The true-crime genre crawled out of its body bag way back in 1959 when Truman Capote published “In Cold Blood.” The book delivers a vivid account of the Clutter family murders in Holcomb, Kansas, the apprehension and trial of Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, and the murderers’ execution. It was Capote’s great triumph, but it also marked a downturn in his life. Capote’s legacy has been haunted by the idea that his subsequent descent into infamy and alcoholism was a curse he brought on himself when he manipulated the tragedy, the killers’ guilt and the victims’ pain to create a better story for his intended masterpiece.
In his documentary “Zodiac Killer Project,” filmmaker Charlie Shackleton recounts the serial killer film he intended to make when Lafferty refused him the rights to California Highway Patrol officer Lyndon E. Lafferty’s 2012 book “The Zodiac Killer Cover-Up: The Silenced Badge.” Along the way, Shackleton deconstructs the tropes and the traps of the genre across film, podcasts, and TV, and uncovers questions Capote himself may have asked about balancing evidence and entertainment, sensitivity and sensationalism when telling true stories about criminal tragedies.
The Zodiac Killer terrorized Northern California in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the well-informed cinephiles who read Moving Pictures will know that David Fincher’s “Zodiac” (2007) is one of the best movies of the century. In the years since “In Cold Blood” and “Zodiac,” crime documentaries have come to dominate wide swaths of the podcast landscape and a whole chunk of bandwidth in true-crime storytelling on TV and in movie theaters.
Shackleton set out to adapt retired officer Lafferty’s book detailing the highway patrolman’s decades-long obsession with a suspect he believed to be the Zodiac Killer. Lafferty’s conviction began with a confrontation at a rest area with a man who resembled a police sketch of the Zodiac Killer. Lafferty had no other evidence, and he was ordered by superiors to stand down. Instead, he went rogue, conducting his own investigation, invading the man’s private life, and creating elaborate schemes to capture a print of the palm of the suspect’s hand.
Shackleton comments throughout the film, his voice floating over images of empty spaces where his actors might have performed a reenactment as well as footage from other murder documentaries. He explains that he approached the project with skepticism about true-crime filmmaking, and that skepticism makes his observations entertaining and not pedantic. He chuckles more than once at the audacity of Lafferty’s methods, but correctly points out that if he actually captured the serial killer, no tactic would be criticized. He smartly compares Lafferty’s methods to documentarians who regularly go to extremes to dramatize their stories in ways that can seem less than ethical – unless they’re huge hits. Shackleton’s film is at its best when he walks viewers through his unrealized vision while simultaneously critiquing it.
“Zodiac Killer Project” is currently available to rent on multiple digital platforms including YouTube and Amazon Prime, and the good folks at Music Box Films just released the documentary on Blu-ray disc last week. The picture and sound are very good, and the disc’s bonus features include a Q&A with Shackleton filmed at the movie’s Chicago premiere and a short film Shackleton made as a camera test for the feature that never was. “Zodiac Killer Project” reminds viewers of watching a movie and listening to a director commentary track, so this Blu-ray includes an audio track without Shackleton’s narration for viewers who want to experience the visuals alone. I think he’d chuckle about that too.
Joe Nolan is a critic, columnist and performing singer/songwriter based in East Nashville. Find out more about his projects at www.joenolan.com.