes place in Detroit.

In its heyday, Detroit represented the industrial boom of America in the 20th Century.  It was a city where cars were made and music was recorded and the future seemed bright.  Today, of course, Detroit is viewed as being the ultimate symbol for just how much life has declined in the cities of America.  It’s a city that is often used to epitomize the death of the American dream.  It’s a city with a permanent atmosphere of decay and decline and, as a result, it’s a city that is practically begging for horror filmmakers to make use of it.

Richard Gantz (played by Philip Digby) is one such filmmaker.  He lives in a small, one-room apartment.  The walls are covered in posters for horror and action movies from the 1980s.  Though he answers his landline phone with an authoritative, “Gantz Video,” Richard hasn’t had much luck as a filmmaker.  He’s behind on his rent.  He’s behind on his credit card payments.  Even the local video store keeps ringing him up and demanding to know when he’s going to return his overdue tapes.  Richard dreams of making his own movie but he can find neither the inspiration nor the money.

Then he gets a phone call, from an older gentleman who claims to be the infamous (and never officially identified) Zodiac Killer.  The man who claims to be Zodiac offers Richard money if he’ll just just go to a park and accept a package from a homeless man.  Richard does so and he discovers that Zodiac has sent him his very own cipher.  He’s also sent Richard some cash.  Solving each cipher leads to Richard finding his inspiration as a filmmaker.  Soon, Richard is filming himself as he brutally murders random people across Detroit.  He starts out by imitating the Zodiac’s crimes but soon, he starts to add his own spin to things.  “I’m a psychopath!” Richard shouts at one point, apparently happy to finally have some sort of direction in his life.

Just as Richard speaks of his admiration for straight-to-video directors like Todd Farmer and shoots his film on an ancient video camera, Night of the Zodiac duplicates the grainy look of an old VHS tapes.  The image is full of deliberate scratches and moments where the scene skips or goes out of focus.  It’s actually rather artfully done, making the film feel like something that the viewer really might have found in the clearance section of their favorite used book store.  It’s a cheap film that looks even cheaper but the filmmakers have enough self-awareness to turn that into an asset.  Even the film’s meandering plot, amateurish acting, and moments of illogic feel more like an appropriate homage than a flaw.  This was a film that was made by people who obviously love amateur horror films and that love shines through.  Obviously, it’s not a film for everyone.  Personally, I thought it went on for a bit too long and the film’s action often felt a bit repetitive.  That said, it’s hard not to respect the filmmaker’s dedication to recreating the shot-on-videotape aesthetic of the later 80s and early 90s.  As scummy a character as Richard was, I imagine many amateur directors will probably be able to relate to the scene where he looks over his footage and suddenly realizes that, for all of his work and effort, the film that he’s shooting doesn’t really have a point.

Of course, the most interesting thing about this film is that it imagine what happened to the Zodiac Killer after he left Los Angeles.  A good deal of the reason why the Zodiac continues to intrigue people is the fact that he was never caught.  I imagine that he’s probably dead by now.  (In 1969, it was believed that he was already in his 30s or 40s.)  But you have to wonder how someone can go from being the Zodiac Killer to being just some guy living in a house, mowing the lawn, and going to the grocery store every few days.  How does one live an everyday life with the knowledge of being responsible for those crimes?

In the end, Night of the Zodiac is a film that has enough self-awareness to overcome its flaws.