Charlie Shackleton was hot on the trail of the next great true crime documentary — a riveting account of a highway patrolman’s quixotic effort to identify and capture the infamous Zodiac Killer. He devised a plan, began collecting interviews, and shot B-roll footage of where the killer may have once lurked.
And then the project fell apart, leaving the filmmaker with fragments of the unfinished movie and time to ruminate on shortcuts and signifiers of the ubiquitous genre.
Shackleton turned it into Zodiac Killer Project, and you can watch the trailer below.
A deep dive into our obsession with serial killers and the stories we tell about them, the unique documentary emerges from the ash heap to probe and deconstruct the form with the incisive eye of a true crime connoisseur.
Music Box Films will release the doc in New York City on November 21, San Francisco on November 28, and Chicago and Glendale, CA, on December 5, with additional locations to follow.
Zodiac Killer Project premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, where it won the NEXT Innovator Award. Juror Elijah Wood commented, “There is no film like it.”