Ted Bundy (film)

Ted Bundy
Film poster
Directed by	Matthew Bright
Written by	Matthew Bright Stephen Johnston
Produced by	Hamish McAlpine Michael Muscal
Starring	Michael Reilly Burke Boti Bliss
Cinematography	Sonja Rom
Edited by	Paul Heiman
Music by	Kennard Ramsey
Production companies	First Look Media Tartan Films Two Left Shoes Films
Distributed by	First Look Media Tartan Films
Release dates	26 July 2002 (2002-07-26) (München Fantasy Filmfest) 13 September 2002 (2002-09-13) (United States)
Running time	99 minutes
Countries	United States United Kingdom[1]
Language	English
Box office	$68,716[2]

Ted Bundy is a 2002 independent biographical crime thriller film written and directed by Matthew Bright, and co-written by Stephen Johnston. A limited theatrical release, it is a sardonic dramatization of the sexual homicides of Ted Bundy, an American serial sex killer who raped and murdered dozens of women and girls throughout the United States during the 1970s. It stars Michael Reilly Burke as the titular character, and Boti Bliss as Bundy's girlfriend, Lee.

In 1974, Theodore "Ted" Robert Bundy appears to be the typical well-adjusted student at the Seattle University School of Law who works part-time at a local crisis center, but unbeknownst to his family and friends, he is a sociopathic, satyrid misogynist. After committing voyeurisms, petty thefts, and drug abuses, Ted builds up the courage to enact his first lust murder to one of his hotline callers. From there, he always breaks into a young woman's home or to lure her to his yellow 1968 Volkswagen Beetle by faking disabilities or by impersonating a police officer, then he incapacitates and abducts her to a strategic location where he rapes and murders her. Leaves a trail of carnage through the United States, Ted eludes the authorities, as he possesses extensive knowledge of the law enforcement and legal tactics from school include avoid fitting typical offender profiles.

Eventually, in 1975, at Murray, Utah, one of Ted's intended victims, Tina Gabler, escapes from his moving car after she overpowered him and rescued by another driver. Two months later, based on Tina's description of his car, Ted is stopped by a Utah Highway Patrol officer and arrested. In Ted's trunk, the state police find his rape kit, and Tina testifies against Ted despite his denial. After convicted for his crimes against Tina, authorities are alerted about Ted and soon determined that he is the serial killer they are looking for after investigating him further. When visited by his girlfriend, Lee, in the Garfield County Jail in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, Ted admits to her that charges are being brought against him for multiple murders, but stresses the fact that lacking hard evidence, however, and that he will never be convicted; at this point, Lee realizes Ted is guilty, and she leaves him.

In 1977, Ted asks to represent himself at his trial and is granted access to the Pitkin County Courthouse's law library. He promptly escapes by jumping from an upper story window. He is arrested again six days later by a female police officer (who hates Ted for his misogyny) after an attempted auto theft at Aspen Mountain and return to prison but escape yet again months later after Christmas, becomes one of the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives. In 1978, upon settling in Tallahassee, Florida, Ted continues his murder spree. This time he overpowers four women in Florida State University's Chi Omega sorority house and kills two of them. Over a month later, Ted rapes and murders the twelve-year old Suzanne Bruster. Four days later, on February 12, Ted is arrested by a patrolman from the Pensacola Police Department for driving under the influence before recognizing him.

Ted is tried at the Dade County Circuit Court for his killing sprees in the state, and sentenced to capital punishment in accordance with the State of Florida in the electric chair at Florida State Prison, where it is impossible for him to escape. Over eleven years, he endures appalling prison abuses while waiting for his execution and is condemned worldwide; his life is irreparably ruined. After exhausting all appeal avenues, Ted tries plea bargain with the Florida governor Bob Martinez and the authorities on the phone, hoping to receive pardon if he confess his crimes, but Ted exposes himself that he is no remorse, prompting Martinez to sign the execution warrant to allow Ted's ruling to proceed, seals his fate. Hopeless, Ted undergoes anticipatory grief over his plight include fearing Hell. After a futile resistance, Ted makes a final statement as a message to his family and friends (who have severed their ties with him), which everyone ignores out of spite. He is executed in front of his victims' vengeful families in the morning of January 24, 1989; the executioner is unmasked to be a young woman who eerily matches Ted's victims' profiles and takes pleasure of killing him before leaving. Revelers rejoice of finally ridding Ted, but lunatics (including women) mourn him, remembering him as a diabolical satyr. As Lee watches news coverage of the execution with her husband (who hates Ted for his past with her), she wonders, "Who was Ted Bundy?"

The film had a limited theatrical release in the United States, in locations such as New York City and Los Angeles, in September 2002.^[3] In American, it grossed $1,710 on its opening weekend and $6,073 in total, and internationally it grossed $62,643, for a total sum of $68,716.^[2]

Ted Bundy was released in the U.S. on DVD on October 1, 2002 by Overseas Filmgroup/First Look Media^[4] and in the U.K. in November 2003 under the title Bundy by Tartan Video.^[5]

The film was released for the first time on Blu-ray disc by home video company Vinegar Syndrome on January 31, 2023.^[6]

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 41% based on twenty-two reviews, with an average rating of 5/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Ted Bundy wastes an impressive performance from Michael Reilly Burke on an exploitative film devoid of any social context or depth."^[7] Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 37 out of 100, based on eleven critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.^[8]

While critical of the film's "really offensive" final scene, Chauncey Gardner of Ain't It Cool News otherwise heaped praise on it, writing, "It's the movie American Psycho wanted to be, a balls out, no punches pulled examination of a sick and twisted soul."^[9] Maitland McDonagh of TV Guide gave the film a score of 3/5, offered kudos to Matthew Bright for not glamorizing or fetishizing Ted Bundy or his crimes, and praised Burke's acting, calling it "dead on" and a performance that perfectly evoked "the subtle wrongness beneath the facade that gripped the public imagination."^[10] Derek Elley of Variety also praised the "pulpy" and humorously macabre film, deeming it a "quality low-budgeter" that felt like a "disturbingly stygian comedy-drama" with a sine qua non performance by Burke.^[11]

The Christian Science Monitor had a lukewarm response to the film, calling it a "melodrama" and giving it a score of 2/4 before writing, "It's grisly going, but no more exploitative than a lot of mainstream TV reporting about violent crime."^[12] Marrit Ingman of The Austin Chronicle gave Ted Bundy a score of 1/5, having found aspects like its disquieting atmosphere and commentary on 1970s society to have been undermined by how "muddled" its tone was, ultimately concluding that that the film did not seem to know "what to say about its subject."^[13] Similarly, Neil Smith of the BBC lambasted the film, giving it a score of 2/5 while disparaging it as nothing but an "orgy of gratuitous violence" in which "We learn next to nothing about what made Bundy tick, and leave no closer to understanding how such aberrations occur."^[14]

Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian found the film to be a plodding and "drearily pointless" affair, and wrote, "This picture is arguably more honest than sexy star vehicles like Red Dragon. That doesn't stop it from being unrewarding, unpleasant and very, very boring."^[15] David Chute of LA Weekly was critical of the film's tone, derisively stating, "It's possible that something hip and transgressive was being attempted here that stubbornly refused to gel, but the result is more puzzling than unsettling."^[16] Mike D'Angelo of Time Out was largely dismissive of the film, opining that there was "too much exploitation and too little art" and that, "The sight of ordinary-looking people committing unspeakably vicious acts no longer carries an inherent charge, and Ted Bundy offers little else."^[17]

Jack Mathews of the New York Daily News condemned the film, deriding it as nothing but "revolting exploitation" and further stating, "If the goal of this biographical horror film about one of America's sickest serial killers was to be as loathsome as its subject, mission accomplished."^[18] Likewise, Megan Turner of the New York Post deemed the film a "trashy, exploitative, thoroughly unpleasant experience" that was both "tone-deaf" and "more than a little misogynistic."^[19] In a review written for The Village Voice, Michael Atkinson opined that the film "never digs very deep" and concluded, "In the end, Ted Bundy's only justification is the director's common but unexplored fascination with the frustrated maniac; there's no larger point, and little social context. Badlands this ain't."^[20]

Michael Reilly Burke and Boti Bliss were nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress, respectively, at the 2003 Fangoria Chainsaw Awards.^[21]

• The Deliberate Stranger, a 1980 book about Ted Bundy, later adapted into a TV-movie starring Mark Harmon as Bundy
• Bundy: An American Icon, a 2009 film about Ted Bundy
• Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, a 2019 film about Ted Bundy
• No Man of God, a 2021 film about Ted Bundy
• Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman, a 2021 film about Ted Bundy

• Ted Bundy at IMDb
• Ted Bundy at Rotten Tomatoes