Boy, what a goofy guy that serial killing Ted Bundy was. At least if this biopic on him is to be believed.
What an atrocious recounting of one of Americas most prolific murderers this film is. If you have no interest in the sexual aspect of his attacks then this movie is pretty much worthless, and even that's not done all that well.
The problem with the movie, and it's a giant one, is that it takes a joyful and silly tone. Bundy goes from one rape and murder to the next in joyful silliness. There are humorously psychotic ways to portray someone, but this film would rather play silly jingles over scenes of murder than explore Bundys motives in any sort of deep way. Imagine if DX decided to do a movie on Ted Bundy and this is pretty much what you would get.
The movie is played so silly that I had no idea how true to the story they were being but I'm guessing not very.
Throughout the movie Bundy has an on again, off again, relationship with a woman that I know really existed, but in the film he just disappears for months, comes back, they argue, she out of nowhere is fine with him, rinse and repeat. Again they make no real effort to get any more than skin deep.
There are bizarre scenes that get treated in such zany fashion that while I believe they are based on truth, just comes across as so preposterous in the context of the movie that you almost wanna laugh more than be revolted. These include him putting a womans body, wrapped in a rug, into his car. This is done right out on the street in front of a large group of passers by who don't even acknowledge him and what is clearly a body being stuffed into a car. Worse yet is the scene where he has a severed head on his kitchen table and he's talking to it. It's just a standalone scene, one in a myriad of standalone scenes that serve more of a timeline than an an actual story, as if we're supposed to know all this stuff already.
Even his psychosis isn't explored very much. From the beginning of the film we pretty much just get a series of escalating perverted activities, without much exposition at all.
There's a great line in the movie when Ted is eventually caught and put in jail (which also is about as underwhelming as you can imagine such a turn of events could be) where his sometimes girlfriend comes to visit him and she complains about him having female visitors. She's not upset that he's a serial rapist/killer, no, she's upset he's cheating. Just so silly.
I really don't wanna use so many words on such a bad movie but Christ, it just get's worse. Once in jail on murder charges, Ted decides to defend himself. Of course he's brought to an empty library by a single guard, who apparently likes Ted so much that he takes off his shackles and let's him roam free. The guard then announces that he's going for a smoke, leaving Bundy all alone. Yeah. So he jumps out the window and hops from roof to roof until on the ground, where he makes his escape. Now this is stupid enough, but then they show actual footage of a news report of the escape and show the actual building, which is nothing like the building we've just seen. It's dumb, it's silly, it's shoddy film making.
Now listen, I don't know if the escape actually happened or not. I'd never heard of it. But let's assume it did. That's pretty big right? Well the film spends about 20 seconds on it as we have a scene of his ex girlfriend dreaming he's come back to kill her. When she wakes up she's comforted by either her daughter who's aged 10 years, or some random person. The very next scene is of Ted trying to pick the lock on a car. A cop car pulls up......slowly, he ignores it. A cop gets out and nonchalantly walks over to him still trying to pick the lock and simply says "Hi Ted, welcome back". At which point he just hangs his head as if to say "awww shucks, ya got me". The music that plays when he's being led back to jail is the same you would get in a buddy caper when one of them is being hauled in but you know in the next scene there's going to be a fun, goofy, breakout. It's fucking weird.
Back in jail there's another great scene where he fucks a visitor right in the middle of the visiting room and then slips the guard some cash for letting him do it. This movie just does not care about the subject at all.
Oh for fuck sakes. He escapes AGAIN. This time thru a convenient hole in the ceiling of his cell.
So on to Florida he goes where he follows some sorority sisters back to their house. Inside the house.....and I'm laughing typing this, inside the house two sorority girls are jumping on their beds in their underwear and throwing pillows at each other and giggling. But they do it in a way like you can imagine someone just told them to do that for no apparent reason and with no motivation but to get a shot of them doing it. I can't express how just obscenely and absurdly gratuitous this movie has become.
Ted picks up a piece of wood from the woodpile out front and walks right in. Yes, a woodpile. Because we all know how many sorority houses in FLORIDA have fireplaces. So he walks in and bludgeons, rapes and eats the asses of all the sisters, I dunno, it was dark.
He gets captured again within 2 scenes and as he's being cuffed, he begs to be killed, out of nowhere. God damn these film makers just don't give a fuck.
Now suddenly we're taken to actual news footage of his sentencing and execution and it just shows such a complete lack of film making ability because the real man even in a short glimpse of his face is clearly nothing like they've spent this whole god forsaken movie portraying.
HOLY FUCKIN SHIT!! THEY PUT A SCENE IN THE MOVIE WHERE THE GUARDS, WHILE CUTTING HIS HAIR IN PREPARATION FOR HIS EXECUTION, DECIDE TO RAPE HIM WITH COTTON BALLS. WHAT IN THE HOLY FUCK AM I WATCHING?
Oh, ok. I see now. They also put a diaper on him. I guess this is in preparation for when he loses total body function. But instead of playing like a serious moment it comes off like something out of deliverance. One of the guards is even asking another guard, who I guess is his uncle, "Is this good uncle Bob? Is this good?" as he gleefully jams stuff in Teds ass.
So Ted is killed in the electric chair and we're then taken to a shot of his ex girlfriend sitting on a couch, with who I guess is supposed to be her new boyfriend. They're watching footage of the execution on TV and she, in the most first day of acting school delivery says, "I was with him all those years and I had no idea. Who.......Was........Ted........Bundy?" We're then treated to an LSD inspired montage of various children proclaiming "I'm Ted Bundy!"
The last shot of the movie is a still of the actual Ted Bundy over which we are told that the term serial killer was first used in reference to Bundy. And that over 200 women a day sent him letters proclaiming to love him. Yes, the punch in the gut last thing the makers of the movie wanted to leave you with was that a lot of women loved him.
I can't express how miserably the film makers failed at this movie. I mean, I just can't put it into words. To take a real man who did vile things and try and make a goofy, silly biopic about it........I mean, Christ. The second half of this movie is just........fuck, I can't even fathom what these people were thinking. Holy Hell.
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