Studio: Dark Star Pictures
Director: Daniel Farrands
Writer: Daniel Farrands
Producer: Lucas Jarach, Daniel Farrands, Daniel Davila
Stars: Chad Michael Murray, Holland Roden, Jake Hays, Greer Grammer, Dash Connery, Gabrielle Haugh, Marietta Melrose, Sky Patterson, Olivia DeLaurentis, Diane Franklin, Lin Shaye
Review Score:
Summary:
A determined detective and an FBI profiler pursue serial killer Ted Bundy as he murders young women from Washington to Florida.
Review:
Same as pretty much everyone else, I too suffer from a bad case of ‘Bundy burnout.’ A formal inventory of every film, TV show, documentary series, or book about Bundy probably wouldn’t support the hyperbole. Still, it certainly seems like someone releases a new project based on the infamous serial killer just about every other week.
I almost took the plunge on “No Man of God,” the 2021 Bundy biopic starring Elijah Wood as FBI profiler Bill Hagmaier, anyway. A press release promoting the film included a statement from director Amber Sealey. In it, Sealey recalled how, during discussions about possibly joining the production, her first thought was, “Why do they want to make another Ted Bundy movie?” Knowing Sealey started with the same question all of us always ask, I became curious how she might use her awareness of audience fatigue to reshape her vision into a unique work. Ultimately however, I realized I didn’t have the patience to sit still for a chamber drama where two men talk to each other from opposite sides of a table for 100 minutes.
I wonder how a similar statement from “Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman” director Daniel Farrands might start. Would he first apologize for turning “The Amityville Murders” (review here) into a tacky supernatural slasher, “The Haunting of Sharon Tate” (review here) into shamelessly ghoulish exploitation, or “The Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson” (review here) into a wholly offensive turd of revisionist conjecture? I get that everyone in Hollywood has to make a living somehow, and apparently a person can be content cornering the market on turning true crimes into low-grade horror that debuts at 7-11 Redboxes. But everyone in Hollywood has to sleep too, and I don’t get how anyone could go to bed proud of treating terrible tragedies like tabloid trash.
“Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman,” which a CNN article likened to “dreck,” isn’t quite as sleazy as those three howlers. Farrands at least calms down on making wildly irresponsible insinuations for dramatic purposes, this time sticking somewhat closer to the facts as detective Kathleen McChesney and FBI agent Robert Ressler track Bundy’s cross-country killing spree between 1974 and 1978. “Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman” instead finds other ways to be bad, mostly through the poor structure of a basic procedural that barely intertwines with equally basic mythmaking about an entirely average movie monster.
As the Sharon Tate and Nicole Brown Simpson movies did, “Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman” employs date/location stamps to separate scenes. I’m arranging this review accordingly, because the dates and locations help highlight a multitude of reasons why the movie fails to establish any sense of imperative conflict much less a meaningful hero/villain dynamic.
NOTE: Kathleen McChesney and Robert Ressler are/were real people. My comments are specific to the portrayal of their fictionalized characters and are not reflective of any genuine work they did in reality.
Midvale, Utah – October 18, 1974 – A first taste of “Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman’s” hammy B-movie flavor comes courtesy of the opening abduction. Bundy grabs his victim from behind, stifling an attempt to scream by forcing his gloved hand over her mouth. The camera immediately cuts to a restaurant’s neon sign going dark. Ooh, lights out! I see the metaphor!
Seattle, Washington – October 18, 1974 – Next up are introductions to stock stereotypes who behave stereotypically. Kathleen deals with a cocky rookie officer who isn’t as smart as he thinks is, sitting slumped with a sneer and his knees spread apart while ignoring her important presentation. His misogynist father further demeans the detective with “Aw c’mon, can’t you take a joke?” condescension.
American Fork, Utah – October 31, 1974 – Driving a car, Bundy passes his latest target while she walks along a sidewalk. The camera quizzically slows its motion as the woman’s eyes glaze and her lips part as though entranced by Bundy’s mesmeric stare. Suggestively sexualizing this sequence like it’s part of a hair product commercial makes even less sense when the speed returns to normal, and the woman promptly begins fleeing.
“American Boogeyman” provides cursory peeks into Bundy’s brain via dramatically-delivered voiceovers that sound like failed attempts at a poetry assignment for high school theater, even though they’re probably based on Bundy’s actual words. Depictions of Bundy’s mental depravity get improbably goofier later on when he has a difficult-to-describe dalliance with a mannequin, does frantic push-ups on the floor, then drags a knife blade across a radiator in an absolutely batty montage that morphs into an even battier S&M milieu.
Murray, Utah – November 8, 1974 – Bundy basically becomes, as the title indicates, a hollow boogeyman of little substance. His victims barely have any either. Each abduction spends a minute or two with Bundy’s target prior to her assault. It’s not nearly enough time to generate any real empathy or endearment, although it is plenty of time to be bored by the banality.
Seattle, Washington – March 1, 1975 – Kathleen and Robert have worked together for five months at this point and they’re only now having their requisite “getting to know you” moment over beers at a bar? What have they been doing all this time? They certainly haven’t gotten noticeably closer to catching Bundy, because he keeps killing and we don’t see whatever they might be working on in the meantime.
Granger, Utah – August 16, 1975 – After revealing how her sister’s murder fueled her obsession, Kathleen’s singular focus remains intent on identifying and finding Bundy. However, she doesn’t do either of those things. Bundy ends up captured via happenstance thanks to a police officer on a routine patrol.
Utah County Jail – October 9, 1975 – Bundy has been in custody for two months by now. Kathleen and Robert still don’t have any direct interaction with him though. They’re just bystanders watching a psychiatrist interview Bundy before listening to the doctor’s inane post-session analysis that implies Bundy may be paranormally possessed.
Seattle, Washington – December 31, 1977 – Robert calls Kathleen regarding the news that Bundy escaped prison. Kathleen says, “He won’t last long in a snowstorm. He’ll have to go someplace… warm.” This ominous line means to suggest Kathleen practically predicted Bundy would flee to Florida. Except Bundy’s previous crimes were committed in Utah and Colorado. What makes her think he would now be suddenly averse to cold temperatures?
Tacoma, Washington – January 11, 1978 – Shoehorned scenes for Bundy’s mother as well as a victim’s mother exist solely to squeeze genre standouts Lin Shaye and Diane Richards into inconsequential cameos with no narrative impact at all.
Seattle, Washington – January 13, 1978 – Kathleen explodes at her superior when he shuts down their local Bundy task force on the grounds that the case is now fully federal. This gives the actress an opportunity to go more ballistic than necessary with an impassioned speech that valiantly challenges the chief to explain who will honor the victims and who will fight for the families now? Well frankly, not you? It’s been four years. If you’ve done anything to contribute to the manhunt, the film certainly hasn’t shown it. Besides, what can you do from a Seattle sheriff’s office that the FBI can’t, especially when you’re on the other side of the country from where Bundy currently is?
Tallahassee, Florida – January 15, 1978 – Unable to resist the urge that the Sharon Tate and Nicole Brown Simpson movies also indulged, “Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman” introduces another instance of cringe with a rewriting of history. On this date, Bundy embarks on the rampage that leaves two Chi Omega sorority sisters dead at Florida State University, and another three brutalized both physically and psychologically. Yet what frightens Bundy away from the scene isn’t the arrival of headlights outside, which actually did happen, but rather the serendipitous arrival of gunfire from Kathleen, which absolutely did not happen. For some reason, her partner Robert chose to remain in the car so Kathleen could follow the trail of clues to Bundy alone, although at least his inaction is consistent with everything else these protagonists didn’t do to catch Bundy.
Los Angeles, California – September 2021 – Between “No Man of God” and “Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman,” suddenly the 100-minute movie about two men talking doesn’t seem like the inferior choice. Next up for Farrands is a companion piece of sorts, “Aileen Wuornos: American Boogeywoman.” This time though, if there ends up being a competitor where Wuornos just talks to a profiler for two hours, I won’t make the wrong decision again. Bland just might be preferable to bad.
Review Score: 35
Everyone else who has no problem with a fright flick that feels like “Lizzie McGuire” decided to get dark with a PG-13 Halloween special should do just fine.