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‘Ted Bundy Tapes’ terrifies audience

The+Netflix+advertisement+for+Conversations+with+a+Killer%3A+Ted+Bundy+Tapes%2C+premiered+Jan.+24.+The+film+explores+the+horrific+killings+by+Ted+Bundy+in+his+own+words.%0APhoto+contributed+by+IMDb
The Netflix advertisement for “Conversations with a Killer: Ted Bundy Tapes,” premiered Jan. 24. The film explores the horrific killings by Ted Bundy in his own words. Photo contributed by IMDb
The Netflix advertisement for “Conversations with a Killer: Ted Bundy Tapes,” premiered Jan. 24. The film explores the horrific killings by Ted Bundy in his own words.
Photo contributed by IMDb

It may be the time of the year to celebrate love, but Netflix’s new documentary on Ted Bundy will have one double checking if they locked their doors and swiping left on every white, handsome male on Tinder.

“Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes” explores the gruesome murders across several states by the infamous serial killer. It was released on Jan. 24, the 30-year anniversary of Bundy’s execution. The docuseries came with a warning tweeted from the Netflix UK and Ireland account to “maybe don’t watch it alone x.”

The audience can hear Bundy, in his deep, creepy voice, talk about what someone who committed those murders was thinking on tapes recorded before his execution in the Florida State Prison. The journalist sitting with him asked Bundy to describe the events from a third person point of view.

The four-episode documentary also tells the Bundy story from detectives, journalists and witnesses during the 1970s and details how un-psychopathic he initially seemed. He was an attractive and articulate guy that no one ever suspected of murder, but was later revealed to be arrogant and egotistical.

Photos from the crime scenes Bundy left behind are bloody and unsettling. Hearing the story from one of the surviving witnesses will send chills down one’s spine. Looking at the many photos of young women who were raped and tortured before dying will make you look behind the shower curtain every time you walk in the bathroom.

But it is Bundy’s ordinariness that will invoke complete paranoia, turning on every light in the house, calling your mom and sleeping with one eye open.

The series does its job in telling Bundy’s story and letting him reveal that he was a nut job. It also leaves the audience with frustration from how often he escaped jail and just how many women he killed just blocks away from police.

Since Bundy’s murders were in the 1970s, obviously technology wasn’t as advanced and investigations moved slower, which makes one really feel the fear the public had at the time.

“Conversations with a Killer” is not for the easily spooked. It is almost a guarantee that young women will probably have a more heightened awareness about the men around them after watching this series.

However, despite the natural eeriness surrounding it, the creators of the series did an excellent job in telling this story and showing how awful the murders were for everybody during this time.

A great aspect of the entire series is that a chronological timeline reveals just where the story was at, even when it bounced around a few years. The series is also not overloaded with suspenseful music and jumpy scenes.

The audience needs to remember that this series is about a serial killer, and the more one starts to realize that this is not fiction, the more uncomfortable they will become.

It could be narrated by Elmo and be just as scary because the actual story in itself is real.

Ted Bundy was a monster and that is not hidden in this documentary.

According to the IMBD website, another Bundy film will be released later in 2019, called “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile,” which premiered Jan. 26 at the Sundance Film Festival. The film, starring Zac Efron as Bundy and Lily Collins as Liz Kendall, Bundy’s longtime girlfriend. The film tells the story of Bundy through Kendall’s perspective.

Zac Efron and Lily Collins in a scene from “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile,” shown at the Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 26.
Photo contributed by IDMb

 

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‘Ted Bundy Tapes’ terrifies audience