Zodiac

Question: Near the end of the film a high school year book is shown. What school is it from and what year?

Answer: Hogan High School, in Vallejo California. 1968.

Bishop73

Chosen answer: Scorpio is loosely based on the Zodiac killer, yes. However, "Zodiac" is made to portray the hunt for the real-life Zodiac killer (as accurately as possible), with only a few ficticious elements thrown in for the sake of story-telling, while "Dirty Harry" is pure fiction.

Twotall

Question: There is a scene in Robert Graysmith's kitchen where you can see a container of Old Bay Seasoning on the top of the stove. I am from Maryland and I found it unusual that they would have it out in California, especially before the internet came into being. Did I see that wrong? I couldn't find the answer anywhere else.

Answer: Old Bay seasoning has been available on the West Coast for many decades. I can remember my mother using it as far back as the 1960s. That was in Washington state.

raywest

Answer: Leigh Allen. Mike Mageau was the only one who had seen him and was still alive. He recognised him at the end of the movie.

Jan Arends

This is what I read online: "In 1991, Mike Mageau identified Arthur Leigh Allen as being the shooter. This identification was the result of Mageau being shown a photo lineup by George Bawart of the Vallejo Police Department. When Bawart asked Mageau why he had never identified Allen in the 20 years Allen had been the top suspect, Mageau said that he had never been shown any pictures of suspects and he had only been asked if he recognized certain names. If Mageau's statement is true, it's probably the biggest law-enforcement blunder of modern times." This would suggest that the police also never made a composite sketch based on Mageau's testimony.

Phaneron

Answer: Which suspect are you referring to? Several men were suspected of being the Zodiac Killer. The film even cast different actors for different scenes to account for the discrepancies in individual eyewitness accounts. Additionally, this film is based on the real-life case files as well as Robert Graysmith's book, and there does exist a composite sketch of the Zodiac Killer (you can Google it). So if there is a certain suspect whose sketch isn't shown, it could be either that it wasn't shown in the film or it doesn't exist in real life.

Phaneron

Question: In the movie, Robert meets a theatre owner and he shows his basement. Why did he get scared and run out?

Answer: I always thought that Robert thought that the theatre guy was the Zodiac Killer, and he kept on hearing noises coming from upstairs, which also made him run out.

ChristmasJonesfan

Answer: It was theorized that the Zodiac Killer had a basement, and not many people in California have basements. Robert's paranoia was just getting the better of him.

Phaneron

More mistakes in Zodiac

Robert Graysmith: Just because you can't prove it doesn't mean it isn't true.
Dave Toschi: Easy, Dirty Harry.

More quotes from Zodiac

Trivia: The theme tune to the news station when they are trying to arrange the meeting is the theme to Channel 9 news in Australia, played unmodified.

More trivia for Zodiac

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