Remember (if you’re old enough) back in the early 2000s when you’d walk into a Blockbuster or Hollywood Video and the horror section shelves were full of films purporting to document the “true story” behind big ones like Gein, Dahmer, Gacy, Zodiac, and Bundy? Thanks to streaming services, we are again exploding in murder shows, serial killers shows, and films about serial killers, enjoying a second golden age of serial killing dramas. There is an odd disconnect in enjoying (and being scared by) films about the real torture and death of actual people, and the better films are able to tell the story without seeming exploitive. And then there are films like Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman.

Recently Zac Efron starred as Bundy in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019), a solid performance in an interesting take on Bundy. At the time it came out I said to my wife that floodgates will open as teen actors from the early 2000s now sought serious roles to display adult acting chops. And Lo, the prophesy has come true. Here is One Tree Hill heartthrob Chad Michael Murray assaying Bundy in a film that attempts to turn the killer into a cinematic slasher (as many of those early 2000s films did), leaving Murray little to do with the role.

Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman opens with a disclaimer that while based on a true story, the movie takes liberties for narrative and legal reasons. The focus is on Bundy and the two law enforcement officials who are interested in catching him: Kathleen McChesney (Holland Roden) and Robert Ressler (Jake Hays). While these are all real people, the film plays very fast and loose with the facts. For example, the film shows McChesney coining the term “serial killer” inspired by a western on television. The term has been attributed (falsely) to Ressler, as it had been around since the forties, but the attribution is an example of the problem of this film: it seemingly does things for the sake of an interesting or referential moment while sacrificing both historical reality and narrative.

Sadly, the narrative the facts are reshaped into offers nothing to justify the changes. McChesney and Ressler do little to nothing, other than watch the news and see reports of Bundy’s attacks. Bundy is eventually arrested and goes to prison for two years. He escapes and heads to Florida. The audience is told, not shown, all of this. A montage of Bundy playing with a knife, a group of mannequins, and porno mags makes little to no sense. It seems to suggest this event builds up to his attacking a sorority house in Florida, but the film makes no connection. Murray does his best with the material, but there is nothing there for him to play, other than create a music video aesthetic.

So much of Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman feels forced and false – from the sorority girls showing having fun is fun to McChensey standing up to her boss and his son, things happen so that something happens and the actors have no idea why. We learn nothing about Bundy or the monster hunters who pursued him as it all builds to a community-theatre re-enactment of the ending of The Silence of the Lambs. When one thinks that the actual torture and deaths of real women are being presented here, the whole thing also simply feels exploitive.

The only bright spot of the film is Lin Shaye, in an appearance as Bundy’s mother. Her lovely and vulnerable performance as the woman who gave birth to a man all see as a horrible monster anchors the film and gives the only moments that feel like a movie actually attempting to engage with and understand its subjects. She, and we, deserved better than Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman.

If you’re interested in Ted Bundy, Ann Rule’s The Stranger Beside Me (2003) told a remarkably personal version of Bundy’s story, as Rule, who writes true crime books, worked side-by-side with Bundy, never knowing he was a killer.

For a different HorrorBuzz take on Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman, try Norm’s review.

2 out of 10