BUNDY
UK/US, 2002, 99 minutes, Colour.
Michael Riley Burke, Boati Ann Bliss.
Directed by Matthew Bright.
Bundy is a portrait/study of serial killer Ted Bundy. Bundy was a narcissistic, surface-charming, brutal man who may have murdered over a hundred women.
There have been many portraits of serial killers during the 80s and 90s, some fiction like Natural Born Killers or the tales of Hannibal Lector (who derives his origins from the Wisconsin 50s killer, Ed Gein). Steven Johnstone wrote a screenplay which was made into a portrait of Ed Gein. He also wrote this screenplay. It was intended as the second part of a trilogy on serial killers in an American- British co-production series.
Michael Riley Burke brings an initial breeziness to his portrait of Bundy. However, as he is rejected more and more by the women (except for his girlfriend Lee), he shows further signs of madness, ultimately leading to a split personality approach to life, surface respectability and inner torment. This continues after he escapes from jail. However, he is finally caught and the finale of the film is a very grim presentation of his execution. This means that the film is more of a sketch of what Bundy did, some glimpses of the strange psychology which motivated him, some suggestions of the brutality of his criminal activity. With the execution of Bundy, it brings the film to a grim and moralising end. Bundy has become a significant part of American consciousness of the impact of serial killers.
1. Audience knowledge of Ted Bundy, one of the earliest of the diagnosed serial killers? His brutality in the 70s, prison, execution?
2. How well did the film dramatise the personality of the serial killer, his methods, the killings, the repercussions on himself, on others? How credible, how authentic, how sensationalist?
3. The 1970s, the initial setting of Seattle, the town, the countryside? 1975 and Bundy travelling across the United States, Utah and Oklahoma? His arrest, the Colorado prison? His escape, moving to the east coast, the sunny settings and his holiday, his arrest? The sequences of the prison?
4. The importance of the execution sequence for the drama of the film and audience response to the serial killer? The ugly details of the execution, the preparations, the cloth in the anus of the prisoner? The physical repercussions? The actual execution?
5. Theodore Bundy, the law student, seeming charm, driving around, seeing him stealing - and moral judgment on him and his behaviour? His flirting with the women, the young woman he followed home, spying, his frustration, sexual activity? The frustration and his brutality with the woman and the crowbar? Gradually building up his aggression towards women, in the dormitory, the bludgeoning of the women, getting the women to come into his car, in the woods? The travel across America, the range of victims? The woman who resisted, her running away, leading to his arrest?
6. The arrest, the trial, in prison? His cheerfulness, his reaction with the prisoners, his estimation of himself? The talk with Lee? His escaping, further murders? His disguise, sitting on the porch, seeming a normal person? His arrest?
7. Lee, single mother, her love for Bundy, her listening to him, his sexual demands, her compliance? Her visiting him in prison, her disbelief, her realisation that the accusations were true?
8. The portrait of the victims, ordinary women, resisting Bundy, the brutality towards them? His psychological state, mental development, emotional lack of development? The compensation, the violence, the frustration? What insights did the film offer into the mentality of a serial killer?
