Zodiac Killer Project

When British director/narrator/editor Charlie Shackleton ("The Afterlight"), a true crime aficionado, fell upon the out of print book 'The Zodiac Killer Cover-Up: The Silenced Badge' written by former California Highway Patrol officer Lyndon E. Lafferty, he was thrilled with the discovery, finding it very cinematic. As Lafferty died in 2016, Shackleton worked with the man's family to get the rights, but with the film already assembled in his head and lots of Bay Area shooting haven taken place, the filmmaker was devastated to learn the family had changed their minds. After taking a breather, Shackleton instead revived the film with a different perspective, discussing what he'd planned to do as an analysis of true crime tropes in "Zodiac Killer Project."

Laura's Review: B

A must see for any fans of the true crime genre, "Zodiac Killer Project" is destined to make you laugh, think and perhaps be taken aback by the lack of ethics often employed in a documentary subgenre which has hit peak popularity of late. It is somewhat disturbing to witness Shackleton laughing at some of the techniques he himself admitted he was going to use, from implying a creepy looking house was Lafferty's suspect's because the real one wasn't 'spooky enough' to recognizing that Lafferty's suspect, George Russell Tucker, was not the Zodiac killer (he later hedges with a 'maybe').

The film begins with a shot of the rest stop where Lafferty had parked in his cruiser back in 1971 as Shackleton tells us he would have hired an actor to sit in a period police car, creating drama as another car pulls in beside it, Lafferty noting its occupant staring at him and seeing 'murder in his eyes.' We would have seen close-ups of each pair of eyes crosscut, followed by Lafferty's POV driving down a Vallejo highway, pulling over to collect himself, then lowering his visor, revealing a composite sketch of the Zodiac killer looking remarkably like the man the policeman had just encountered. Shackleton is building drama and tension for an audience before diving into a title credit sequence.

Shackleton has some fun here, describing common elements of true crime title sequences like out of focus overlays; menacing 'backsters,' or actors shot from the back walking away and small type running across the screen, backing everything up by tiling screens across his frame showing us the amazing similarities of several recent docs like 'I'll Be Gone in the Dark,' 'The Jinx' and 'The Making of a Murderer', convincing us that there really is a formula. Establishment of place results in more almost laughable similarity, a killer's hunting grounds frequently referred to as ordinary places with a 'dark side' accompanied by stock footage of children playing outside.

Now he's ready to jump into Lafferty's investigation, the cop having taken down the license plate number of the car with his suspect, tracing it to George Russell Tucker, the man's three names already branding him a serial killer (Shackleton explains that the media began this trend, so as not to cause confusion with others having the same first and last names). After stating that he intends to use Lafferty's 'home' (not really) to illustrate his investigation, Shackleton defines 'evocative B-roll' here, shots of such things as files being laid out on a table, pin maps, cigarettes perched on ashtrays and shell casings dropping to the ground. He laughs as he wonders why interrogation lamps are almost always shown swinging. Composer Jeremy Warmsley highlights each cutaway shown with a high pitched 'boing.' As Lafferty heads to the police station to file a report, we learn that the 'station' we are looking at is actually a library.

Shackleton frequently demurs on some of the more interesting parts of his story, a legal dodge when his only source is the book he failed to get rights to, so we only learn that Lafferty believes there was a conspiracy to shut down his investigation as we peer down an institutional hallway.  The policeman strikes out on his own, forming an elaborate plot using a decoy to gain Tucker's trust at his AA meetings to obtain a palm print using a fishbowl, something the filmmaker intended to shoot exaggeratedly and in slo-motion. Lafferty didn't succeed, his subject smearing his hands around the bowl, something that Shackleton would imply was deliberate before pointing out techniques used in 'Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills' to make an innocent man look guilty

Like the writer/director of a fiction film, Shackleton searches for a way to end his tale and finds one, adding drama where there really doesn't appear to be any, other than a few melodramatic sentences in Lafferty's book. He takes Ryan Murphy's recent 'Dahmer' Netflix series to task, observing that it spent its first nine episodes reveling in gruesome murder before expressing sorrow for the victims in its tenth, using, as so many true crime docs do, a black and white photo grid of those killed, something he admits he would have done himself, a filmmaker complicit in techniques he's been calling out.

"Zodiac Death Killer" is entertaining, illuminating and troubling. You'll never watch a true crime documentary the same way again.

Music Box Films released "Zodiac Killer Project" in NY on 11/21/25, expanding in subsequent weeks. Click here for theaters and play dates.