Curse of the Zodiac

With "Curse of the Zodiac" director Ulli Lommell rips off David Fincher's "Zodiac" a second time. Like Lommell's other recent horror efforts this is incompetently gory and exploitive. It has all his usual trademarks: shot on cheap video, highly repetitive, over-edited with tons of after-effects to cover up a budget of $0. The opening titles aren't bad though and in the previously stated categories it's not as bad as Lommell's "Black Dahlia", but that's like saying getting shot isn't as bad as burning to death.

This movie focuses on a girl who suffers from psychic episodes which show her the crimes of the Zodiac killer as they happen. Lommell's Zodiac killer is a bald white guy with tattoos on his neck, overdubbed with an annoying German voice. He taunts a writer over the phone who he only called "Fat F***" and mentally taunts the physic which he called "Pretty Girl". The soundtrack is flooded with Zodiac irritating voice, mocking the poorly defined "heroes" with what could be bad poetry.

The movie falls into a pattern of killings spaced by reactions to killings. The victims are almost exclusively women and they are always killed after having an argument with their man. It's as if this is a relationship movie edited together with a slasher movie. In the commentary Lommell claims this is meant to represent tension over women's liberation in the 70s. Until I heard this I didn't realize this was supposed to be set in the 70s, and assumed this was about the killer returning in present day or something equally stupid (Lommell's previous movie "Zodiac Killer" was about a present day copycat to the Zodiac).

Apart from the more puzzling aspects it is never less than obvious that is this is a cheapie. The sound even messes up a couple times during one of the killer's monologues. Many of these are peppered with what feels like hundreds of cuts back to the same couple of shots of the Golden Gate bridge. While it is impressive that they actually shot on location for this piece of crap, the poor use of the locations doesn't help. The acting sucks, of course, and the facts of the case are clumsily passed over in favor of endless boring murders. It feels like this script never had more than one draft.

In the end all I really have to say is Ulli Lommell. This idiot directs crap and only crap. He made "Zombie Nation". He makes fellow countryman Uwe Boll look good! His movies, like this one, were all made to confuse unobservant people in video stores to rent them thinking they're something else. But, honestly, if you're really dumb enough to rent this thinking it's a movie as good as the David Fincher "Zodiac" then you deserve to watch a movie as bad as Ulli Lommell's "Curse of the Zodiac".

I had to give this movie a 1 because there were no options lower. This is the worst movie I've seen since Dr. T and the Women. The photography was terrible. The script sounded like it was written by a sex offender with tourette syndrome. I've seen porn with better plots, scripts and acting. I remember the hype over Zodiac (2005) and got confused when I saw this on the clearance bin. This is one of the 4 for $30 movies I got. You couldn't pay me to try to watch this movie again. I made it 15 minutes into this piece of crap. I think the people responsible for making this waste of film should be banned from Hollywood. I've seen one other Lions Gate movies and enjoyed them, but after seeing this I will be cautious from here on out when getting another one of their films.

I have seen a lot of bad movies in my day but this has to be one of the worst. There was actually parts of the movie I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes. Which is okay except this movie was not meant to be a comedy. The acting is down right terrible, the lighting and camera work have the feel of a porn movie, and the movie tries to have a whole trippy feeling to it that just comes across annoying. The main plot behind this movie is a young women has nightmares(while awake) that sees the Zodiac killer in action. Thats pretty much it. The Zodiac killer may have been real but this movie is based on no actual facts. He seems like he likes to kill women who just broke up with their boyfriends. The Jake Gyllenhaal part from a much better Zodaic movie is played by a guy who looks like Newman from Seinfield only on coke. If you want a good laugh and your high you might enjoy this movie otherwise stay away.

The Curse of the Zodiac-- Curse words are all he knows, the monologue surpasses the number of times the "F" word was used in Goodfella's in the first five minutes.

I thought this movie would be more interesting, I wish I would have read the reviews on this site before renting. I've seen some pretty bad movies but none worse than this one so far. I don't think it's ever going to end. You would think that the premonitions would come at least once before the murder not all of them during the murders. Drugs, prostitutes, and hippies and I still haven't heard one decent line of dialogue.

The film work reminds me of Blair Witch.

This is definitely one sad excuse for a film.

Roughly one month ago today, I decided to watch a film by the name of "Curse of the Zodiac". Little did I know, I would be making the biggest mistake of my life...

The title of the "movie" pretty much sums everything up in itself. I felt cursed for every painstaking second I spent watching this disgraceful, feces encrusted, piece of trash. Words simply cannot explain how terrible this movie is. Let's put it this way; if "Curse of the Zodiac" were to be handed in as an elementary school drama assignment, it would get roughly 0%. I didn't understand a single thing that was going on, probably because most of the shots were upside down, sideways or blurred... Not to mention that I wanted to puke every time I heard "The Man With the Blurred Face" (or I presume, The Zodiac) say, "You fat f*ck". As I mentioned earlier, the director, if there even was one, failed miserably with his horrid use of sideways/upside down shots, and choice of scenery. At one point, you see a roughly 15 year old girl acting poorly, trying to talk to her (estimated) 30 year old husband about how his day went by candle light in the middle of the day (or I presume the middle of the day based on the fact THAT YOU CAN SEE LIGHT COMING FROM THEIR CLOSED BLINDS). The truly astounding part about this scene is the fact that you can see the girl reading her lines, which she placed on the table in front of her! This scene sets the tone of the film, and sets the bar very low for future kindergarten drop outs that aspire to become directors, and hobos with cameras. I only watched 10 minutes of this monstrosity, and I am still suffering deeply from the after effects of this failed, horror-porno.

In conclusion, I have come to realize that watching this movie is like getting tarred and feathered: it's embarrassing, painful, and leaves permanent mental, and physical scars. I still have to attend "CotZ Anonymous" meetings to forget those dreadful 10 minutes, and would like to take this opportunity to warn ANYONE who ever even thinks about watching this film, not to do so. Please, I don't want anyone to end up in as much pain as I did.

Best of luck,

The Curse of the Zodiac Warner.