Ted Bunny review
For better and for worse…Ted Bunny refuses to be ridiculous.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Ted Bunny
Directed by Michael Fredianelli
Screenplay by Maralynn Adams and Michael Fredianelli
Starring Diana Roman, Dee Wallace, Brad Satterwhite, Trent Avvenire, Rosanna Wyant, Bryan Palacios and Jamella Cross
Ted Bunny Review
“Dee Wallace is crushing this.”
That was the first note I took while watching the movie Ted Bunny. Wallace plays a survivor of Ted Bundy…being interviewed about her experience in present day. She’s terrific. Maybe a little less than the first half of Ted Bunny runs through her. The movie is in good hands while it does. Accompanied by flashbacks to her ordeal, Wallace paints a strong picture of the effects a serial rapist and murder have on the ones that get away.
When you see a title like “Ted Bunny” and find out it is, in fact, related to one of our most famous serial killers…you’re mind probably goes to the same place mine did. This is going to be a ridiculous movie. It isn’t. For maybe a little less than the first half of Ted Bunny…that’s perfectly fine. The initial story here is interesting enough. It seems to be building towards a clear direction with a handful of quickly established characters to be served up to the titular character. That character, I should explain, is the unknown offspring of Ted Bundy…a man raised like an among rabbits. He wears a rabbit mask and lives underneath the woman’s house.
Ted Bunny decides to go in a different direction. The documentary film crew that is interviewing the woman is led by Sasha (Diana Roman). She’s the only member of the team who seems to believe in what she’s being told. Of course, she doesn’t yet know about the bastard child of a serial killer the woman kept and raised…let alone how she raised him. By the time Sasha learns these truths, Ted Bunny has eliminated her entire team in swift fashion.
Normally, this kind of narrative swerve is a welcome one. We love movies that turn themselves upside down and head in unexpected directions. I was up for watching the masked killer slowly stalk and kill members of Sasha’s team…but starting from square one offers its own advantages. Unfortunately, Ted Bunny doesn’t take advantage of any of them. Sasha calls the police…who mostly dismiss her claims when they fail to find any bodies or signs of violence. One cop believes her. Or, at least, knows that the woman is hiding something. Dante (Brad Satterwhite) begins his own investigation, with Sasha’s help, to find out what’s really going on.
That doesn’t sound like a bad starting premise…but it ends up being one. Dante is an incomprehensible character. His choices and his reasons for making them are about as dumb as a horror character can be…and that’s saying something. For starters, he doesn’t arrest the woman after finding corpses underneath her house. He sits down for tea and lets her continue her story. This is where we learn about her son…and where Dante decides the law just…doesn’t matter, I guess. He figures he’s going to be fired no matter what he does, so he decides to hunt the man himself. Sasha rides shotgun…which is as dumb an idea as a cop could have. Or, should I say, second dumbest. He follows this up by asking Sasha to call more civilian friends for backup. Seriously. This is the direction Ted Bunny decided to go in.
We understand the idea of introducing disposable characters in horror, of course. And these two friends are never meant to be any more than that. The narrative reason for their existence is incredibly stupid, however. At least Sasha’s friends are smart enough to immediately question how good a cop Dante is with all these bad ideas. Unfortunately, they aren’t smart enough to avoid walking in the woods at night knowing that the masked killer is out there somewhere.
Ahh, yes. The woods. Ted Bunny spends a lot of time in the woods. It’s a hallmark of low budget horror…so we aren’t going to dock them for that. What we can dock it for is how much Ted Bunny loses its way after the story shift. It meanders and never feels exciting or suspenseful in any way. Just…people walking around the woods for a while. It’s a letdown given how surprisingly strong the first half of the movie is. Which brings us back to that feeling you had when you saw the title of the movie. Why isn’t this movie weirder? Why have the son of a serial killer be raised like a rabbit, and walk around in a rabbit mask, if the story isn’t going to be silly.
While watching Dee Wallace crush her part of the film…you can understand why Ted Bunny resists those impulses. Once it gets itself lost in the woods…you’ll be begging for the story to have shifted into an over-the-top comedy. If you can somehow waste the potential of a movie titled Ted Bunny…they managed to do so. Sticking with what was built in the first half of the story would have been a better idea. Doing a full 180 into a ridiculous comedy horror film with a serial killer rabbit would have been a better idea too. Ted Bunny chooses to head into the woods and make bad decisions. Dee Wallace’s work deserved better.
Scare Value
Whatever intrigue and goodwill Ted Bunny generates in its first half quickly dissipates as it runs out of steam in the second. I found that first half surprisingly strong…in large part because of Dee Wallace’s performance. Once the story shifts…Ted Bunny gets lost in the woods. Character choices become incomprehensible and it lacks the slightest bit of suspense or the thrills needed to make the story work. Going wild with the concept would have done wonders.
2/5
Ted Bunny Link
Rent/Buy from Amazon
