“I’m Ted Bundy! I could have better!”

Where there’s a serial killer, there’s a Michael Feifer movie. In his tradition of straight-to-DVD movies on the Boston Strangler, BTK, Richard Speck, and Ed Gein, today is the DVD release of Bundy: A Legacy of Evil. The original title for this Lionsgate extravaganza was Bundy: An American Icon, which, quite frankly, may be taking things a little too far. That being said, this is by far the best Feifer movie yet. So is that enough? Or is that kind of like trying to reassure someone by saying, “Oh, it’s the best Olsen Twins movie”?

The Good:

Michael Feifer does a really good job of situating the movie (from props, to filmstock, to costume),  in the right time period, and it’s definitely one of the aspects that makes the movie enjoyable. Immediately, I was enchanted by Bundy’s wardrobe. Our opening scene-of-slaughter suits him in a stylish white jacket with a perfect 70s style undershirt, really spot-on with the oversized collar. Just watching him lure the ladies in sporting outfits like that, or the maroon leather jacket we see later, made this one fit the bill. I seriously mean that! Part of the importance of getting Ted Bundy right on film is definitely trying to make him look like you would approach him.

Corin Nemec as Ted Bundy. While occasionally bordering on too-tortured, his scenes early on at college in 1966 allowed him to play Bundy as a stone-cold, Shakespeare quoting pimp. When the script permits it, Nemec shows us the humane side of Bundy, but can flip the switch just as easy with a subtle sneer.

All the cast is on-point here, including Kane Hodder, who’s used perfectly as the prison warden. I was never distracted by anyone offensively bad, which these days is a rare feat when watching VOD.

The gore and scare scenes in the movie are somewhat scant, but for me, less was more here. Head in the hatbox, chained victims… Check.

In short, what makes this movie work and what will surely be enough to gain it some momentum, is that the acting is pretty good, and the movie generally is well-shot and looks good.

The Bad:

But like any well-shot and well-made movie, a lackluster script can always be the downfall. Sometimes we’re completely spoiled by serial killer movies, like Zodiac, which highlighted just the right moments of a VERY massive story – and yet, you never felt rushed. With Bundy, the movie is his life on fastforward, and honestly, you could get a better sense of his character and what exactly he did from a Wikipedia article than from watching this movie.

With the sorority house slaughter, Feifer takes an artistic route in depicting the horrific night. It’s a strange thing to critique, because perhaps this would be a major detraction from the movie if Feifer went balls to the wall showing the deaths of all these women. I guess the main problem with this scene, and probably most of the deaths, is there is zero continuity. Bundy shifts from scene to scene with no transition, and the movie jumps year to year (sometimes showing the years, sometimes not!) At first, I tried to view this objectively. I thought, “Well, maybe Feifer is just trying to show us we’ve got an unreliable narrator, the story is from Bundy’s f’ed up perspective-” But, no! I don’t feel like putting that much thought into connecting the pieces, or trying to justify why they thought this movie should be made in montage format. Montage format usually just equals lazy writing, right? Right.

The movie is this: Bundy kills a woman, we see Bundy’s childhood, we see Bundy awaiting deathrow, we see Bundy dating in college, we see Bundy’s break up, we see Bundy luring some women into a car wearing a cast, a couple of girls die, Bundy works at a crisis center, Bundy works for a politician, more women die, Bundy is suddenly escaping from a prison through a hole in the ceiling, Bundy appears in a sorority house bedroom, Bundy kills another girl, we’re back in prison, electric chair, fin.

Anyway, you might be wondering what, if any, motive the movie tries to suggest for Bundy. Several times throughout, Feifer tries to take the higher road, by having a character haughtily scold Bundy with, “I hate your sob story” or “You’re just immature.” But more often than not, it seems that we as the audience are REALLY MEANT TO BELIEVE THOSE THINGS. Because the movie dives no deeper for motive than, well, Bundy does have a mighty sob story and he just couldn’t deal with it. On some level, we can connect the dots that there seems to be a lust for power, and the charisma of Bundy has been well documented, but you’d have to bring in outsider knowledge to get anything further out of this. Truth be told, motive probably doesn’t even equate into a mind like Ted Bundy’s, so maybe this should be on “The Good” side. Feifer does gives us some solution, if we want it.

In Conclusion:

Next up for Feifer is a try at the story of Henry Lee Lucas. His movies are steadily improving, and it seems he’s found a niche here for better or for worse. For some, Bundy could be the movie that makes them finally start noticing his place in horror. I wouldn’t go inviting any friends over to watch this one, but if you’ve got some time to kill, it’ll do the job.

Review by Fallon

Tags: Michael Feifer, Ted Bundy

This entry was posted by fallon on Tuesday, July 21st, 2009 at 1:55 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.