Fincher’s Zodiac adapts Robert Graysmith’s obsessive reporting of serial killings killed in the San Francisco Bay area, named after the killer who identified as Zodiac. The murders began at a picnic in 1968 and did not stop until 1978, by which time 37 people.

Fincher takes liberties with the text, altering details, etc. But he’s faithful to the first awful murder of a couple picnicking. The episode begins with Bryan Hartnell and Cecilia Shepard innocently romancing at a lake when they are approached by a hooded man dressed in black. Surprised, they watch him get close enough to hear him matter-of-factly say that he’s killed before and is not afraid to kill again.

True to his word, Zodiac stabs them multiple times and ignoring their screams, the figure in black walks away as quietly as he arrives.

Food is unthinkable.

See David Fincher. Zodiac (2007). Screenplay by James Vanderbilt based on Robert Graysmith’s reportage (1986); Robert Graysmith. Zodiac. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443706/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiac_(film)

 

The cast: Pell James as Cecelia Shepard; Patrick Scott Lewis as Bryan Hartnell, Raymond Arquette as Zodiac