Ted Bundy is a 2002 film by American film director and writer Matthew Bright. The film dramatizes the crimes of serial killer Ted Bundy.[1] It stars Michael Reilly Burke in the title role, and Boti Bliss as Bundy's girlfriend, Lee (a character based on Elizabeth Kloepfer, Bundy's real life girlfriend during his killing spree).
[edit] Differences between film and real events
The film's fictionalized narrative takes many creative liberties, changing or conflating events and shifting their timing, as is common in Hollywood re-tellings of real-life events. Examples include:
- In the movie, Bundy says he flunked out of law school and psychology classes. In real life, while Bundy was a poor law school student, he graduated with honors from the University of Washington as a psychology major.
- The music played in the bar scene at the beginning of the film has elements of techno and synthesized music sequencing, which were not available in the 1970s.
- The "cheerleader" victim was not a cheerleader in real life; Debby Kent was leaving a high school class play when Bundy snatched her.
- The film has the murder of Caryn Campbell (in the ski resort) and Bundy's first arrest take place in 1976, when both those events took place in 1975.
- Bundy was not arrested while trying to steal a car as depicted, but rather for driving erratically after he had successfully stolen a car.
- In the first prison escape, Ted is seen in the film exiting a window and onto a lower roof. He actually jumped directly from the window to the ground according to The Stranger Beside Me.
- In the film Bundy says Colorado authorities are "asking for the death penalty"; in actuality prosecutors there had decided not to ask for the death penalty in his case.
- In the film Bundy hotwires a car. There is no evidence that the real Bundy knew how to hotwire a car and only stole a car if he found the keys inside.
- Bundy's arrest is shown happening in a field in broad daylight; in actuality it was in a residential neighborhood at 1 a.m.
- Some of the portrayal of Bundy's execution is inaccurate. Specifically, by that time the practice of packing the condemned's rectum with cotton to prevent soiling had been discontinued.
- During a scene in which Bundy took a victim from her home, the movie shows Bundy wrapping the victim in a large sheet and carrying her to his car. In the film, this was done in front of other witnesses on the street. Bundy stated that he was always careful about witness identification to authors Michaud & Aynesworth.
- In the film, Bundy's Volkswagen is yellow. In real life, it was tan.
- In the film, Bundy's last victim is seen playing and skipping around. In real life, Kimberely Leach was moving from her school's auditorium/gym back to her homeroom class to retrieve her forgotten purse.
- In the film, when Bundy flees from the sorority house he bumps into a sorority sister walking in. In real life, Nita Neary, the sorority sister, was hidden from view and saw Bundy slip out of the house carrying a weapon and wearing a dark cap. Bundy never saw her hidden.
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