The Film That Doesn't Exist

I caught a rather thought-provoking documentary recently (as good documentaries generally are): Zodiac Killer Project. It's the work of filmmaker Charlie Shackleton, who narrates himself (sometimes appearing on screen) to tell the story of a film that never came to be.

The Zodiac Killer is arguably America's most notorious serial murderer, and the fact that his identity was never confirmed has only fueled interest and speculation. Countless books have been written about his crimes and his possible identity, some recently, many more contemporaneous to the murders themselves. One such book was by a California police officer, Lyndon E. Lafferty, who had his own theory of the killer's true identity -- and a somewhat fanciful tale to go along with it.

Charlie Shackleton was this close to securing the rights to make a film based on that book, The Zodiac Killer Cover-Up: The Silenced Badge. He was deep through all the pre-production planning, head swimming with the footage he'd collect, when the bottom suddenly dropped out. The rights holders refused to sign the contract, Shackleton lost access to the book, and his entire film collapsed. So instead, he made a movie talking you through the movie he would have made.

The result feels to me like the cinematic equivalent a young child licking their palm and holding it half an inch from their sibling's face as they taunt, "what, I'm not touching you!" A more highbrow way of expressing that sentiment might be to say that, having been denied the opportunity to make a serial killer documentary, Charlie Shackleton chose instead to burn the whole format down.

With relentless precision, Shackleton talks you through all the metaphorical boxes he was going to tick in his abandoned film. There would have been a shot like this, because these movies always have shots like this. The credits were going to have this kind of dark and suggestive footage, as they do. There would have been this kind of music, because of course there would. His narration is a wistful dichotomy: showing you how deeply he'd thought about the genre and the movie he wanted to make, while perhaps unaware of how cliche and uninventive a movie it would have been.

In a way, it's very clever. I'll certainly never be able to watch a crime documentary the same way. This is the sort of thing magicians fear should their secrets ever be revealed: once you know exactly how the trick is done, the amazement evaporates. I think this is what Shackleton is going for: holding up the mirror to the audience as if to demand, "Why do you even like this stuff? It's so formulaic!"

But I also found that to some extent, the movie might have been too clever for its own good. Is Shackleton holding up that mirror to us because he isn't quite willing to look in it himself? The only regret I sense in his narration is that he didn't actually get to make his movie. That's a totally reasonable reaction from an artist who poured his time and effort into something that will never be seen by anyone. But while he's "made lemons out of lemonade" with a meta film that basically asks why we like this garbage, he never seems to ask himself "why did I want to make this garbage?" I feel like the grade A version of this documentary would have demanded not only of the audience, "are you not entertained?" but would have explored a bit more why he himself was complicit.

Still, I do love a good peek behind the curtain of how things get made. And, evidently, how things don't get made. The Zodiac Killer Project may not have been that grade A experience I imagine it could have been, but I thought it was worth the time. I give it a B+. If it sounds interesting to you at all, I think it won't disappoint you.