Something Weird Video The Zodiac Killer (1971)

The Zodiac Killer is a 1971 slasher film directed by Tom Hanson and starring Hal Reed, Bob Jones, Ray Lynch and Tom Pittman. The plot is based on the murders committed by the Zodiac Killer in the San Francisco area, though it takes many liberties with the actual investigation with the film providing a name and back story for the killer.
The opening night screening took place at San Francisco's RKO Golden Gate Theater on April 7, 1971. Audience members were asked to write their answers to "I think the Zodiac kills because ..." and drop their entries into a large box in order to enter a raffle to win a motorcycle donated by Kawasaki. The unsuspecting filmgoers did not know that there was a volunteer crouched inside the box comparing their handwriting with samples of the Zodiac's, and that there were goons (including members of the film's cast) waiting in the wings ready to apprehend and interrogate anyone whose penmanship raised a red flag.
The film is a highly fictionalized telling of a month in the life of the Zodiac Killer (played by Hal Reed). The film follows the killer (whose identity as the Zodiac Killer is not revealed until the end of the first act of the film) and a friend, Grover (a drunk, toupée-wearing truck driver who is divorced from his wife and in financial trouble from his divorce) as they meet and go about their normal day. Grover eventually has a nervous breakdown due to the upheaval in his life caused by his divorce, as he is denied the right to visit his daughter when he makes a surprise visit to his ex-wife. Taking his daughter hostage, the police are called and as he tries to escape, Grover sees the day's paper laying on the front steps announcing another murder by the Zodiac Killer. In a fit of madness, he declares himself the Zodiac Killer and lets his daughter go in order to flee.