Ted Bundy (2002)

The accounts vary and the actual number will never be known, but the deaths of at least 36 women can be attributed to Theodore Robert Bundy. This biographical horror film begins in Seattle in 1974 where the duplicitous nature of Bundy (Michael Reilly Burke) becomes unmistakably evident. He is working as a polite crisis hotline volunteer, but his callers don't know that he is secretly a sexual deviant in a bow tie whose sexual desires become increasingly perverse until they culminate in his killing spree. Meanwhile, an unsuspecting girlfriend (named "Lee" in the film, this woman--played by Boti Ann Bliss--wrote a book about her life with Bundy under the alias Elizabeth Kendall) dotes on her lover, whose crimes would go unsolved for years. The film follows Bundy's murderous trail through two prison escapes and his eventual execution in Florida.

This detailed account of Bundy's exploits contains chilling murder sequences and a dark sense of humor. The film ends with a memorably bleak execution scene which includes archival footage of the mob outside the prison. The subject matter is not new for distributor First Look, which also released DAHMER and ED GEIN. The latter benefited from the creative team of screenwriter Stephen Johnston and producers Hamish McAlpine and Michael Muscal, who reteamed on this project.