Bundy: A Legacy of Evil

When I saw this movie, the other day, on cable, it played with the title, "Bundy: A Legacy Of Evil," which is a much better title than the original one. As far as the film goes, I don't know what to complain about first. I guess the poor acting is a good start. The actor who played Bundy in this movie was not very convincing. Neither was anyone else for that matter. What was worse was the story line, or lack of it. At times, they would go from any particular scene and cut to a random shot where he is killing a woman while some crappy Alternative Rock music loudly plays. Now I know that Alternative Rock gets its roots from 60s and 70s rock, but it doesn't quite sound the same. I didn't know if they had momentarily slipped into the 90s or what? The music was so annoying I started to hit the mute button whenever it would come on.

They also got several facts wrong, but what movie doesn't do that anyway? I wouldn't have minded that so much if they had just pieced the story together somehow. By cutting to random killings and scenes in different cities or situations with no explanation or setup, I would not have had any idea what was going on without knowing what I already knew before seeing the movie.

An episodic plot renders this film structurally inane. One scene has Ted in the desert on his hands and knees howling like a wolf. Cut to an interior scene in some house at Christmas where Ted is on the phone as a suicide prevention counselor. Where's the connection between these two events? The film doesn't tell us. The plot is filled with these random scenes from random periods in Bundy's life, sans any sense of flow or continuity.

Slow, dull, and boring, this film reeks of a quickly written script and overall quick, superficial production. There's not an ounce of suspense or tension. Episodes are long and drawn out. Bundy's manipulation skills are not well displayed, though the one sequence at the restaurant wherein he proposes marriage comes close to showing how he could deceive. Dialogue lacks subtext. The final twenty-minute segment is marginally interesting but only because the real-life outcome is so gripping.

Corin Nemec is dreadfully miscast as Bundy. Nemec, who vaguely resembles a youthful Pat Boone, looks nothing at all like the real Ted Bundy. The crooked smile comes across as contrived. And Nemec plays Bundy like a caricature. Many of the supporting performances are overplayed.

If ever there was a real-life serial killer whose public persona offers the potential for a riveting movie, surely Ted Bundy is the one. Unfortunately, a dreadful script makes for a muddled, incoherent storyline, helped not at all by poor casting and bad acting.

I happened to find this movie by random coincidence at the local secondhand DVD store for about $2. I do enjoy horror movies, and a movie based on the actual serial killer couldn't be all bad. But I was a bit hesitant about it when I saw who had the lead part.

Without going into much details about the story, then it can be easily summarized as a movie about notorious serial killer Ted Bundy.

Story-wise then "Bundy: A Legacy of Evil" was unfathomably boring and rather uneventful actually. You don't care for any of the characters in the movie, be it victims or killer. Why? Well, because everything was so superficial and shallow that you can't emerge yourself into anything. And the actual killing scenes were just unimpressive.

One thing that did work for the movie, and which was much of a surprise for me. This was perhaps one of the best performances by Corin Nemec. It was just a shame that he was held back by a flaccid storyline and script. Also, Kane Hodder is in the movie, which was a bonus for any horror fan, but it was nowhere near enough to salvage this movie, not by a long shot.

"Bundy: A Legacy of Evil" is really not worth wasting your time or money on. If you like movies about real serial killers, then there are some better choices available.

Anything I have to say about this abomination has to be judged in the context of my not having been able to sit through more than 28 minutes of it.

Here's the opening scene -- just in case a viewer might be uncertain about switching the channel. Bundy has one of his helpless victims screaming and tied up out in the boondocks at night. He wraps a cable about her neck while she whines and sobs. Bundy tells her what he's going to do to her -- kill her, then cut her head off and burn it in the camp fire until the eyeballs pop out. He orders her to look up at the stars while he strangles her almost into unconsciousness, then allows her to breathe again. Then he flings her aside, still muttering nonsense, and lifts up a spade and bashes her head in. Fade to Ted Bundy in his jail cell telling his own story, beginning when he was a deprived little boy. That's just the first few minutes.

I don't know where to begin. (The writers of this execrable offal would probably advise me: "Begin at the beginning." That's about the extent of their imagination.) Nemec has the character all wrong. It isn't as if this were a story about Jack the Ripper, a character on whom any pattern of traits could be imposed. The problem is that people now alive REMEMBER Ted Bundy. And Ted Bundy was not a soulful imitation of James Dean. Bundy was a handsome glib psychopath, a con man with a murderous streak. He would quote Shakespeare to a girl in a college hallway only if he'd memorized the passage five minutes before because he thought it might be useful in seducing her or might otherwise play to his advantage. Nemec plays him as a romantic, which is exactly bass ackwards.

But then so many things are just plain wrong. The viewer will be surprised to learn that Washington state, where Bundy began his career, has tall royal palms, just like Beverley Hills.

The worst thing is the emphasis on torture. It's becoming a genre unto itself. It's a reflection of our darkest impulses that we allow ourselves to watch a movie like this rude lump of foul deformity, which does to our national character what Bundy did to his victims.

What is it that drives some of us to excitement while watching a helpless victim tortured and slaughtered? It can't be completely alien to us because the US used to have well-attended public executions, and before that there were exhibitions like gladiator battles and bear baiting. Can that impulse, whatever part of the reptilian brain generates it, be very far from our common habit of buying tabloids in the supermarket checkout counters, the ones that feature color photos of celebrities now grown old and fat? This difference between Bundy's ecstasy and the adrenalin rush we get from watching this movie, isn't it a matter of degree, after all?

Corin Nemec is a talented actor and best remembered for his performance on the Fox series, "Parker Lewis Can't Lose," and playing Steven Stayner in "I Know My First Name is Steven." In this low budget thriller, he plays Ted Bundy. He has already played Richard Speck and the Boston strangler. Ted Bundy was a complex man and one of the most notorious serial killers of all time. The scene where he opens a file and closes it without mentioning what was in it about his birth father. As somebody who read Ann Rule's book, his paternity has never been explained. Ted was attractive, charming and intelligent but he couldn't overcome his inner demons. Unlike the Green River Killer, his victims were not the usual prostitutes. Bundy killed women after tricking them into his car. We never really know what he with his victims besides killing them. Nemec's performance is the only salvageable part of this forgettable film. You should watch Mark Harmon in the role.