Bundy: A Legacy of Evil

I think the title here is appropriate in that I do believe that this film may be the worst film that I have ever seen. I am in complete accordance with member "lovemyhayabusa" and I too read Ann Rule's "The Stranger Beside Me". This film is a gross misrepresentation of Ted Bundy on a personal level. In addition the film is seriously disturbing and this is not balanced by the interesting features of the case. I mean come on the World has been fascinated by the case of Ted Bundy since the 1970s! How can you make a movie about such a fascinating subject so pointless and uninteresting? Also, I take particular offense at how careless the film makers were with regard to the actual facts of the case and in the misrepresentation of Ted himself. I live in LA and I recognized many of the locations in which this film was shot. At no time did Ted Bundy live or kill in Los Angeles and many of the killing scenes are filmed in desert and he mostly killed in Washington State and Florida. I know that it was low budget (obviously) but there could've been some effort made to make the locations look reminiscent of the actual places the murders occurred. Its ridiculous and almost funny how inaccurate this film is. This is my advice for the film makers and those involved: If you're not going to make a film well (or at least descent for Christ's sake) don't make it at all. In addition the acting is very clumsy and the lead seriously botched his job. This was horrible and quite possibly the worst ever. Frankly, I don't understand how it was rated as high as it is (3.8) it should be at most a 2, I think. But that's just me.

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.

Please, if you haven't see it, don't. It will not fit any expectation you might have. If you are a film student, this is a guide for everything you should not do in film making.

Starting with the long unnecessary takes and the bad acting followed by a very bad illumination and a terrible soundtrack. This is such a wasted subject, I mean we are talking about Ted Bundy here, this is some serious stuff. If you want to know about Bundy go check the interviews and info online.

Filmwise, is not told in a interesting way and the soap opera look doesn't fit right. After watching the movie, I had one idea of the source for his urge for killing. and after I did some research it seams to me that the movie did not portrayed it correctly.

Is incredible how all the bad stuff eats on the good work of others in the same project.

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.