Zodiac Killer Project

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Duke T All I can say is thank Christ you never got to make the movie if your drab camera work and inane musings are anything to go by. It's all very well attempting to deconstruct the documentary form, but you'd better have something interesting to say in its stead. Other than name checking recognisable tropes this film has the distinct flavour of sour grapes or how am I going to salvage this collapsed project that I spent so much time and money on. The fact that this dud has got a cinema release beggers belief and just underlines the role of wealthy backers. Rated 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 11/29/25 Full Review Scottish G (Transcribed from YouTube Review) The Zodiac Killer Project. Now let's read the, um, the wee blurb here. So this again was part of the Out Of Competition strand. "When plans to make his own true crime film fall through at the last minute, Charlie Shackleton turns the camera back on himself to examine the tropes, seductions, and shock tactics of a problematic yet extremely popular genre. Countless films have been made about the Zodiac Killer, but Shackleton's meta-documentary doubles as a critical tribute to true crime, shining a light on the manipulative morally dubious and often plain ridiculous ways in which these films play or play with our paranoia and voyeurism." I really, really enjoyed this one. It's, uh From my mind, from my memory, it's the first documentary about a failed documentary. There's been quite a good few movies, documentaries made about failed movies. Um, Terry Gilliam's Don Quixote movie is the first one that springs to mind. I am sure there's been others, but this is the first one where I can think of where it's documentary about the failed making of a documentary. Uh, it's essentially Charlie sitting in a recording booth describing how his movie would have looked. Um, so it's kind of like you're watching the director's commentary track to a movie that never actually, never actually got made. Um, if I just jump into my notes here, um, there's a line from the movie that says, "The gravitational pull of true crime." And that, um, that kind of stands out. I suppose that's, that's the main point of this movie because there's so many of these movies and TV shows on, let's face it, on Netflix. Netflix is full of true crime documentaries. It's definitely a It's definitely a popular genre. It's not actually a genre that I'm massively fond of. I've watched a few of them, but I don't, I don't, you know, um, hoover up every single, uh, true crime documentary that's, that's out there. But I have, I have watched a few. Uh, it's a, it's a really clever deconstruction of the modern true crime documentary. Um, it even goes as far as to criticize some of the recent fictionalized versions of them. The Jeffrey Dahmer one, for example. But in the same breath, Charlie criticizes it, but then also says how good it was made. Um, and he's got a point because I think a lot of the backlash for that Jeffrey Dahmer series on Netflix was, you know, it spends 7 episodes showing you in gory detail what he did. But then in the 8th episode, it kind of like says, "You shouldn't glamorize it. You shouldn't even be watching it." But then you're like, "Well, you just made this documentary." Sorry. "You just made this series." And a good series it was. So that was quite interesting. Um, another interesting element of that documentary is Charlie is very much a faceless voice for half of the movie. He just You don't see him until halfway through, and then when you do finally see him, it's quite sparingly used. So editorially like wise, it's quite an interesting technique because he's obviously got a lot to say about this because he spent, you know, months or years of his life trying to get this documentary made and then it never got made, and then he sat in a recording booth and basically, you know, let his brain empty onto the, onto the screen, or onto the mic and he described how his movie would have looked and how it would have played out. So again, a very clever meta deconstruction of modern day true crime documentaries. I did have a sit down interview with Charlie that I'll be editing and uploading within next, the next week or so, so I'll put that in the description below as well. It's, uh Again, this one's about 90 minutes. In fact, it says it there. Hour and 35 minutes. It's a good length. It doesn't feel too long. It was probably one of the ones that I would potentially watch again after the, um, after the festival. I don't know if it's going to be getting released. Um, I think the, the massive irony would be if this does get released on Netflix and it sits alongside all of the documentaries that it essentially, um, has a go at for their kind of, you know, voyeuristic, manipulative, morally dubious and often plain ridiculous ways in which these films play with our paranoia and voyeurism. That was me reading from the blurb on the website, the blurb on the website from Manuela Lazic, Lasic? Apologies if I'm butchering that name. But yeah, that was the, uh, The Zodiac Killer Project directed by Charlie Shackleton. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 11/23/25 Full Review Stephen C Real footage in 1 hour and 32 minutes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 11/21/25 Full Review ang n I thought this movie sounded cool, it was really dumb. I started a film festival and spent the first half of the movie wondering if it would get better in the second half of the movie thinking about walking out. I did leave early. I can like a film about a film that wasn't made (eg., Jodorowsky's Dune) but this was childish and a waste of time. Not really a documentary. Rated 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 10/05/25 Full Review Read all reviews

Zodiac Killer Project

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