After a long shift, a man, enjoying a break in his car at a secluded lookout, notices someone pulling over next to him. With headlights flooding his rearview, the man squints, making out the outline of a face with two unnervingly familiar eyes magnified behind thick-rimmed glasses. With a shiver sent down his spine and sweat rolling past his temple, the man acts on his impulse to escape. Driving down the empty highway, seemingly safe from harm, the man reaches for a pack of cigarettes lying scattered among the clutter on his passenger seat. A file falls to the floor, causing a tornado of photographs. Lighting his cigarette, he catches sight of a police sketch that revealed itself through the chaos. The car slams to a halt as the man realises where he has seen that face before. 

The opening scene of Zodiac Killer Project could have easily been the start of any of the hundreds of sensationalist true-crime documentaries that have saturated pop culture in the past decade. It’s this same intrigue and familiarity of true-crime that is at the core of Charlie Shackleton’s (Paint Drying) sixth feature film Zodiac Killer Project. Framed as a video essay detailing an abandoned Zodiac film project, Shackleton uses personal experience to craft a documentary condemning the exploitation of victims. Told through voice-over, archival footage, and tactful recreations, Zodiac Killer Project exists as a deconstruction of the homogenised nature of true-crime media and an effective criticism surrounding the lack of ethics within the meteoric rise of the blood-soaked genre.  - Vincenzo Nappi