What is the Zodiac Killer Project about? Details about the documentary film explored
The documentary Zodiac Killer Project was released at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival on Monday, January 27, 2025. The documentary will be available for streaming on the Sundance Film Festival Player from January 30, 2025. British filmmaker Charlie Shackleton has directed the Zodiac Killer Project. The documentary is produced by Catherine Bray, Anthony Ing, and Charlie Shackleton, with Charlotte Cook serving as the executive producer.
The Zodiac Killer Project follows the Zodiac Killer, one of the most infamous serial killers who operated in San Francisco's Bay Area in the 1960s. While the exact number of his victims is unclear, it is confirmed that he has killed at least five people. However, the killer is still unidentified. Despite extensive investigations, the case remains unsolved and has puzzled authorities and amateur sleuths alike.
Initially, the documentary aimed to adapt Lyndon E. Lafferty’s book The Zodiac Killer Cover-Up: The Silenced Badge into a film. However, after Lafferty's family refused to release the rights for the adaptation, the documentary's focus shifted. The documentary is a more personal approach, with the director's monologue.
The Zodiac Killer Project is an official selection for the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. The official synopsis of the film reads:
"Shackleton intends to revisit the abandoned Zodiac Killer documentary that would have woven these environments into a cohesive whole, and probes the inner workings of a genre at saturation point.”
Read more: 5 chilling details about the Zodiac Killer
Zodiac Killer Project: Mixed reactions and the book adaptation issue
Zodiac Killer Project has garnered mixed reactions, with many critics expressing disappointment over its failure to provide new insights into the case. According to a review in The Guardian, the documentary revisits well-worn tropes of other true crime series and leaves some viewers frustrated by the lack of fresh perspectives.
The publication noted that the director initially believed that he had the go-ahead from Lafferty's family to adapt his book The Zodiac Killer Cover-Up: The Silenced Badge. However, after extensive planning for the documentary, he was informed that Lafferty’s family would not release the rights to the book.
The director was thus left with a documentary without its central source material. He then turned the project into a monologue about true crime rather than a focused exploration of the Zodiac case.
Lyndon E Lafferty was a former California highway patrol officer who passed away in 2016. It is worth noting that Lafferty was convinced he knew the identity of the Zodiac Killer and had a theory based on a chance encounter with a suspicious man in a car. The late highway patrol officer believed the man in the car was the Zodiac Killer because he resembled a police sketch of the killer.
This theory was the basis for his book, The Zodiac Killer Cover-Up: The Silenced Badge, which was set to be what the documentary was supposed to be adapted from.
Read more: Fact check: Was the Zodiac killer ever caught? Insights revealed
However, without the rights to Lafferty’s story, the Zodiac Killer Project became an exploration of the true-crime genre itself. In it, Shackleton presents a series of already publicly available details.
A review by the Collider noted that the refusal to grant adaptation rights resulted in a film that places Shackleton at the center rather than the case itself. This led to a documentary that many believe could have been far more compelling.
Who is Zodiac Killer, the subject of the Zodiac Killer Project documentary?
The Zodiac Killer remains one of the most infamous unidentified serial killers in US crime history who is confirmed to have killed at least five people. He operated in Benicia, Vallejo, unincorporated Napa County, and San Francisco in the 1960s and was the subject of multiple investigations and documentaries.
Eyewitnesses at one of the murder scenes, at Presidio Heights, were able to give police a description that helped them make a composite sketch of the killer. Despite several efforts to identify the killer, the case remains unresolved, and his motive is still unclear.
The killer also sent cryptic and taunting letters to law enforcement and media houses, claiming to have killed 37 victims. The letters sent between 1969 to 1974 kept the case in the public eye for decades. The San Francisco Police Department officially marked the case inactive in 2004 but reopened it around 2007.
As of today, the case is open with the California Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and local authorities in Vallejo, Napa, and Solano counties. All the departments are continuing to investigate the unsolved crimes.
Zodiac Killer Project has been selected as an official entry for the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. It will be streaming on the Sundance Film Festival Player from January 30, 2025, with a ticket required for online access.
To watch the Zodiac Killer Project, viewers will have to open the Sundance Film Festival Player app on their TV and log in to their account. The documentary will be accessible to the public from January 30 to February 2. Accredited press and industry professionals can view it from January 29 to February 2.
