Dir. Clive Christopher (2024)
A town investigates a murder mystery in the hopes of preventing more killings.
True crime is all the rage, with dozens of immensely popular podcasts and YouTube channels raking in millions of views a month for their discussion of real-life cases of murder and mayhem. Writer/director Clive Christopher brings us a mockumentary revolving around a mass killing with one survivor, a school teacher named Angel Adams who, we quickly learn, was living quite the double life. Who Killed Angel Adams is a faux documentary involving sex, murder, and investigation, a search for a killer that may already be dead while commenting on a lot of the world of true crime that some people have decided to dedicate their lives to exploring.
It's an odd film, filled with stock footage and some interview footage that explores the case of Angel and the bodies left in her wake. It's almost like something that you'd see on A&E or similar networks, with dramatic recreations and interviews with shady people in the darkness to preserve anonymity. The crime at the center of the film is horrific, ten bodies with various degrees of mortal injuries and no clear indication of who was responsible for the murders. The unsolved case is intriguing, but that is where the film begins to fall apart as well. There's no crime scene photos, no exploration of what could have been dark and disturbing, and the film largely becomes almost an hour and a half of just talking.
Unfortunately, while the film's production values make sense for the type of movie the filmmaker was trying to make, there's no real story here. Despite being called Who Killed Angel Adams?, there's zero indication that Angel is even dead until the last thirty seconds of the film. She's the "sole survivor" of the massacre in the story, but she's disappeared, and its left to on-screen text to tell the audience that Angel's death is now also a mystery. Perhaps a different title could have lead to a different expectation, but as it stands, it feels like a half-story, as if there's another half hour missing at the end that either adds to the mystery or wraps up the story altogether.
Christopher makes a film here that knows what it wants to be but can't seem to go all the way there. It's a great sendup of stereotypical true crime docs, but it's trying too hard to be Lake Mungo without containing any of the emotionally haunting punch that that film is able to deliver. It's difficult to say that I'd give the film a failing grade, because what's there is a decent enough watch. No, Who Killed Angel Adams? gets an incomplete instead, telling half of a good story while never fully fleshing out its central idea. It's well-done indie mockumentary, though the stock footage does make it all feel a little forced at times. Unfortunately, there's just not enough here to make it one to recommend.
Who this movie is for: Mockumentary fans, True crime aficionados, Amateur photographers
Bottom line: Who Killed Angel Adams? is an indie mockumentary that does a great job of creating a believable case but struggles at times to find a resolution. It's a story about an unsolved crime, and while that has the potential to create a watchable and enthralling mystery, there aren't enough details here to make the audience care enough to make it worthwhile. It's decent for what it is, but it feels like a film built off of a singular idea with no resolution in sight.
