Those who saw ’80s heartthrob Mark Harmon‘s turn in The Deliberate Stranger TV miniseries would figure our nation’s most notorious homicidal maniac was a grinning stud muffin who favored much-too-tiny tennis shorts and tooling around town in his yellow VW Bug. Oh, and he also — shhhh! — may’ve killed as many as 200 women. HALLE-FREAKIN-LUJAH!!! At long last, CineSchlockers can behold Terrible Ted as the masturbating corpse diddler he truly was in this grossly-exploitive, yet unflinchingly-honest chronicle of the sociopath for whom the very term "serial killer" was coined.
From the first frames, Michael Reilly Burke eerily channels Bundy’s disturbing childlike mania as he makes faces in a three-way mirror, his odd charm and phony sincerity with his girlfriend and her child, his petty theft and nights as a peeping Tom, right down the slippery slope toward snatching his first victim off the street. Writer/director Matthew Bright adeptly uses pitch-black humor to set the hook on his audience and draws us into both Ted’s surface world and the twisted insanity of his after-hours obsessions. Take the scene where Boti Ann Bliss‘s "Lee" so desperately wants to please her boyfriend by indulging his "unique" sexual demands that she finds herself hog-tied, legs splayed in opposite directions as he thrusts frantically atop her. Shocking stuff, but too tame for Ted, no, he demands she play DEAD as he curses her and snarls, "Keep your eyes open!" What’s slightly MORE sickening? She obliges! Run, darlin, R-U-N!!! Of course as the nubile bodies pile up along the timeline of Bundy’s exploits, so too ratchet the on-screen horrors until Ted himself suffers the righteous reward of having Vaseline-slathered cotton crammed up his keister before meeting his maker on top of Ol’ Sparky. By the way, just how long before Spike Lee sues over the "I am Malcolm X!" finale?
CineSchlockers will spot gore guru Tom Savini‘s cameo as a Bundy buster. He’s also responsible for the flick’s grisly effects. Don’t overlook Troma siren Tiffany Shepis as the wouldbe victim who whups Ted’s hiney (and comes breathlessly close to getting herself CLOBBERED by a car!) After the flick, hang in for Mr. Bright’s sardonic commentary featuring footnotes on the "real" Ted Bundy, trivia such as subbing his own ex-girlfriends’ names for those of the actual victims and his acknowledgement of the flick’s exploitive tone, "We tried to do this tastefully. But how do you do it tasteful? It’s vile!"
Six breasts. 24 corpses. Multiple brainings. Angry self-gratification. A Very Bundy Christmas. Sorority pillow fight. Screaming ode to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Highly-vocal conjugal visit. Gratuitous cheerleaders. Mr. Burke’s Bundy bon monts include, "Sex is only dirty when you do it right! / This is the court of Ted! What I say here is law! / Ready for some FUN, kitten!?!"