3 New (Serial) Killer Documentaries Streaming Summer 2023

I don’t know what’s happening, but ever since summer hit, so has news about new serial killer documentaries. Specifically, Myth of the Zodiac Killer, Sharksploitation, and Psycho: The Lost Tapes of Ed Gein.

Let’s dive in and get our feet wet exploring these original documentaries. Just be sure to watch your toes, your back, and even your skin in general…

Summer 2023’s Serial Killer Documentaries

Myth of the Zodiac Killer

Premieres on Peacock on July 11

To this day, the so-called Zodiac Killer’s identity remains a mystery. The case has been “kept warm,” as USA Today so perfectly put it, by a public still fascinated with his crimes. In large part, his seemingly uncrackable messages played a big part in the interest, as does his hidden identity. As USA Today also reported, “a whole cottage industry has been birthed out of unearthing it.”

But was the Zodiac Killer even real? Or a myth? That’s what this two-part Peacock Original docuseries will explore. Here’s the synopsis from Peacock:

The identity of the serial killer known as ‘The Zodiac’ has been confounding investigators for nearly fifty years, but an unlikely and unconventional theorist may have finally shed light to America’s most famous cold case by asking a question that no one else has ever dared ask: what if the reason the Zodiac has never been caught…is because he never existed in the first place?

Sharksploitation

Premieres on Shudder on July 21

Some might argue the shark that inspired the movie Jaws doesn’t count as a serial killer. I beg to differ. The animal kingdom has produced beasts that have preyed on humans, just like human serial killers.

The Jersey Shore Shark attacks of 1916 didn’t result in an astounding number of fatalities. (Thankfully.) But four of the five victims didn’t survive. (Unlike in the cases of a tiger, a leopard, and a crocodile, in that order, each of whose victims numbered in the hundreds.)

But that single shark attack is often credited with inspiring Peter Benchley to write Jaws. Although, History vs. Hollywood disputes that. It was actually inspired by a fisherman named Frank Mundus, as they quoted Benchley explaining:

…in 1964, I read an item in a newspaper about a fisherman who harpooned a 4,500-pound great white shark off Long Island. I remember thinking at the time, Lord! What would happen if one of those monsters came into a resort community and wouldn’t go away?

Well, we all know what happened. Or, as Bloody Disgusting put it, “In the wake of blockbuster classic Jaws, a new subgenre was born.”

The Shudder Original documentary, Sharksploitation, “explores the weird, wild cinematic legacy of sharks on film and the world’s undying fascination.”

Psycho: The Lost Tapes of Ed Gein

Premiers on MGM+ on September 17

The last entry makes it on our list of serial killer documentaries for summer 2023 by the skin of its teeth. (A pun I couldn’t resist making.)

Grave robber and serial killer Ed Gein was also known by other colorful monikers like “The Plainfield Ghoul” and “The Mad Butcher.” His crimes inspired iconic films like Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and The Silence of the Lambs. He’s also been the subject of other documentaries, like the Shocks Docs Ed Gein: The Real Psycho.

So what angle will the four-part MGM+ original docuseries examine? Here’s the description from MGM+:

For years, filmmakers, journalists, and scholars have tried to unravel the mind of this notorious killer, and with new reveals and never-before-heard recordings, viewers will be transported to late-1950s Middle America and submerged in Gein’s perverse mind. The series explores Gein’s upbringing and twisted relationship with his mother (which famously inspired Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho), his early grave robbing, the murders leading up to his arrest, and the police’s discovery of his terrifying house of horrors—all accompanied by the brand-new revelations revealed in the recordings.

This post was updated on July 13, 2023, to fix the premiere date of Sharksploitation from July 11 to July 21.

Check-In

Which of these serial killer documentaries are you most looking forward to? (And, yes. “All” is a perfectly acceptable answer.)