My hope going into the four-part Netflix true crime documentary series “American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders” was that the filmmakers would shed some light on an incredibly tangled and wide-ranging mystery, and maybe even provide some definitive answers — but when we reached the end of the rabbit hole, I felt as if there were more questions than ever before, and the light had dimmed even further.
Alas, that does NOT make for an entertaining and informative viewing experience. “Frustration” is the word that leaps to mind.
Directed by Zachary Treitz and produced by Duplass Brothers Productions with Stardust Frames (“Wild, Wild Country”), the series is an odd mix of solid and intriguing storytelling with a deep dive into the world of conspiracy theorists — but it never finds solid footing. Is it an investigative piece about the death of a journalist who was obsessed with uncovering what he believed to be a world-shattering conspiracy at the highest levels of the U.S. government? Or is it a study of individuals who got so caught up chasing down the alleged conspiracy that it ruined their lives? It’s a little bit of both, but not enough of either.
Let’s go through the looking glass. Episode 1 takes us back some 30+ years, when writer-reporter Danny Casolaro was obsessed with a dispute between the Department of Justice and a tech company called INSLAW, which had developed a criminal tracking software program known as PROMIS. Casolaro had become convinced the government stole the program from INSLAW, had sold it to a number of foreign countries, and was using a secret “trap door” entry point that would allow the United States to spy on adversaries as well as allies.
In August of 1991, he traveled to Martinsburg, West Virginia, to meet with a source he believed would provide key evidence to back up his theory — but days later Casolaro was found dead in his hotel room with his wrists slit multiple times. Authorities ruled it a suicide. Many of Danny’s relatives and associates were convinced it was murder — that Danny had gotten too close to uncovering a vast conspiracy led by eight of the most powerful men in America, a group he dubbed “The Octopus.”
Fast forward years later, and we meet photojournalist Christian Hansen, who has decided to pick up where Casolaro left off and search for the truth behind the so-called Octopus conspiracy. “I realized I should finish the book Danny was writing,” says Hansen, who eventually becomes as consumed with the case as Casolaro was back in the 1990s.
We follow director Treitz and Hansen as they cast a wide net and follow leads that take them across the country in pursuit of proof that certain shadowy government agencies were using ill-gotten monies to fund covert operations. Along the way, a number of characters straight out of spy movie are introduced to the mix, including Michael Riconosciuto, a chemistry, laser physics and computer software savant who was Casolaro’s entry into the world of the Octopus; John Philip Nichols, a shadowy operative who at one point took up residence at the Cabazon reservation in Indio, California., where he held weapons demonstrations for a group of nefarious figures, and Philip Arthur Thompson, an FBI informant and hardcore criminal.
At one point, a journalist tells of meeting with an alleged operative within the Octopus ranks who shows her a version of the Zapruder film that the operative claimed was the REAL deal, unlike the one everyone else has seen.
There’s no denying that some of the incidents and unsolved crimes chronicled here are of a deeply suspicious nature, and it’s hardly beyond the realm of possibility that the government would be involved in some shady dealings (hello, Iran-Contra affair), but we’re also reminded that Casolaro had allowed himself to be swallowed up by his obsession, to the point where friends and family pleaded with him to talk about anything else, to let it go, to just … stop.
It doesn’t help the series when Christian Hansen, the journalist who picked up the investigation, is actually enlisted to portray Casolaro in the dramatic re-creations of events from the 1990s. It’s a bizarre choice.
Just when it seems as if Hansen is losing touch with reality and will be swallowed in the shadows, of truths, half-truths, myths and allegations, he decides to pull back for the sake of his own sanity. Cheri Seymour, an investigative journalist who spent considerable time pursuing various leads connected to the Octopus Murders theory, made the same choice, saying, “Are you going to go back to your normal, boring life ... and enjoy small things like movies or barbecues, instead of phone calls from the netherworld? Are you going to deprogram yourself, and go back to being a normal person again?”
In the case of Danny Casolaro, it’s clear that even before he met his tragic fate in that hotel room, he had become deeply, disturbingly entangled by the tentacles of the Octopus, whether real or imagined.
