SF Doc Fest | 'Zodiac Killer Project' | Charlie Shackleton
Eat your heart out, 'Jodorowsky's Dune'! (please don't literally do that)
Note: Recurring monthly support helps keep my writing afloat. If you’ve been interested in joining the monthly krewe of paid subs, now’s an excellent time to start. I encourage all readers and fellow moviegoers to subscribe monthly (only $5) through this publication. If anyone would prefer a different way of ongoing support, get in touch with me anytime - binxmoviegoer@duck.com - and feel free to suggest ideas.
Dear Moviegoers,
When I think about Netflix crime shows - not so much "documentaries" as we imagine them to be, but "shows" - it's not Tiger King that first comes to mind. No, I'm not above watching or being entertained by exploited dirt trash characters, it's just that there's a much better limited series event that's on the app channel. Evil Genius, about the infamous pizza delivery man strapped to a neck bomb, excelled in both revelation and surprise, not to mention in exploring truly demented figures. Why do I think of this one first? Perfection of the medium's methods, or the power of cliche? Are they the same?
Charlie Shackleton, whose TikTok essay on criticism in today's short-form video era, was in some kind of pre-production on one such potential crime show series, when the financial plug was pulled on it. Making lemonade from lemons, a new film was born. Zodiac Killer Project isn't at all what the title sort of suggests. When someone learns of it, the first idea would be focused on the very real "zodiac killer," whose anonymity has haunted America for decades. However interesting of a subject THAT would be by itself, Shackleton has something else to present.
As an essayist and a filmmaker, Shackleton is clearly capable of self-reflection and humility. Zodiac Killer Project is his sketch of his would-be "show" that, in interchangeable sequences, he refers to as a straight-up documentary series and as a movie. David Lynch's Twin Peaks: The Return only suffered from that tug-of-war through its audience of fans and scholars. Here, Shackleton himself isn't "struggling" to wrap his head around the genre to label his new flick as, instead he's bewildered and detached. The media never came to be, so it doesn't matter to him. He can call it multiple things, and all would be true. All would be accurate.
The real focus is on the art of filmmaking itself, specifically as it pertains to these kinds of crime shows. Made up almost entirely of b-roll footage of different locations, sometimes where real things from the story happened and sometimes just ones that fit the part both visually and emotionally, Zodiac Killer Project is both critical and cherishing of what is and what could have been.
Shackleton very much wanted to make something honest but stylistically cliched and entertaining, or heightened as it were. Not unlike a Werner Herzog documentary, where key actions are staged to tell something deeper about time, people, and place. Something that still counts as a documentary. If Herzog can do that and get away with it, why can't Shackleton and others use unrelated footage to simulate truth? Orson Welles said in his essay film F for Fake that most storytelling can in fact be different forms of "lying."
In the case of Zodiac Killer Project, as Welles said, "but not this time."
Throughout its duration, Shackleton narrates and chuckles about context, about what he would've done, how he would've done it and pokes fun at the mechanics of these genres. In an outstanding feat, the cinematography of the b-roll is composed brilliantly by combining timing with location, with objects and juxtaposition, as a means of subtle movement and as a way to provide some depth to Shackleton's free-flowing script. These visuals act as criticism and storytelling and lying too, with shots such as a building behind a gate representing a church behind bars. Resonating this is. Very much so.
Will cinephiles and critics appreciate Zodiac Killer Project more than average viewers with interest only in the sensation of the serial killer tale? Probably. On the whole, it's a movie that rocks the boat of assembly line of crime novelties, showcasing the creativity that can be found in every day and bottom-barrel techniques. With style and substance, with laughs and literature, a finer film than this is hard to find. 5/5
Zodiac Killer Project screened at the 2025 San Francisco Documentary Festival.
Sincerely Yours in Moviegoing,
⚜️🍿
More reading:
