ZODIAC KILLER is the most professional-looking of the three, yet it defines "cheap exploitation," dealing with a hot topic in a quasi-documentary, mostly melodramatic format. A pair of pathetic losers are introduced and half the film plays a game with the audience - which one is Zodiac, the disgruntled postman or the misogynistic middle-aged truck driver? The real Zodiac, of course, has never been identified, but the film offers its own ideas about the killer's personality and Freudian urges. The picture is washed out and grainy, the soundtrack distorted and variable in quality, actors flub their lines, but ZODIAC KILLER is great fun if you like exploitation. Some arty directorial flourishes work pretty well in this context, depicting Zodiac's warped view of humanity (vile, worthless, malevolent species). The cast of amateurs, portraying diverse "ordinary people" in Zodiac's orbit, is quite convincing, more effective in their parts than a bevy of B-list SAG pros would have been. In sum, ZODIAC KILLER is not a particularly good film, but it is entertaining, and as exploitation it is exemplary.
ZERO IN AND SCREAM and SEX KILLER are almost equally bad, two threadbare plots padded with a busload of flesh to reach the coveted 60-minute mark, yet SEX KILLER still falls short by 4 minutes. SEX KILLER is as bad as you'd expect a Barry Mahon psychodrama to be; there's very little dialogue, and most of that is restricted to blunt one-liners telling us the "sex killer" is a weird guy, something we know already. SEX KILLER is most successful in its attempt to create a stifling, hellish atmosphere around its protagonist. New York City's busy streets and grimy corridors should be top-billed in SEX KILLER, along with the creepy department store mannequins who lure this shy, inhibited boy into the depraved nightmare existence of a murderous necrophiliac. It's not a strange compulsion - it's a way of life. An idea is weakly developed throughout, that society is implicated in the killings because people are either indifferent to, or titillated by, these events. A similar notion crops up in ZODIAC KILLER.
ZERO IN AND SCREAM is something like the bastard/invert kin of MANTIS IN LACE, and is notable only for its copious and complete nudity, with little else to recommend it. Actually it's more remarkable for its awfulness, as it raises the question of how little development an anecdote requires to become a (barely) full-length feature film.
A small but excellent batch of trailers rounds out the program. There's also a gallery of exploitation stills for fans of the genre. Definitely worth a look!
