'Murder in Glitterball City' Review: The 'RuPaul's Drag Race' Team Delivers a Masterclass in True Crime Storytelling

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Promotional image for Murder in Glitterball City has a mirrorball cracked open to reveal a picture of the exterior of the murder house.

Published Feb 19, 2026, 12:00 PM EST

Lloyd 'Happy Trails' Farley: the man, the myth, the legend. What can be said about this amazing - and humble - man that hasn't been said before? Or, more accurately, what can be said in public? Born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, Lloyd is a master of puns and a humorist, who has authored one pun book to date - Pun and Grimeish Mint - and is working on a second. His time with Collider has allowed Lloyd's passion for writing to explode, with nearly 1,000 articles to his name that have been published on the site, with his favorite articles being the ones that allow for his sense of humor to shine. Lloyd also holds fast to the belief that all of life's problems can be answered by The Simpsons, Star Wars, and/or The Lion King. You can read more about Lloyd on his website, or follow his Facebook page and join the Llama Llegion. Happy trails!

World of Wonder Productions and its founders, filmmakers Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey, are perhaps best known for their collaboration with the multi-talented RuPaul Andre Charles, the phenomenon that is RuPaul's Drag Race. But the Emmy Award-winning company, and the creative duo that leads it, have excelled in music production, podcasts, television programming, and documentary films, largely with an LGBTQ+ focus. That famously includes 2000's The Eyes of Tammy Faye, the documentary about disgraced televangelist turned gay icon Tammy Faye Bakker, which served as the basis for the 2021 film that earned Jessica Chastain the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Their latest project, premiering February 19 on HBO, is the two-part documentary Murder in Glitterball City, a gripping documentary that explores the infamous 2010 murder of drag performer James Carroll in Louisville, Kentucky, at the hands of gay couple Jeffrey Mundt and Joseph Banis — make that Mundt and/or Banis, with the documentary exploring in detail how the murder could have been at the hands of either. The deft exploration of that ambiguity sets Murder in Glitterball City apart, providing a master class in how to tell a true-crime tale.

'Murder in Glitterball City' Details a Murder With an Ever-Changing Narrative

Based on the non-fiction book A Dark Room in Glitter Ball City by David Dominé, who appears in the documentary, Murder in Glitterball City begins with a chilling videotaped confession from Joey Banis, who shoulders the blame of the murder on himself, threatening to die by suicide with gun in hand as his partner, Jeffrey Mundt, lays asleep on the motel bed off-camera. It seems straightforward enough: Banis said he did it, so how can a documentary spread across two-plus hours when the big reveal is at the start? It serves as the first in a series of expectations that are built up before being dashed.

The documentary opens on Dominé, who gives a little background for the story, not the least of which is the origin of the nickname "Glitterball City," bestowed upon Louisville as the birthplace of the glitterball — or, as it's more commonly known, the disco ball. He shows off the home at 1435 S. Fourth St., one of several large, stately Victorian homes in one of America's most haunted neighborhoods, where, sometime in April/May 2009, 37-year-old Carroll was murdered and then buried in the basement, in a Rubbermaid container filled with lime, his limbs broken apart in order to make him fit.

It comes to light after a harrowing 9-1-1 call made by Mundt, who (possibly) is cornered in the second-floor bedroom, begging police to hurry, with the fear in his voice complemented by the unnerving sound of the wood on the locked door being hit repeatedly. Both men are brought in for questioning, and it's here that the crux of the documentary is exposed. While both admit to a man being murdered in the house, with his body buried in the basement, each blames the other, crafting stories with themselves as the victim, not the perpetrator. That carries through to their individual trials, where one garners the most shocking revelation of the documentary as a whole.

'Murder in Glitterball City' Refuses to Give Answers

The world in which the murder occurred, and the players in it, is brought to vivid life through interviews with people in the community, acquaintances, former lovers, attorneys, and more. Those in the community paint a picture of an idyllic neighborhood, a place where everyone knows one another, and where gays can live "above ground," where men in drag walk down the street without fear of repercussion. Yet it's a place with a haunted present, where ghostly presences are seemingly everywhere, and a dark past, where the home of Mundt and Banis was once a sanatorium where a doctor performed sadistic tests on patients in the basement, and murders — beginning with the first person to buy the home afterward — seem to happen "every two years or so."

What Murder in Glitterball City does best, though, is use those interviews to flesh out Mundt and Banis, without committing to either. It builds up a case where Mundt is an innocent, forced by Banis to dig a hole for Carroll's body, and driven to cower in his bedroom by Banis' violence, before exposing Mundt's manipulative and duplicitous past. Likewise, the documentary focuses on Banis' criminal history, painting him as the likely murderer before showing off sweet love letters he sent to an ex-boyfriend. Even Carroll himself isn't spared, revered as a saint in one moment and a drug-dealing sinner in the next.

Murder in Glitterball City refuses to give the viewer an answer. Just when you think you know who did it, you don't. In the most dynamic scene of the documentary, the testimonies they give at their trials are shown side-by-side, one paused as the other plays out in snippets, detailing virtually identical stories as to how the events of the night played out, each pointing the finger at the other. Why it happened isn't clear. Was it jealousy, a kinky group sex act gone wrong, or, perhaps, something to do with that nagging supernatural element of the house itself? Even that damning video confession at the start isn't as absolute as expected.

'Murder in Glitterball City' Has Few Flaws

A broken glitterball sits on a dirty concrete floor in promotional image for Murder in Glitterball City.

While Murder in Glitterball City is a tragic, horrifying story with twists, turns, and lies everywhere, the documentary doesn't approach it as one that could only happen to members of the LGBTQ+ community. It's a universal story of tragedy, and it wouldn't change how the crime at the center of this two-parter is explored. It's not all dark and gloomy, though; peppered throughout, allowing well-timed moments of reprieve from head-spinning revelations and dark truths, are scenes where those touched by the murder read excerpts from Dominé's book. The reactions vary from indifference to hilarity, most notably prosecuting attorney Ryane Conroy's perfectly-timed eye roll after reading this piece of prose from Dominé: “Conroy unwrapped a piece of candy with a soft crinkle and popped it into her mouth.”

There are flaws in Murder in Glitterball City, but they are few and far between. The role that cameras for the TV show The First 48 may have played isn't explored, something that is addressed in 2025's Predators. The autopsy report on Carroll in the case file, one that would have corroborated one of the accused's accounts, not being utilized during the court proceedings, is only touched on briefly, but deserved more time being addressed. The fact that only one person interviewed seemed emotionally devastated over the loss of Carroll seems counterintuitive: why should we care that this man died, when clearly no one else seemed to? Then again, it wouldn't be surprising if that was purposeful, as it gives the moment near the end of the film where that one person, a hairdresser friend of Carroll's from his hometown, heartbreakingly speaks a poignancy that wouldn't hit as hard as it does: "Monsters really do exist, but we create our own with the drugs and the lies and the bullshit that we choose to live."

Release Date 2026 - 2026-00-00

Network HBO

Directors Fenton Bailey

Pros & Cons

The documentary allows the viewer to come to their own conclusions about where the guilt lies.
Interviews with people in the community are legitimately fascinating.
The doc provides enough whimsical moments to offset the horror of the case itself, without taking away from it.