Jeffrey Schwarz’s “Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders” traces the real-life 1977 killing that fueled William Friedkin’s controversial 1980 queer thriller “Cruising,” weaving together archival material, testimonies, and the political firestorm that followed the fi
A blade in flesh. Anal penetration. The cold shock of “Cruising” arrives before anyone can settle into comfort—then the documentary “Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders” keeps digging, refusing to treat the 1980 gay leather-bar thriller as a closed case.
Set against the world that “Cruising” emerged from—post-Stonewall West Village. Manhattan’s S&M demimonde. and a society already on edge—“Mineshaft” returns viewers to the moment the movie wasn’t just criticized. but fought over. William Friedkin’s film. starring Al Pacino as a hardened New York City vice cop assigned to infiltrate that underground. was decried by the LGBT community even in pre-production. A mole on set allegedly leaked a copy of the screenplay to passionate advocates, including Village Voice columnist Arthur Bell. And when production hit summer 1979. the trouble didn’t stay in paperwork: swarms of protesters regularly interrupted filming on location in Manhattan.
What makes Schwarz’s new documentary sting isn’t only that “Cruising” remains legibly anti-gay in its depiction. It’s the way “Mineshaft” brings the movie’s origin story right up against the consequences that were happening in real time.
Jeffrey Schwarz—director. producer. and editor—has built a reputation for queer film literacy through documentaries like “I Am Divine” (about John Waters’ transgressive muse) and “Tab Hunter Confidential” (about the closeted matinee idol). In “Mineshaft. ” he structures the story with a chorus of gay men as talking heads. including pundit Dan Savage and New York bon vivant and critic Michael Musto. offering close readings of “Cruising” that stay intimate rather than academic.
The documentary’s emotional center is the 1977 murder of Variety critic Addison Verrill—an event that strongly inspired Friedkin to write and direct his gritty distortion of queer New York life on the cusp of AIDS. Verrill’s former partner. entertainment lawyer Bob Geary. appears to share testimony about their relationship: one fraught with promiscuity and Verrill’s taste for the BDSM leather life. Geary also reflects on the killing itself.
The murder connects to “Cruising” in a way that feels almost too specific to ignore. Addison was murdered after bringing home a man named Paul Bateson. Bateson. astonishingly. turns out to have been a day player on Friedkin’s “The Exorcist” as an NYU Medical Center technician. (Bateson had once been actually employed there but was fired for drinking on the job.) Schwarz doesn’t treat that overlap as a neat coincidence. Friedkin’s archival voiceover includes the detail that he visited Bateson in prison. where the convict simply asked how “The Exorcist” did at the box office—an exchange that lands like gallows humor when you place it next to what came before and after.
The documentary adds another layer of dread by pointing to a spate of unsolved murders that influenced Friedkin too. Unidentified corpses and torsos of at least six men had washed up on the Hudson River.
To fill out that context. “Mineshaft” uses vivid archival footage and includes words from gay activist Vito Russo—himself the subject of another Schwarz-directed film—who died from AIDS complications in 1990. Even as “Cruising” opened just before AIDS became a full-blown local panic. the melancholy to come hangs over “Mineshaft” frame by frame. Schwarz pulls the story forward into the present day with testimony from Addison Verrill’s sister. then reveals what happened to Bateson after his prison term.
The movie’s conflict with the community isn’t left in the past either. Schwarz interviews some of the extras who were part of the actual leather scene that Friedkin—along with Pacino’s Detective Steve Burns—attempted to infiltrate with the detached posture of an anthropologist. In those leather bar scenes, alcohol and drugs were served, and actual sex was seemingly encouraged. “Mineshaft” recalls a scene of actual fisting that’s strategically photographed by DP James Contner in one of the film’s most hypersexualized sequences.
Even the production details arrive like sparks. Schwarz includes references to casting calls for leather-clad extras in “Cruising. ” and to news of protests forming outside the film’s headquarters that could “spread like crabs in July.” The documentary captures how “Cruising” was built in the middle of a fight—then released into a culture already bracing for the catastrophe AIDS would soon make unavoidable.
For all its rigor, “Mineshaft” has a dark, sharply recognizable sense of humor. It returns to moments like a snippet of risible. guffaw-worthy dialogue—“How big are you?” “Party size. ” Pacino replies—that shows how the film’s grotesque vision can also be ridiculous. Schwarz’s affection and knowledge of the community show on warm display. even while select heads deliver a clear-eyed look at how offensive “Cruising” remains and why it still stays intriguingly “freshly” controversial.
At just under 90 minutes, the documentary moves with economy rather than the sprawling sprawl that has become typical of Netflix true-crime series—multiple bloated, overlong episodes when the material could have been condensed into something closer to a 30-minute short.
And in the end. that’s what “Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders” most powerfully does: it presses viewers to look back at “Cruising” with fresh eyes. without asking them to excuse what the film gets wrong. Friedkin died in 2023, and he didn’t live to see this documentary. Still. “Mineshaft” feels like an overdue reckoning for anyone trying to understand how “Cruising” could be both a deeply troubling portrayal—and. for some queer cinephiles. a subversive cult artifact.
Grade: A-
“Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders” premiered at the 2026 Tribeca Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.
Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders Jeffrey Schwarz Cruising William Friedkin Al Pacino Addison Verrill Bob Geary Paul Bateson Vito Russo Tribeca Festival queer documentary review