‘Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders’ Review: Compelling Documentary Probes the Legacy of William Friedkin’s Infamous Queer Thriller

By examining both the controversy surrounding the production of 'Cruising' and the horrific crime that inspired the film, Jeffrey Schwarz's doc captures a poignant tipping point in pre-AIDS queer culture.

By Guy Lodge

Guy Lodge

Film Critic

Latest

• ‘Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders’ Review: Compelling Documentary Probes the Legacy of William Friedkin’s Infamous Queer Thriller 20 minutes ago
• ‘Rain Reign’ Review: A Neurodivergent Girl Learns About Loss and Sacrifice in a Gentle, Family-Oriented Indie 4 hours ago
• ‘Carolina Caroline’ Review: Classic Lovers-on-the-Run Thriller Shows Why Samara Weaving and Kyle Gallner Should Be Bigger Stars 1 day ago

The legacy of William Friedkin’s 1980 erotic thriller “Cruising” is a complex one. A film long vehemently denounced by the queer community it purported to represent, and more recently reclaimed as a rare mainstream portrait of a vanished social scene, it is many things to many people — and in disentangling its onscreen achievements and errors in judgment from its heated production history, “Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders” already has a lot to do. But Jeffrey Schwarz’s engaging, impassioned documentary takes on plenty else besides, delving not just into the film but the climate of 1970s LGBTQ liberation, persecution and panic that enabled it, as well the horrific real-life murders that specifically inspired Friedkin’s script.

Related Stories

Russell Crowe Warns Crowd of Autograph-Seekers in Paris Not to Push: 'As Soon as Somebody's a D--k, I'm Going'