Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders — Tribeca Review

If ever there was a movie deserving of a companion documentary, it is Cruising, William Friedkin’s 1980 queer crime thriller. The film was steeped in controversy upon its release but is now widely revered as a classic. It was also partially inspired by the murder of Addison Verrill, blurring the line between fiction and real-life tragedy. What’s even more fascinating, however, is that Verrill was a film reporter for Variety who had written about Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973), and the man who murdered him, Paul Bateson, had appeared in that very film. This astonishing chain of associations only deepens the intrigue surrounding Cruising and its origins.