Chicago Underground Film Festival and Filmmakers Summit 2008

In 1970's Santa Cruz, California, the hills came alive with exiles from San Francisco's 'Summer of Love;' at the same time, the area was plagued by a series of brutal murders. 'Murder Capital' presents portraits in miniature of three of these killers against the backdrop of the landscape they emerged from. In place of investigative conclusions or sordid recreations of violence offered by the true-crime books and television shows that nevertheless serve as points of reference, the film presents non-sensationalized bodies masked in film grain and murky forest light, a prosaic evocation of place, and a muddy sense of 'then' and 'now.'