Awakening the Zodiac

Saw this recently on a DVD. Having background information about the Zodiac n having seen Fincher's excellent Zodiac multiple times, i decided to watch this. Obsession apart, honestly, the trailer was very enticing but the movie wasn't. This film is about a couple who gets hold of some snuff footage linking it to the Zodiac. They along with the help of a friend, decide to track down the true identity of the Zodiac and claim the long offered reward money that could change all their lives. The movie opens with a re-creation of one of the Zodiac's murder—an attack on a couple parked in a car on the side of a road in San Francisco a la David Fincher's Zodiac. This movie relied more on the silly investigation as opposed to the actual murders committed by the Zodiac Killer. Even the investigation was kinda meh. The connection between the snuff footage and the Zodiac killer is concluded very easily by the trio. The premise of the film was very good. The film reels are discovered in a small town in Virginia where the couple reside in a trailer. The Zodiac killings happened in San Francisco. How did those reels get there all the way from San Francisco? The Zodiac going into hibernation? The film also has some decent cinematography, likable characters n acting. But the suspense n tension was lacking leading it to a dull n meh kinda ending.

I would go on about the number of stupid things the protagonists do, but even with that, the first half was good and well paced. But the last half, especially the last quarter was so ridiculous you were rooting for the Zodiac killer. Approach this if you want to pass some time but don't expect a masterpiece. And the ending? Don't get me started.

Quite a vacuous film about a trio of scavengers who chance upon footage of the Zodiac killer's crimes decades later and attempt to track him down to claim a reward. It manages to hold the viewer's interest for a while by generating the expectation that something will happen but very little does for most of the film and when the killer finally appears and interacts with the protagonists, this has little logical connection with what has gone on before. Usually, when mysteries introduce only one suspect, it's a cinch that that suspect is the killer, but this film bucks that trend: the killer is some random person who we know nothing about even after the film ends. There are any number of loose ends the narrative doesn't even attempt to tie.

This film had a lot of promise, I was really into the concept and story of this film, however it completely derails about half way through and just submits itself to a cliche plot, with no real surprises with it's reveal of the killer. Great acting in this film, I like the performances of the two leads (including Leslie Bibb). This would be an ideal film to remake and just re-write the other half. Geniune creepy moments, but slowly falls apart into a mess of a film. Films like this frustrate me more than horrible films because there's a great concept but it falls apart.

It's That eerie kind of spooky. Doesn't really make you jump just spooks you out. They're solving the case as if though they were watching a horror movie. The more they discover about the killer the more it unwinds them, but unlike us they have genuine concern.

Awaking the Zodiac takes a new spin on the Zodiac killer with the concept that he's been hiding out for 40 years, and somehow a couple in a rural part of Virginia come across his old films of his murders, and force him out of hiding. Kind of like the idea that they take something that actually happen and turned it into their own fiction.

Was OK movie. Really like how the whole thing was laid out. Not a bad mystery at all. I liked how everything unfolded.

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