Guillermo del Toro Calls This David Fincher Thriller “Perfection” — Now Streaming on Paramount+
Filmmaker David Fincher first became known to horror fans with his debut feature, Alien 3. A music video director by trade, the assignment was a huge opportunity for him…one that failed spectacularly. I’ll die on the hill that Alien 3 is good. Still, the problems that occurred on that set are legendary. So bad that it would be years before Fincher would return with the film that put him on the map, Se7en. Legions of copycat tales have followed, but none have captured the level of horror presented in his vicious murder mystery. But which one is using Paramount+ as its hunting grounds?
It may come as a shock, then, that I’m one of the very few who doesn’t consider Se7en to be Fincher’s scariest film. There’s a movie in the director’s long list of hits that chills me much deeper than Brad Pitt discovering what’s in the box. That film is Zodiac, and it’s now stalking Paramount+.
What’s Zodiac about?
Based on the true story of the Zodiac killer who murdered victims in the San Francisco Bay Area during the late 60s, we meet Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), a cartoonist at the Chronicle. Intrigued by the puzzling case, Robert takes it upon himself to solve it. But as the leads grow cold and the police grow weary, the amateur detective uncovers the true horrors of obsession, public apathy, and the knowledge that some killers are never caught.
A Terrifying True-Crime Thriller
True crime stories carry an inherent sense of dread. Just knowing that these terrible things happened to real people is enough to make your breath shudder. Fincher captures that terror to a T with an atmospheric tension that hisses from the shadows of every frame. Though the killings in the film are shocking, they aren’t what makes Zdiac so frightening. The quieter elements are what terrify me. It’s the racist cops who miss their chance to capture the killer because they’re looking for a Black man. It’s the way the public stops caring after a while. It’s Robert’s destructive obsession, the idea that the next stranger you meet could be a killer, and the fact that the Zodiac was never caught. What Fincher delivers here is a harrowing masterpiece that depicts how ineffective our system is in protecting us. And that is truly scary.
Don’t just take it from me, though. Guillermo del Toro has dubbed Zodiac his #1 Fincher film, calling it “perfection” and adding that he watches it at least twice a year. That’s high praise from a master of horror in his own right.
Zodiac may not be Fincher’s most intense film, nor his most visually striking. Nevertheless, it reaches insidious depths while posing disturbing questions that linger long after the credits roll. Other films from the director are more popular, but Zodiac is Fincher at his very best.
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