Film Review--Ted Bundy

Ted Bundy
directed by Matthew Bright
written by Matthew Bright and Stephen Johnston
starring Michael Reilly Burke, Boti Ann Bliss

The first modern serial killer gets the bio treatment in this fictionalization of Ted Bundy’s duplicitous and thoroughly convincing personality scheme.

Bundy (Burke) is a straight shooter with a loving if too desperate girlfriend named Lee (Bliss) who lets a whole lot of evidence slide on by as she clings haltingly to her man. Ted is good with kids and truly able to say the right things at the crisis clinic he works at a couple days per week. He’s exceedingly well groomed and polite to most everyone he meets when he’s being affable Ted who is disarmingly charming and sweet natured. Of course he’s also a brutal killer who does horrific things to the bodies of the girls he mercilessly butchers. It’s this duplicity that is examined with precision and great skill. This remains arguably the best film ever devoted to a killer of this type. It’s nuanced, stylized, and exceptionally forthcoming with the litany of violence toward Ted’s many victims.

Our first introduction to Ted sees him standing in front of a three paned mirror. We thus find him in triplicate trying out his introduction to whomever happens to catch his fancy. This is the side of Ted that his friends and associates are familiar with. Then he goes into a ghastly routine where he makes gutteral noises and funny, absurd faces. In this instance he’s something unhuman, a fiend of sorts who represents the side of Ted that allows him to murder and rape with impunity. From there we meet the civil Ted who is attending Law School and genuinely attempting to better himself. He even has eyes on political office and it’s apparent to everyone that knows him that he has a definite shot of realizing his dream.

Lee is something of an emotional battering ram for Ted. He never treats her all that well and when she discovers handcuffs in his car she brushes it off because Ted claims to have never seen them before. But then he convinces her to allow herself to be tied up and ravished as Ted says “Fuck You, Bitch” over and again. It’s a painful scene to watch mostly due to the look of horror plastered on Lee’s face as she allows Ted to pummel and verbally abuse her. Still, she fully believes she is in love and subsequently puts up with whatever it is he decides to do. She’s an enabler who only wants to see the best in Ted and is driven by her affection for him.

Ted is remarkably good for Lee’s young daughter. He clearly dotes on her and provides her with much affection, filling in the void left by her absent father. There is no doubt that Ted is sincere with his treatment of the girl; he genuinely adores her and would certainly react viciously to anyone who attempted to harm her. He can clasp hands and tell her silly stories in the afternoon and rape the corpse of some poor girl he’s lured away in the evening. It’s his ability to keep both personalities working simultaneously that makes him such a worthy subject for this treatment.

The music throughout this film is often incongruous to the filmed action. In particular there is a happy bit of Christmas music that is played when Ted and family are opening presents and looking so ebullient and joyful. The scene switches to a long hallway, with the same music, where Ted is play acting that he is in terrible shape and in need of assistance. A woman rushes to his aid only to be savagely attacked and the music continues as her legs repeatedly twitch. It’s a funny scene simply because it’s not the sort of music one expects to hear at a time like that. There are several such instances in the film as much of the source music is uplifting and cheerful after a fashion. The score itself is, however, consistent with the criminal acts being projected on the screen.

There is a substantial amount of violence in this film and it all possesses a sort of grim beauty in how it is presented. One gets a real sense of the sexual mores of Ted as he has his thrills with all the girls he sways with his charm and ingenuity. He feigns a broken arm, pretends he’s a cop, and even tells poor little Kimberly Leach that something horrible has happened to her father. They all go with Ted because he is so convincing in whatever role he is affecting. They believe in him long enough to ensure that they will fall prey to his enormous sexual appetite. There is a sense that they are all lost little girls who find themselves face to face with the big bad wolf who necessarily devours them for their prettiness and sweet, unassuming natures. But Ted cannot help but carry out his deeds because the urge for total domination is far too strong to ignore. He even assaults Lee when he’s got her legs spread and bound; he half heartedly tries to smother her thereby demonstrating his own special take on love. Still, she stays by him no doubt more confused than horrified.

The film is routinely chilling and admittedly it’s grotesque nature is expressed most fluently through the slight introductions we are afforded to several of Ted’s victims. Many of them are anonymous but some of them are given just enough personality to make their killing truly horrific. Despite Ted’s charm and tenderness, he isn’t portrayed in such a way that it’s easy to sympathize with him. This is not the sort of film that either demonizes or lionizes its subject. It’s simply a straightforward, albeit fictionalized, telling of one man’s unquenchable thirst for power and his particular method of obtaining it. One does not sense that Ted is unduly troubled by his actions which makes them all the more baffling to the common observer. He isn’t torn necessarily by his actions; he merely performs them as if he were doing something as innocuous as running his fingers through the hair of Lee’s young daughter. They are as much a part of him as his immaculately arranged sock drawer.

The sickness aspect of Ted’s endeavors is not really dealt with in this film. There is no gross attempt at psychoanalysis that would be an obvious attempt to foster a sort of explanation for his behavior. Instead, there is but a clean, clear-headed account of one serial killer’s obsessions and delights. We don’t gain a tremendous amount of insight into Ted’s character other than to be made privy to how gentle and kindhearted he can be when the situation calls for it. There are indications throughout that the remnants of his peculiar hobby have bleed into the rest of his well-structured, orderly life but they are not significant enough to suggest any mortal danger.

Michael Reilly Burke is thoroughly believable playing the two most prominent aspects of Ted’s personality. He is able to convey both the sweetness and the part of Ted who sees a lovely girl and just has to cane her head in and fuck her dead body in an old, filthy shed. Burke is quite good at providing Ted with the type of charm that convinces such females to let down their guard and wander off with a complete stranger. Boti Ann Bliss is truly remarkable as a legitimate light in Ted’s life who is nevertheless unable to see him for what he truly is. Bliss captures Lee’s longing and confusion throughout the film. Lee is a strong character and Bliss allows us to feel her desperate need to be loved so completely by the man to whom she is so often callously rebuffed.

Overall, this film does an excellent job conveying the complexities inherent in its subject. It explores the natures of various types of love including love as affliction, love as utter blindness, and love stolen from the cold and dead lips of death. It provides little insight into the nature of these crimes other than to demonstrate the sheer, unadulterated urgency that demands that they must be actualized as quickly as possible. Indeed, Ted is portrayed for what the real Ted Bundy was and remains: a keenly driven individual who becomes acutely focused on the rape and murder of young, unassuming females. His is the carnal will taken to its most illogical conclusions. At some point in his life, and this is certainly never explored in this film, young Ted learned to associate pain and suffering with the sexual release. To Ted, the orgasm is most fully realized in the quickly cooling rectum of a girl he has so recently rent from the niceties and cruelties of life. It’s satisfying in its own way.