Saw it this weekend. Good telling of the investigation of the unsolved murders committed by a killer that named himself Zodiac in letters that he sent to newspapers during the late 60s and early 70s.
Fine performances by all the cast.
The film is based on the books by Robert Graysmith. The books focus on Arthur Leigh Allen as the man Graysmith believes to have been Zodiac. I should mention that the case against Allen isn't as overwhelming as the books and film make it. It remains possible that Allen was just an idiot that liked jerking the cops around.
Don't go to this movie expecting something on the order of a Halloween/Friday 13th type slasher movie. It's much more about the effect on the lives of the people investigating the murders.

I didn't catch all of what was written at the end of the movie, but it did say that Allen is the "best and only suspect," which isn't true. After the police searched Allen's home, he went to the media and put on a pretty pathetic act in real life. I was amazed on how close several of the cast members looked like the real people. Here's yet another movie where Robert Downey(?) Jr. playes a role that resembles his own life, with the drugs and alcohol that is.

I may have missed it but the mention of somebody being able to have two completely different writing styles was not present in this movie, and it most certainly is a possible trait, with practice of course.

If there are some who go to this movie thinking it's a horror flick then they need to pay more attention to the previews.

I didn't think the case against Allen was overwhleming in the book or movie Butch. They had a lot of circumstantial evidence but he was exonerated by the handwriting in real life too. He was picked out of a photo line-up by the survivning gunshot victim in 1992, the sister of the waitress he shot identified him as "Leigh," the 'breathing' phone calls stopped after Allen died... the only discrepancy was that information was ommitted to keep the movie time down.

Near the end, the stare-down at the Ace Hardware, Allen's work vest/smock had 'Lee' on it when his middle name was spelled Leigh.

Inblackestnight, thanks for your opinion. My feeling that it was overwhelming may not be generally held.

Re the wrong nametag: I want to think that it was actually spelled wrong in real life. I'll try and check tonight (I'm at work at the moment), but I may be misremembering.

The movie was based on the book Robert Graysmith wrote, and not surprisingly his character was the starring role, so the story was from his point-of-view. If you felt I was trashing your opinion I sincerely apologize, but the movie ended with the sense that although ALA is still the main suspect, the evidence against him was mostly circumstantial.

Several people noticed that in the Ace Hardware the calendar behind ALA said Feb 1980 but the date given in the movie was 1983. I missed it but was this is when the actor playing Graysmith was born?

I'm not positive but I think I could hear Z counting the times he stabbed those people by the lake.

I didn't think you were trashing my opinion at all. Just offering a different opinion and I don't mind that in the least. :-)

No luck on finding the 'Lee' name tag reference. I'l consider it faulty memory on my part for the moment. If I find it at some point, I'll post it.

I saw this movie yesterday evening. It was wonderful.

At I had intitially decided against seeing this movie, because, having read about the case, I figured I knew everything about it, including how it ended ("They never caught the guy. The end."), and am sometimes wary of seeing films purporting to be based on true events. But then I heard about good it was, and then I found out that David Fincher was the director, and I had to see it.

It was great, and definitely worth the two and a half hour running time. The film does a good job of depicting the decades of the case, and the personal toll it took on the investigators involved.

I had never heard of Arthur Leigh Allen, as he was not mentioned in former FBI profiler John Douglas and Mark Olshaker's excellent book The Cases That Haunt Us, and I wonder why that is. (The Wikipedia article on the killer has a section on Allen, incidentally.) Circumstantial evidence, contrary to how it is regarded in common parlance, is not anemic evidence, as people are convicted on it all the time, as opposed to direct evidence, which can be either more rare and even unreliable (the O.J. Simpson evidence, for example, was circumstantial). Of course, while Graysmith uncovers possible explanations for the lack of a handwriting match in the movie, and even a connection between Allen and Darlene Ferrin, we have to keep in mind that the movie may have dramatized this material.

As soon as the Lake Berryessa Park began, I cringed, for I knew what it was. And I had even forgotten that the two victims were stabbed, and not shot. My God, the way David Fincher filmed the stabbings was horrifying in its straightforward plainness, even despite the fact that most of the stabs were obscured by victim Bryan Hartnell's head. I was extremely disturbed by this scene, and even felt anger toward David Fincher right after it ended.

Butch, do you really think this is more of a drama, rather than a thriller? There's certainly elements of both, I suppose, but doesn't the crime element, and the depiction therof, make it more of a thriller? Just picking your thoughts.

Nothing in the John Douglas book about ALA? Who did John point his finger at, if he did at all? I've read two of his books and although they were both quite fascinating, they were pretty much the same to me. I've actually met John Douglas and was able to pick his brain a little.

If anybody is interested in this case, and would like more information, you might want to check out zodiackiller.com.

I pulled the book off my shelf last night when I wrote this, and just went through the index to see if Allen showed up. I'm gonna read the section on the Zodiac more thoroughly when I get a chance.

Where did you meet him, night?

Bleeping bleep. My original, much longer post, disappeared because I had too many links in it.

Luigi, I felt the movie was more in the drama camp, but it can go either way, depending on your POV.

Be wary of Graysmith's books. They do have errors and were written with his view that Arthur Leigh Allen is Zodiac in mind. Douglas's remarks are based on Graysmith's version of events and may be flawed because of that.

Some recommended sites
Now, I'll try leaving off the beginning of the other sites URLs and maybe it will be alright.
The above mentioned zodiackiller.com is very comprehensive. I strongly recommend lurking and doing a good deal of reading of the site's info pages and archived message boards before jumping into the fray on the current message board. It can get a bit testy there at times.
Another good site is zodiackillerfacts.com

Also Jake Wark's site; members.aol.com/Jakewark/

A good, non-Graysmith book on the subject is "This is The Zodiac Speaking" by Mike Kelleher and David Van Nuys. Van Nuys has some pieces on Youtube talking about the case. There are some news reports about the case from the time period on Youtube as well.

I met John while he was at a book promotional thing at John Jay School of CJ. I was in the Navy at the time, and I have some friends in the FBI that allowed me to chat with him for a little while before the shindig started. I'm not positive but I'd say this was sometime in 1998, the last ten years seemed to go by quick for me.

Thanks for the other sources Butch, and you're right, zodiackiller can be a bit intense at first.

I thought Douglas always studied the primary source documents and files when going over cold cases. I would find it suprising that someone like Douglas would rely solely on the book of a non-expert in law enforcement. How do you know this? Is it on one of those sites you mention?

Of course, it turns out that my statement about that he never menionted Allen is wrong, at least by name. He mentions him on the last page of the section on the Zodiac in The Cases that Haunt Us, which I just finished rereading. Here is a scan of that page, on which he explains why he did not mention him by name.

Luigi, I did see this on one of the sites. However, I looked at my own copy "The Cases That Haunt Us". He does quote Graysmith's book at one point. He also mentions some errors from Graysmith's book. I can't really fault him for using it as a reference. Douglas' book was published in 2000, before the errors in Graysmith's account were widely known. Also, looking at the original case documents and evidence would have required visiting the appropriate detectives in four different jurisdictions. Douglas was, I think, retired at this point, so they might not have let him see things from an open, active case. After re-reading the chapter, I don't think any of the errors he repeats are serious enough to invalidate his profiling.

Which errors does he mention?

1. That the bullets that hit Betty Lou Jensen were in a tight group. They were actually spread from near her shoulder to her waist.

2. Darlene and Mike weren't followed to Blue Rock Springs.

3. At Lake Berryessa, Hartnell didn't ask to be stabbed first. Zodiac simply began stabbing the couple without warning, as shown in the movie.

4. A palm print was not lifted from the telephone used after the Lake Berryessa attack. It wasn't allowed to dry sufficently and was ruined in lifting.

5. The officers that saw Zodiac after he killed Paul Stine did not speak to him. They looked at him, saw he wasn't the black male they had been told to look for and drove on.

Wow. I'm disappointed that Douglas took Graysmith's work at face value, without any type of corroboration. Where did the dissenting information come from?

It's been turned up by various people over the years. The zodiackiller.com site has a couple of threads devoted to the errors. Look at the current and recently archived boards for them.