Conversations With A Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes Review
Since the release of popular series like Making a Murderer and The Staircase, Netflix is now the go-to for those with an appetite for true crime. The streaming platform usually immerses viewers in gripping whodunnits, but in its latest offering, Conversations With A Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, it’s clear who’s responsible for the evil deeds in question.
Joe Berlinger’s documentary hints at bringing something new to the table with unique insights gained during interviews with the notorious, attention-seeking Bundy. In reality, the series fails to tell the world anything it didn’t already know.
The Ted Bundy Tapes unfurls the serial killer’s dark tale across its four-episode run, stretching from his outwardly wholesome childhood, as an awkward introvert, through to his execution. In between, the narrative arc weaves between Bundy’s murders, his well-publicized trial, and the interview recordings themselves.
In their sessions, interviewers Stephen Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth accomplish nothing other than to confirm that Bundy is a deluded narcissist and a skilled manipulator. Talking himself up no end, the killer carefully sidesteps questions about his crimes with the sly competence of a seasoned politician.
Things pick up when Bundy begins discussing his atrocities in excruciating detail from a third-person perspective, all the while protected by a blanket of plausible deniability. However, does it take the audience deeper into his mind? Not really.
The documentary appears bent on humanizing Bundy without delivering a sufficiently jarring contradiction. It focuses on his handsome looks and personable, charismatic nature, forgetting to offer a powerful reminder of the monster that lurks beneath it all.
Its obsession with these characteristics quickly becomes tiresome, as does the sad lip service it pays the tales of the killer’s victims.
The mind-boggling discord between a façade and the stark reality of what lays behind it may have dramatic effect for some, but an unexpected impact on others. The Ted Bundy Tapes seems to have given birth to a cohort fixated on Bundy’s physical appearance.
Many viewers have taken to social media, posting about Bundy’s supposed hotness. Rightly perturbed, Netflix reminds users that:
there are literally THOUSANDS of hot men on the service – almost all of whom are not convicted serial murderers.
While a fascination with the story is acceptable, placing Bundy on any kind of pedestal isn’t. It’s reminiscent of that Rolling Stone cover back in 2013, which adorned Boston Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev with a celebrity-like status. Treating dangerous people like heroes is an even more dangerous game to play.
The Ted Bundy Tapes will likely captivate anyone unfamiliar with Bundy’s killings. For die-hard true crime fans, especially those fascinated with serial killers, it’s really not all that.
Not only do the recordings themselves fail to offer true insight into the mind of a killer, but the documentary itself is a somewhat unoriginal effort at film-making. Berlinger adopts a simple yet serviceable linear structure, combining interviews with those involved, archival footage from the 70s, and personal images. This nicely edited documentary is both extensive and entertaining, but ground-breaking and remarkable it most certainly isn’t.
Ultimately, The Ted Bundy Tapes is like a scientific experiment, resolved on adding to an existing body of knowledge but failing to achieve such an objective. In science, this would be called a negative result, but a result nonetheless.
In a way, it simply means that Bundy’s mind is one incapable of being successfully probed. As far as true crime take-aways go, this is unsatisfying, but it doesn’t mean that the documentary shouldn’t have been made.
Rather, it signals that Berlinger could have found countless alternative bedrocks for its narrative. Overall, The Ted Bundy Tapes isn’t terrible. It just feels like a missed opportunity of sorts.
Let’s see what the director does with Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile, an upcoming thriller told from the perspective of Bundy’s girlfriend, Elizabeth Kloepfer. The feature film — which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last week — stars pretty-boy Zac Efron as Bundy, so expect another Twitter storm about Bundy’s alleged good looks.
What did you think of this episode of Conversations With A Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Conversations With A Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes is now available on Netflix.
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Steven Allison
Steven is a freelance writer who churns out all sorts of content, but it all takes a backseat to film and television writing. His friends struggle to tear him away from his laptop. "I'm workiiiing," he moans adamantly, but they just don't get it. Steven lives for this stuff; he is open to all genres, all types of character and all sorts of story universes. He's currently recovering from the bruises left by the House of Cards finale, helped by the medicinal properties of The Haunting of Hill House. Fear not, he'll make it through.