If you are really into serial killers, I strongly recommend this. In some ways it's quite unique, and the lead performance is very menacing. The film almost seems like a farce at times, but in a way that perhaps captures the surreal aspect of serial killing in a way rarely, if ever caught well on camera before(Although American Psycho touches this area as well.). It's far from a perfect film, but it is a worthy watch for many fans of the subject. While the tone of the film may offend some deeply, for others who can stomach the crudeness, they actually may find this film to be very funny at times. I know I did. Now don't get me wrong, the things Ted Bundy did are obviously not funny at all. Nonetheless this film takes a bit of a different look at things from the perspective of Bundy, and at times it can be quite entertaining here. In this way it ends up being a strange but somewhat thought provoking film. As I said, if you are interested in the genre, I strongly recommend taking a look at this film. It's not the best Bundy film, but it is well worth a watch for many. Some of the funniest moments in the film have to do more with Bundy's apparent kleptomaniac tendencies. Some could say that this film is fairly disrespectful to his victims and overall is in bad taste. I can understand this definitely. Though I felt the film sort of evens itself out in the end by showing what a coward Bundy really was. Nor did I feel that the film glorified Bundy in any way. What you see is a monster of a man for sure, which is what he was. A monster when in control, but more like a crybaby when he wasn't. As with all serial killer films, watch at your own risk. 7/10.

I rented this because I expected it to be intense, having seen Matthew Bright's work in "Freeway". It's definitely that. It's hard not to compare it to "The Deliberate Stranger": each focuses on a different aspect of Bundy's story. "Stranger" focused more on the investigation and the actual facts, and Mark Harmon's performance captured the smoothness and charm which enabled Bundy to gain his victims' trust. This movie is all about the animal beneath. In reality, Bundy's ability to keep that beast hidden was part of what enabled him to carry on as long as he did. This film lays bare that monster, and shows it in all its ugliness. I'm seeing a lot of criticism of this movie for being good at what it set out to do: to make you share in the revulsion of what Ted Bundy was. Complaining that it's in bad taste? What does 'taste' have to do with a sadistic animal who snuffed out dozens of young womens' lives, just to fulfill his need to feel powerful? In this respect, this movie is superior to "Stranger": that one is much too tame and sanitized. What kind of hypocrite watches a movie about a serial killer, and complains that it's too lurid? While "Stranger" is more successful as a factual and interesting telling of Bundy's story, this is a much more impactful movie that makes you feel as though you're actually in the room with that demon. Only 15 minutes into the movie, I felt filthy just from watching his odious behavior. Bright's purpose here was not so much to make a biography as it was to use Bundy's story to point out something fundamental about human nature: the desire for control, and how it drives us to harm each other. While not as good as Bright's earlier "Freeway", it's still a good, disturbing movie, much in the brutal vein of "Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer". It's actually much more violent - especially sexually - than the latter, though not as gruesome.

Matthew Bright's "Ted Bundy" gives us what might contain the best portrayal of a modern serial murderer on film. In the title role, Michael Burke is so revolting and psychopathic, he shows us what the slain and surviving women who met up with Bundy must have seen. His nonstop criminal was a compulsive thief and peeping tom before attempting to take a life for the first time. Ted follows a college gal home from a discotheque and, after he spies on her and masturbates in public while doing so, eventually in a subsequent scene, he steps up to the next level and beats a woman near death (that poor lady apparently survived her ordeal).

Once he has crossed that line, all hell breaks loose and any female who comes into his gaze could be a potential crime statistic. His relationship with Boti Bliss is a sick imitation of a loving man who positions himself in society as an upstanding figure and actually is a lethal destruction machine capable of taking lives until stopped by police or a bullet. Or both.

Ted later takes his homicidal self on the road and terrorizes several states in the Northwestern US (contrary to the urban legend concerning Debbie Harry, there's no evidence Ted ever went to New York). He manages to con person after person and the crime he eventually was sentenced to die for in Florida shouldn't have been logistically possible. He is the ultimate opportunist and his ability to resume his violence in the last third of the film when that should have been the end of his freedom will disgust any viewer in their right mind.

Too many filmmakers try to explain the motives for their subjects' acts. Bright and Burke simply present Ted as he was, a disturbed little boy who never "grew up", but enlarged into an adult offender with twisted fantasies of torture, rape and necrophilia that he brought into a world not ready to deal with these pathologies. He blamed the alcohol and pornography he consumed for his acts, of course, because the extreme audacity any felon like this would need to live with their lack of a conscience never admits that they are at fault.