''Ted Bundy'' is a 2002 crime horror thriller film written and directed by
Matthew Bright
Matthew Bright (born June 8, 1952) is a former film director, writer and actor.
His first credits were as writer and actor in Richard Elfman, Richard Elfman's 1980 film ''Forbidden Zone'', portraying the twins Squeezit and René Henderson. The ...
, and co-written by Stephen Johnston. A
limited theatrical release
__FORCETOC__
Limited theatrical release is a film distribution strategy of releasing a new film in a few theaters across a country, typically art house theaters in major metropolitan markets. Since 1994, a limited theatrical release in the Unite ...
, it is based on the crimes of
Ted Bundy
Theodore Robert Bundy (Name change, born Cowell; November 24, 1946 – January 24, 1989) was an American serial killer who kidnapped, raped and murdered numerous young women and girls during the 1970s and possibly earlier. After more th ...
, an American serial killer who raped and murdered dozens of women and girls throughout the United States during the 1970s. It stars
Michael Reilly Burke
Michael Reilly Burke (born June 27, 1964) is an American actor. He played Rex Van De Kamp on the unaired pilot of '' Desperate Housewives''. Steven Culp replaced him before the pilot aired. He also appeared in The WB series '' Charmed'' in the ...
as Bundy, and
Boti Bliss
Boti Ann Bliss (born October 23, 1975) is an American film and television actress. Notable roles include her semi-recurring role as Maxine Valera in the television crime drama '' CSI: Miami''. Her other roles include the 2002 film ''Ted Bundy'' ...
as Bundy's girlfriend, Lee.
Plot
In
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
in 1974, law student
Ted Bundy
Theodore Robert Bundy (Name change, born Cowell; November 24, 1946 – January 24, 1989) was an American serial killer who kidnapped, raped and murdered numerous young women and girls during the 1970s and possibly earlier. After more th ...
appears to be the typical friendly guy who lives next door, but inside this kind gentleman lies a monster. After watching women from their windows while
masturbating
Masturbation is the sexual stimulation of one's own genitals for sexual arousal or other sexual pleasure, usually to the point of orgasm. The stimulation may involve hands, fingers, everyday objects, sex toys such as vibrators, or combinati ...
, Ted builds up the courage to commit his first murder. From there, he always manages to lure a young woman to his car by faking a broken arm or an illness or by disguising himself as a police officer. Then he knocks her unconscious, ties her up, and drives her to an arranged location where he rapes and murders her. Driving his yellow VW Beetle, he leaves a bloody trail through the United States. The police are left in the dark, as no one suspects a model citizen and ambitious student like Ted.
Eventually, in 1975, one of Ted's victims, Tina Gabler, escapes from him when she throws herself from his moving car. Based on her description of his car, Ted is stopped by a police officer and arrested. In his trunk, the police find pantyhose masks, a hand saw, a crowbar, knives, ropes, and handcuffs. Even though he is identified by Tina Gabler in a lineup, Ted denies ever having seen the woman. When he is visited by his girlfriend, Lee, in a Colorado prison, Ted admits to her that charges are being brought against him for multiple murders, but stresses the fact that there is no evidence, however, and that he will never be convicted; at this point, Lee realizes that Ted is guilty, and she breaks up with him.
Ted asks to represent himself at his trial, and is granted access to the courthouse law library. He promptly escapes by jumping from an upper story window. He is jailed again after an attempted auto theft, but manages to escape yet again months later. Upon settling in Florida, Ted rents a room under an alias, steals a van, and continues his murder spree. This time he overpowers four women in their sorority house and brutally murders two of them. His bloodlust still unsatisfied, Ted rapes and murders a twelve-year old girl the next day. He becomes heavily intoxicated afterward, and is recognized by a police officer and arrested after a short chase.
Ted is convicted in court and
sentenced to death
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
. After making an unsuccessful plea for mercy to the governor, Ted makes a final statement before he is executed in the
electric chair
An electric chair is a device used to execute an individual by electrocution. When used, the condemned person is strapped to a specially built wooden chair and electrocuted through electrodes fastened on the head and leg. This execution method, ...
; the executioner is revealed to be a woman. As Lee watches news coverage of the execution with her husband, she wonders, "Who was Ted Bundy?"
Cast
Release
The film had a
limited theatrical release
__FORCETOC__
Limited theatrical release is a film distribution strategy of releasing a new film in a few theaters across a country, typically art house theaters in major metropolitan markets. Since 1994, a limited theatrical release in the Unite ...
in the United States, in locations such as
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
and
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
, in September 2002. 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.
Reception
On
review aggregator
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, 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
Michael Reilly Burke (born June 27, 1964) is an American actor. He played Rex Van De Kamp on the unaired pilot of '' Desperate Housewives''. Steven Culp replaced him before the pilot aired. He also appeared in The WB series '' Charmed'' in the ...
on an exploitative film devoid of any social context or depth."
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
assigned the film a
weighted average
The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...
score of 37 out of 100, based on eleven critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.
While critical of the film's "really offensive" final scene, Chauncey Gardner of
Ain't It Cool News
Ain't It Cool News (AICN) is an entertainment news website founded by Harry Knowles and run by his sister Dannie Knowles since September 2017, dedicated to news, rumors, and reviews of upcoming and current films, television, and comic book proje ...
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."
Maitland McDonagh
Maitland McDonagh () is an American film critic and the author of several books about cinema.
She is the author of ''Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento'' (1991) and works of erotic fiction and erotic cinema, as well ...
of ''
TV Guide
TV Guide is an American digital media company that provides television program
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or t ...
'' gave the film a score of 3/5, offered kudos to
Matthew Bright
Matthew Bright (born June 8, 1952) is a former film director, writer and actor.
His first credits were as writer and actor in Richard Elfman, Richard Elfman's 1980 film ''Forbidden Zone'', portraying the twins Squeezit and René Henderson. The ...
for not glamorizing or fetishizing
Ted Bundy
Theodore Robert Bundy (Name change, born Cowell; November 24, 1946 – January 24, 1989) was an American serial killer who kidnapped, raped and murdered numerous young women and girls during the 1970s and possibly earlier. After more th ...
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."
Derek Elley
Derek Elley (born c. 1955) is an American film and music critic and author, best known as the resident film critic for ''Variety'' until his departure in March 2010. With over 1200 reviews to his credit as of December 2014 on ''Rotten Tomatoes'', h ...
of ''
Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' 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
''Sine qua non'' (, ) or ''condicio sine qua non'' (plural: ''condiciones sine quibus non'') is an indispensable and essential action, condition, or ingredient. It was originally a Latin legal term for " conditionwithout which it could not be" ...
'' performance by Burke.
''
The Christian Science Monitor
''The Christian Science Monitor'' (''CSM''), commonly known as ''The Monitor'', is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles in electronic format as well as a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 as a daily newspaper ...
'' had a lukewarm response to the film, calling it a "
melodrama
A modern melodrama is a dramatic work in which the plot, typically sensationalized and for a strong emotional appeal, takes precedence over detailed characterization. Melodramas typically concentrate on dialogue that is often bombastic or exces ...
" 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." Marrit Ingman of ''
The Austin Chronicle
''The Austin Chronicle'' is an alternative weekly newspaper published every Thursday in Austin, Texas, United States. The paper is distributed through free news-stands, often at local eateries or coffee houses frequented by its targeted demogr ...
'' 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." Similarly, Neil Smith of the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
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."
'' found the film to be a plodding and "drearily pointless" affair, and wrote, "This picture is arguably more honest than sexy star vehicles like ''
''. That doesn't stop it from being unrewarding, unpleasant and very, very boring." David Chute of ''
'' 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."
'' 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."
Jack Mathews of the ''
'' 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." Likewise, Megan Turner of the ''
'' deemed the film a "trashy, exploitative, thoroughly unpleasant experience" that was both "tone-deaf" and "more than a little misogynistic." In a review written for ''
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. ''
were nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress, respectively, at the 2003
.