Filmmaker Charlie Shackleton was hot on the trail of the next great American true crime documentary — a riveting account of a highway patrolman’s quixotic effort to identify and capture the infamous Zodiac Killer. Shackleton devised a plan, began collecting interviews, and shot “evocative B-roll” footage of ghostly California freeways and parking lots where the killer may have once lurked. And then the project fell apart, leaving Shackleton with fragments of the unfinished film and time to ruminate on shortcuts and signifiers of the ubiquitous genre. ZODIAC KILLER PROJECT emerges from the ash heap to probe and deconstruct the form with the incisive eye of a true crime connoisseur. A witty and beautifully assembled deep dive into our obsession with serial killers and the stories we tell about them, Shackleton’s resuscitation of his abandoned film follows in the free-range footsteps of documentary philosophers Errol Morris, Werner Herzog and Joshua Oppenheimer.
“Both a fascinating view of an actual investigation and a wry critique of true-crime documentaries’ predominant clichés…. With its cagey pursuit of impossible dreams, Shackleton’s hypothetical method, both copious and withholding, is a leap ahead in first-person cinema." —Richard Brody, The New Yorker “A documentary masterpiece…. A sharp, hilarious, self-aware, and acutely insightful work.” —Nick Schager, The Daily Beast “One of the most fascinating achievements of the form in recent memory.” —Chase Hutchinson, The Wrap “A work of criticism as well as a work of art, it’s a sharp takedown of our culture’s obsession with true crime, identifying and skewering the genre’s most familiar tropes even as it playfully indulges in them.” —Bilge Ebiri, Vulture
