STREAMING services and podcasts have led a surge in true crime dramas, with the market now so large it is spreading to the big screen. That would be one way of looking at Joe Berlinger’s take on serial killer Ted Bundy.
Then again, who are we kidding? When it comes dwelling on the mutilation and murder of women for the purposes of entertainment, it is a close run thing as to which medium got in first, or is most guilty: literature, television, or cinema. Wherever you look, the body count keeps rising.
The main thing that marks Berlinger’s movie out, aside from the very long title, taken from the judge’s ruling on Bundy’s crimes, is that it is based on a memoir of a former girlfriend and therefore tries to come at the case from her point of view. As a result, and unusually for a true crime drama, the violence for the most part happens out of sight. Whether this is a better way to tell such stories is the question that lingered long after the final credits rolled.
Berlinger is primarily concerned with another question: how can anyone live with a serial killer and fail to know what was going on? First sight of Liz Kendall (played by Lily Collins) is of her visiting Bundy (Zac Efron) in jail. With barely a pause, the action flits back to the night in 1969 when the pair met. She was a single mother, confidence and self-esteem on the floor. He was charming, confident, kind.
Like a photograph burning from the outside in, the picture begins to change. Bundy is stopped by the police and questioned about killings in one state, then another. He is found guilty of aggravated kidnapping, by which time it is 1976. Kendall is still on his side, insisting to what seems her only friend that it is all a mistake. But as the months pass and the charges mount, she becomes weary of his stream of phone calls from jail. Even so, she is still unable to cut him loose.
The screenplay turns away from exploring her dependency to deal with Bundy’s trial in Florida. What a three ring circus that proves to be. Before there was OJ there was Bundy. The former law student’s trial was televised, with his courtroom theatrics bringing in record numbers of viewers. While this is fascinating in a gruesome way, particularly when John Malkovich no less is playing the judge, there is still a nagging sense of something crucial being missed here: the victims.
As the tale progresses, details of the killings begin to emerge in court. Finally, we glimpse Bundy’s savagery. But it feels too little, too late to do justice to the victims’ suffering and make plain what a monster he was.
In cinemas and on Sky Cinema
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