Ther director raises the vital question: “why can’t we let the past be the past?”. This interrogation resonates both in pop culture and on a personal level, in relation to a project that went from one failure to 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 unidentified Zodiac Killer, often described as “the most famous unsolved murder case in American history”. Its screen adaption would have been Shackelton’s own addition to the ever expanding true crime genre. But in the last moment – Shackleton admits he still can’t quite understand why – Lafferty’s family pulled out.

This last minute withdrawal left him with a finished script and lots of research material on both the author and his near-mythical subject. He even scouted locations for reenactments. Instead of shelving the project altogether or turning to another source, Shackelton made a documentary about the documentary that never was. By combining reflection and exposition, he creates a cinematic essay that dissects an oversaturated genre. What could have easily turned into a sterile substitute for the real thing, or bitter grudging, instead develops into something entirely original, a discussion on the mechanics of true crime content.

Shackleton examines the genre’s style, structure, tropes and scenarios. The images switch forth and back between shots of the director recording his own voiceover, and cinematic visualisations 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 is very entertaining, plus it cleverly reminds viewers the film that was never meant to be. Zodiac Killer Project exemplifies and exercises true crime conventions.

The description of the events is very detailed when the information available on public domain. But when it comes to the story’s essential parts for which Lafferty’s book is the sole source, Shackelton’s film becomes a little sketchy. He tries to compensate for this lack of heightened suspense and seminal scenes by shifting the focus to television series Monster: The Jeffry Dahmer Story and The Jinx. At times, these diversions feel like unnecessary distractions. Shackelton does connect these works in any meaningful way, nor does he ask any crucial ethical questions. Some of the points made are relevant, however they require further elaboration. For example: is it possible to avoid sensationalism?

Sombre titles set the mood and point to the central aspects of the story: murder, mystery and investigation. Location shots provide a sense of time and place, and the feeling of something sinister is lurking underneath the deceitful idyll. Bleak, low-saturation images of endless highways and the parking lot where Lafferty encountered the alleged Zodiac Killer add a touch of eeriness to the proceedings. Grainy, black-and-white footage of middle-class suburbia give viewers an idea of what Lafferty’s all-American childhood.

Shackleton shows us show 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 strangely calm. Shackleton does not use conventional talking heads, while quipping about their frequent appearance in true crime films.

While book copyright restrictions tear several holes into the plot, they create an interesting parallel between Shackelton and Lafferty. Both men had their eyes set on a target, both obsessively collected evidence and both failed to reach their goal. For Shackleton, Zodiac Killer Project is an exorcism of the true crime documentary haunting him. A very enjoyable movie.

Zodiac Killer Project premiered at CPH:DOX.