Directed by: Amber Sealey
Starring: Elijah Wood, Luke Kirby, Robert Patrick, Aleksa Palladino
Prepare yourself before watching this movie. It is an intense psychological drama and you need to be ready.
This movie is based on true events and presents how criminal investigators tried to get inside the mind of Ted Bundy, one of the most notorious serial killers in American history. However, even this investigation through interviews lasts years. Those long sessions look into every aspect of the sick mind of a killer and the final outcome is just laconic. In the final sentence of the several year long conversation between the killer and the FBI agent, Bundy asks: “So what do you think, why I do it, ” the agent responds: “Because you wanted to do it, ” and that is all. After all that analysis of what was going on inside the criminal mind, the answer was so basic and so predictable. And that is all. And that conversation was just a few hours prior to Bundy’s “meeting with God”. Bundy was executed via electric chair the next morning. (Did you ever asked yourself why those executions are always early in the morning- never at noon or later like 5pm for example- maybe British Tea time)
What is very unusual, and very well accented in this movie is the changing of positions. In early phases of interviews, several moments occur when the interviewer is actually Bundy (played by Luke Kirby) and not the agent Hagmaier (played by Elijah Wood).. The killer is asking the questions. That was probably the reason why this agent, after all other attempts by the FBI had failed, was the first one who established a relevant exchange of information. The sick mind was finally opened like a book, ready to transmit everything that was going on inside. The whole sequence of preparing for murderous attacks, the grim moment of extinguishing the life of all those- more than 30 victims- among them a 12 years old girl..
Hagmaier gets “open” at the end also. Bundy brought tears to his eyes, and after all that careful tactical approach, the agent exploded in one of his final statements: “ Execution. I wish they did it years ago!”
This is one of those movies where you don’t really need the visuals that much. It could be on the radio or a podcast and it will have the same effect. It is true that some facial expressions of both the killer and the agent are important to be seen, but they are just a few. Everything else is vocal, everything else is just a verbal transcription of the minds.
Both actors are giving very solid performances. The measure is right in terms of casting. Those are the faces of a softly tactical, but very anayltical federal agent and an extremely intelligent serial killer who is holding all these deviant ideas right to the last moment of realization of the planned murder.
