Charlie Shackleton turns his own failed attempt at making a Zodiac killer documentary into a witty scrutiny of the true crime genre
‚Why can’t we let the past be the past?‘, asks Charlie Shackleton in his double edged documentary. This question resonates both on a pop-cultural and personal level through the unlikely project that sprung from the failure of another. A few years ago, the British multimedia artist and filmmaker planned to adapt Lyndon E. Lafferty’s true crime book “The Zodiac Killer Cover-Up: The Silenced Badge” into a feature documentary. The real-life account tells of the California highway patrol cop’s hunt for the Zodiac killer. Its screen adaption would have been Shackelton’s own addition to the ever expanding true crime genre. But in the last moment – Shackelton admits he still can’t quite understand why – Lafferty’s family pulled out.
This last minute withdrawal left him with a finished script, lots of research material on both the author and his near-mythical subject, even scouted locations for reenactments -but now obvious way of going forward. Instead of shelving the project altogether or turning to another source on the Zodiac killer, Shackelton made a documentary about the documentary that never was. By combining reflection and retelling with bits of exposition, he creates a cinematic essay that both dissects and disseminates an oversaturated genre. What could have easily turned into a sterile substitute for the real thing, or a bitter denigration develops into a refreshing original take on the mechanics of true crime content.
By means of his own aborted film, Shackelton examines the genre’s characteristic style, structure and scenarios. The images switch forth and back between shots of the director recording his own voiceover, and cinematic visualizations of the scenes he describes. Some of these visuals are shot and reenacted for his documentary essay. Others are excerpts from true crime films and series that deploy the same dramatic techniques. This self-aware meta-approach entertainingly and cleverly evokes the film that wasn’t meant to be. It explains, exemplifies and exercises true crime conventions all at the same time, thus illustrating the efficacy of these conventions. And they work pretty well, even while they are being exposed.
There’s the somber opening titles that set up the mood and point to the central aspects of the story: murder, mystery and investigation. Then the location shots providing a sense of time and place and the feeling of something sinister lurking underneath the suburban idyll. As long as Shackelton relies on public domain information about Lafferty’s pursuit of his suspect, his descriptions are highly detailed. But when it comes to the story’s essential parts for which Lafferty’s book is the sole source, Shackelton can only sketch the events. He tries to compensate for this lack of heightened suspense and seminal scenes by critically looking at key moments from other prominent true crime features such as Monster: The Jeffery Dahmer Story and The Jinx.
There are the bleak low-saturation images of endless highways and the parking lot where the Lafferty encountered the man he believed to be the Zodiac. There is a close-up of the famous police sketch of the killer. Arbitrary grainy black-and-white footage of US middle class suburbia creates an intentionally conventional idea of what Lafferty’s “all-American childhood” would have been like. Shackleton proceeds to show plain establishing shots of the places where the reenactments would have played out. A police station like the one where Lafferty worked, the suspect’s actual house, a diner where Lafferty met with another author writing his own – and eventually much more successful – Zodiac Killer book. Without actors, all these places seem eerily calm and empty. Shackleton does without the typical talking heads but quips about their frequent appearance in true crime films. Selected scenes that recreate tense moments from the documentary such as the one when Lafferty is told to drop the case, are accompanied by deliberately generic soundtrack.
In its best moments, his inventive examination mocks genre conventions such as talking heads and blatant atmospheric cues such as ominous soundtrack for the purpose of revealing the true crime genre’s generic techniques and stylistic choices. As a thorough critical analysis, these bits are too shallow and feel like distractions from the actual storyline and subject matter. Shackelton never asks any of the dramaturgical and ethical questions that could have connected these critical markers with his own narrative. Also, some of the comments he makes about true crime would need further elaboration. Is a descent into sensationalism really, as he puts it, unavoidable? If it is, why? While the copyright restrictions tear several holes in the true crime plot, they create an interesting, even ironic parallel between Shackelton and Lafferty. Both had their eyes set on a target, both obsessively collected evidence and both were prevented from going forward.
Ultimately, both turned their work into something entirely different. For Lafferty it was a personal account of how he almost caught (at least he thought he did) an infamous serial killer. For Shackelton it is an engaging filmic exorcism of the true crime documentary haunting him. In its best moments, his inventive examination foregoes genre conventions such as talking heads or atmospheric cues such as ominous soundtrack to expose the genre’s base frame. This allows the audience to see through some of the manipulations of true crime content while still enjoying it. Shakelton’s own contribution to this genre may not overcome its conventions and constrains, but it still uses them in a very enjoyable way.
- OT: The Zodiac Killer Project
- Director: Charlie Shackleton
- Screenplay: Charlie Shackleton
- Year: 2025
- Distribution | Production © Catherine Bray, Anthony Ing & Charlie Shackleton
