Detroit area lensed slasher obsessed by SOV, VHS and the Zodiac Killer. There's ample kills here and they are exuberantly bloody. Funnily the only bloodless kill was probably the best as it involved the murder of a magician. The world doesn't need more magicians, even one is too many. The killer just wanted to make a film in tribute to the Polonia's and Tim Ritter types. He then gets a call (was in it his head?) from the Zodiac Killer himself! This inspires him to kill real people for his SOV masterpiece including his fat, annoying land lord and a jaundiced bum. He also smashes a young boy into a pole until he dies and knifes a nosy young girl in a wheelchair. There's some outside scenes of Detroit area environs including a visit to Belle Isle but nothing that looks too seedy or decaying. There's endless shots of the guy's VHS collection and cult posters. Such highly desirable VHS of films like Splatter Farm, The Abomination, and Tales from the Quadead Zone get screen time and Splatter Farm is even watched by the killer on an old TV. They really dropped the ball by not including (that I noticed) a VHS of cult Michigan-made 80s SOV slasher THE HACKERS. Fix that in your next movie please! VHS snobbery is in full effect here with nary a DVD or Blu-ray in sight. There is a laserdisc played at one point. Don't these "collectors/hoarders" know that VHS tapes only last THIRTY YEARS and practically all of them are decaying as we speak and will be worthless anytime now. Sell them now for as cheap as you can. It's time to upgrade to DVD and maybe when 32K comes out you can upgrade to Blu-ray. You're not impressing any cute girls with VHS tapes of obscure backyard films that only you and your online friends have heard of. Anyways, Night of the Zodiac is a loving tribute to those films and that era and while overlong is worth a watch. The Zodiac part left me cold as I don't know much about him, find ciphers beyond my comprehension (the filmmaker made ciphers just for this movie and explained them in a feature on the Blu-ray and I still don't know what they are) and refuse to watch a 2 1/2 hour David Fincher movie about the killer.
2 Reviews
SOV DREAMS!
BandSAboutMovies26 February 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Richard Gantz (Philip Digby) can't keep a job or finish his film about the Zodiac Killer, yet somehow the Zodiac Killer finds him and convinces him to finish the movie, one that will help him collect new slaves for paradice, as he would scrawl.
Night of the Zodiac seems like an SOV movie from thirty years ago yet it was made now by director and writer Susana Kapostasy somewhere in the wilds of Hazel Park, Michigan. Beyond Mark Polonia showing up as well as Todd Sheets and Tim Ritter getting name dropped, there are so many posters and old VHS boxes that are all over this film, including Tales from the QuadeaD Zone, Splatter Farm and perhaps the best film of that era, The Abomination. There are also tons of kills, including a magician, the entire band doing the soundtrack, a karate battle that ends with a woman being impaled on a sprinkler that shoots literal geysers of blood and an issue of Gore Score read on the toilet.
This cost a grand to make and I assume that the budget went toward sending this backward in time so that it appeared to be made in the same time period as all those movies of the past that I love so much like Boardinghouse, Day of the Reaper and Goblin. You can feel the love for those films while this is able to become its own unique film. It also remembers that an SOV film needs a metal soundtrack and this movie totally gets that right. Beyond worth your time. I want even more of this!
Night of the Zodiac seems like an SOV movie from thirty years ago yet it was made now by director and writer Susana Kapostasy somewhere in the wilds of Hazel Park, Michigan. Beyond Mark Polonia showing up as well as Todd Sheets and Tim Ritter getting name dropped, there are so many posters and old VHS boxes that are all over this film, including Tales from the QuadeaD Zone, Splatter Farm and perhaps the best film of that era, The Abomination. There are also tons of kills, including a magician, the entire band doing the soundtrack, a karate battle that ends with a woman being impaled on a sprinkler that shoots literal geysers of blood and an issue of Gore Score read on the toilet.
This cost a grand to make and I assume that the budget went toward sending this backward in time so that it appeared to be made in the same time period as all those movies of the past that I love so much like Boardinghouse, Day of the Reaper and Goblin. You can feel the love for those films while this is able to become its own unique film. It also remembers that an SOV film needs a metal soundtrack and this movie totally gets that right. Beyond worth your time. I want even more of this!
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