zodiac killer movie review ted bundy

Are These Rumors True About Zodiac Killer?

Allegedly, he was a fan of lady gaga, trolled ted bundy online, and had a friend who wanted the world to know about his murderous past., jessica lee, published oct. 9, 2021.

About this rating

A team of private investigators, called the "Case Breakers," claimed to have uncovered evidence to pin the prolific series of unsolved murders that terrorized Northern California in the late 1960s on a man who died in 2018. As a result, Internet sleuths circulated numerous posts supposedly showing traces of the man's internet persona. However, it was erroneous to claim those posts showed genuine photographs of, or comments written by, the Zodiac killer because federal and local investigators tasked with solving the cold case have not identified a suspect, as of this writing.

In early October 2021, a group of private investigators announced it had evidence that a California man who died several years prior was the Zodiac Killer. Despite the lack of confirmation from law enforcement authorities on the veracity of that belief, the revelation sparked news stories , as well as makeshift investigations by social media users into the man's life before his death.

In short, popular tweets and Reddit threads made numerous allegations, such as the Zodiac killer was a Lady Gaga fan; trolled serial killer Ted Bundy online; supported the Minnesota Vikings' NFL team; and had a friend who wanted the world to know about his murderous past.

Numerous Snopes readers sent us requests, or searched our site, for truth behind those rumors — as well as reliable information on whether the 52-year-old mystery was indeed solved.

The rumors were fueled by the work of the " Case Breakers " — a group of roughly 40 former law enforcement officers, prosecutors, journalists, and intelligence officials who aim to solve murder cases.

After supposedly comparing photographs to a police sketch, analyzing anagrams, and interviewing witnesses, the Case Breakers in early October released the name of the man who they believed terrorized northern California in the late 1960s as the Zodiac. Some media outlets, such as Fox News and Deadline , published stories identifying the man.

“I absolutely feel we solved this case,” Tom Colbert, a member of the group, told the San Francisco Chronicle .

“There’s no ego here,” he continued. “We do this to solve cases.”

FBI, Police Push Back on Cold Case Team's Findings

The Chronicle's newsroom, as well as police, get hundreds of tips every year on potential Zodiac suspects and solutions to the case, according to the newspaper.

For instance, a team led by a former California Highway Patrol Officer announced in 2011 that it believed a 91-year-old former real estate agent was responsible for the slayings; however, investigators said there wasn't enough evidence to substantiate the theory.

Cue the Case Breakers' October 2021 announcement. In addition to five killings in 1968 and 1969 in the Bay Area (murders that the FBI has conclusively linked to the Zodiac), the Case Breakers believe the serial killer also murdered Cheri Jo Bates , an 18-year-old woman slain hours away in Southern California's Riverside in 1966.

However, Riverside Police Officer Ryan Railsback debunked that theory in an interview with the Chronicle. "If you read what they (the Case Breakers) put out, it’s all circumstantial evidence. It’s not a whole lot," Railsback told that newspaper.

In fact, federal and local investigators tasked with solving the Zodiac case aren't sold on any of the private team's findings; they say the search to find the Zodiac remains ongoing.

"Sources at both agencies [the FBI and San Francisco Police Department] told The Chronicle the evidence presented by the Case Breakers does not appear to be conclusive," the newspaper reported .

Furthermore, San Francisco's FBI bureau tweeted on Oct. 7:

When we reached out to the FBI ourselves, its communications team referred us to the above-displayed tweet.

Snopes also contacted the San Francisco Police Department, and a spokesperson responded via email: "The SFPD's investigation into the Zodiac case is open and ongoing. As a consequence we cannot comment further on the investigation."

Because the agencies consider the case ongoing, Snopes is not naming the man who the Case Breakers believes was the Zodiac — apparently an Air Force veteran who died in 2018. For the purpose of this report, we will call him "the Case Breakers' man." He lived in the Sierra foothills and died at the age of 80, according to the Chronicle , which cited court records.

Journalists with that newspaper reportedly spoke with a relative of the man six years before the Case Breakers' October 2021 announcement. Also, they talked to the man's daughter-in-law on Oct. 6, and she said that she believes the Case Breakers "nailed the killer." The Chronicle published:

The Chronicle was called six years ago by a relative of the Case Breakers suspect, who said the man lived in Groveland (Tuolumne County) and had tried to kill him with a hammer. He contacted investigators, but when The Chronicle followed up with law enforcement, they said the Zodiac connection did not appear to be there. The Groveland man’s former daughter-in-law told The Chronicle on Wednesday that she was intimately familiar with the other relative’s fears, and she believes the Case Breakers have nailed the killer. She lives out of state and said she moved to get away from threats from the man and his supporters. The Case Breakers suspect died in 2018 of natural causes, she said. County records show he was 80. “It’s my birthday today, and this all coming out is a great birthday present for me,” said Michelle Wynn, 52. The Case Breakers suspect “is the Zodiac, without a doubt. Being around him, knowing his demeanor and his shadiness and twistedness — I have an intuition, I can read people.” Wynn said the 1969 police sketch “was like a bell-ringer for me. ... I saw that and thought, ‘That’s him.’ Totally,” she said.

In short, while a team of private investigators claimed to have identified the Zodiac and a relative of that man reportedly told journalists that she believed he was "the Zodiac without a doubt," federal and local law enforcement agencies including the FBI have not confirmed — nor given any indication — that that was indeed true.

Additionally, critics of the Case Breakers' findings include Michael Hobbes , of the Huffington Post and the podcast, “ You’re Wrong About ," and Jay Barmann , a writer for SF News.

Was The Zodiac a Lady Gaga, Minnesota Vikings Fan?

After some news reports published the full name of the Case Breakers' man, Twitter did what Twitter does best — ragtag sleuthing and meme-ing.

On Oct. 8, Barstool Sports compiled a sample of theories circulating widely about the man under the headline, " Alleged Zodiac Killer Had Ironic Internet Presence. "

That piece cited viral tweets claiming the following: that the Zodiac had supposedly left a glowing review of Lady Gaga's 2016 "Joanne" album on metacritic.com ; trolled Ted Bundy in a review on an IMDb page; and had a friend who repeatedly outed him as the person behind the brutal slayings on social media.

Let us start with the assertion that the serial killer was among Gaga's Little Monsters . The Barstool Sports' piece included a tweet supposedly showing screenshots of the Case Breakers' man leaving a comment on the metacritic.com profile of "Joanne," on Oct. 24, 2016, reading: "A national treasure, like myself."

However, we analyzed thousands of reviews on the album's profile, including those published on Oct. 24, 2016, and found no such remark.

The screenshot appeared to be a digital creation. Over the course of hours, other Twitter users meme-afied the concept with similarly edited images, supposedly showing the man's affinity for various video games , bands , and musical artists .

The claim about the 2015 documentary titled "The Hunt for Ted Bundy" seemed to be the same thing: An unknown digital artist apparently replicated the look and design of an IDMb review to make it seem like the Case Breaker man left the review, "Awful. Would give less than 1 star if I could. Ted Bundy is wildly overrated."

We came to that conclusion by studying the documentary's actual IMDb page , which only had one review and was not the phrases pictured above.

Next, we addressed the rumor about a friend to the Case Breakers' man "trying to tell everyone" about his murderous past.

There was no verified evidence to prove the friend was a real person who knew the Case Breakers' man, and/or that he had authored the alleged posts about the Zodiac. If there was any reason to consider their authenticity, journalists with reputable news outlets, such as the Chronicle, would attempt to interview the purported friend. That had not happened, as of this writing, however.

We reached out the viral tweet's author to learn how, or with what evidence, they obtained photographs supposedly showing the Case Breakers' man and the friend, as well as screenshots of the friend supposedly calling the former man the Zodiac. We haven't heard back, but we will update this report if that changes.

Additionally, tweets and Reddit threads circulated photos of someone who they believed was the Case Breakers' man wearing a hat representing the Minnesota Vikings NFL team . Several sports blogs recirculated that allegation, too.

"The man allegedly outed as the Zodiac Killer was a Vikings fan," a Reddit post read.

However, no evidence proved that the man pictured above in a Vikings hat was the same person as the Case Breakers' man. The picture matched the profile photograph for a Facebook account with the same name, however — an account that had little activity viewable to the public aside from a July 2011 post sharing a Washington Post article about Casey Anthony .

All of this said, it was impossible for social media users' investigations into the Case Breakers' man to prove anything about the Zodiac killer — that he was a Lady Gaga fan, Viking's supporter, Bundy troll, etc. — because federal and local investigators tasked with solving the case refuted the private team's work, and considered the person behind the prolific slayings unknown. For that reason, we rate this claim "False."

Casiano, Louis. “Cold Case Team Says Zodiac Killer ID’d, Linking Him to Another Murder.” Fox News , 4 Oct. 2021, https://www.foxnews.com/us/cold-case-zodiac-killer-identified-murder.

Fagan, Kevin. “Zodiac Killer Case Solved? Case Breakers Group Makes an ID, but Police Say It Doesn’t Hold Up.” San Francisco Chronicle , 6 Oct. 2021, https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Zodiac-Killer-case-solved-Case-Breakers-16514228.php.

HarinFootball, Billy. Alleged Zodiac Killer Had Ironic Internet Presence. https://www.barstoolsports.com/blog/3387802/alleged-zodiac-killer-had-ironic-internet-presence. Accessed 8 Oct. 2021.g, Bruce, and Bruce Haring. “Zodiac Killer, Long-Sought Bay Area Serial Murderer, Identified By Cold-Case Task Force.” Deadline, 7 Oct. 2021, https://deadline.com/2021/10/zodiac-killer-bay-area-criminal-case-breakers-1234851218/.

“Case of the Zodiac Killer Takes Another Twist – but Police Say It Isn’t Solved.” The Guardian , 8 Oct. 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/08/zodiac-killer-investigation.

CNN, Sarah Moon and Cheri Mossburg. “Group Claims It Has Solved the Identity of the Zodiac Killer as Law Enforcement Investigates.” CNN , https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/06/us/zodiac-killer-identity-law-enforcement-investigation/index.html. Accessed 8 Oct. 2021.

“Zodiac Killer: Authorities Rebuff Cold Case Team’s New Lead.” BBC News , 7 Oct. 2021. www.bbc.com , https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58837900.

“‘The Case Remains Open’: FBI Rebuts Claim Zodiac Killer Case Is Solved.” NBC News , https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/case-remains-open-fbi-refutes-claim-zodiac-killer-case-solved-n1281002. Accessed 8 Oct. 2021.

dc. “The Last Zodiac Victim.” The Case Breakers , 29 Sept. 2021, https://thecasebreakers.org/2021/09/the-last-zodiac-victim/.

The Hunt for Ted Bundy (2015) - IMDb . www.imdb.com ,https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4774372/reviews. Accessed 8 Oct. 2021.

Cold Case Unit | Riverside Police Department . https://riversideca.gov/rpd/about-contact/operations/investigations-division/cold-case-unit. Accessed 8 Oct. 2021.

“The Zodiac Killer.” FBI , https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2007/march/zodiac_030207. Accessed 8 Oct. 2021.

This report was updated to note the FBI's response to Snopes' inquiry about its investigation into the Zodiac case.

This report was updated to include the San Francisco Police Department's response to Snopes' inquiry about its investigation.

By Jessica Lee

Jessica Lee is Snopes' Senior Assignments Editor with expertise in investigative storytelling, media literacy advocacy and digital audience engagement.

The Truth About Jim: Was the Zodiac case solved?

The Zodiac Killer remains the most famous unsolved crime case in US history, but does HBO’s new true crime documentary, The Truth About Jim, crack the code?

Referred to as the “golden age of serial murder,” the 1970s to the 1990s marked a chilling epoch of notorious serial killers lurking in the shadows of American society. During this time, individuals such as Ted Bundy , Jeffrey Dahmer , and John Wayne Gacy left a trail of terror and tragedy in their wake, each with their own gruesome modus operandi.

Though we can’t be certain, the prevalence of serial killers during this era has, over the years, been attributed to a series of socio-cultural and psychological factors: the upheaval of traditional societal norms and values, coupled with the advent of mass media and widespread urbanization. Additionally, advancements in forensic technology and law enforcement techniques allowed authorities to better identify and track serial offenders, leading to a heightened awareness of their existence within society.

However, one individual they couldn’t and still can’t track down is the Zodiac Killer. As well as being responsible for at least five murders in the 1960s, he would taunt authorities with a series of cryptic ciphers and letters sent to local newspapers, in which he claimed responsibility for his crimes and mocked law enforcement for not being able to catch him. The Zodiac Killer’s identity is explored in The Truth About Jim , but has the case been solved? Warning: Spoilers ahead and some may find this content distressing.

The Truth About Jim: Was the Zodiac case solved? 

No, the Zodiac Killer case has not been solved. In The Truth About Jim, Sierra Barter questions whether her late step-grandfather, Jim Mordecai, could be the elusive murderer – but while anything is possible, Zodiac expert Mike Butterfield explains why it’s unlikely, saying that he doesn’t “see much that would indicate” Mordecai’s the culprit. 

It’s worth noting that for the most part, the docu-series sees Barter speaking with various family members – including her mom Shannon and grandmother Judy, as well another of Mordecai’s wives, his daughters, and his stepchildren – about her step-grandfather. As well as violent outbursts and delusions of grandeur, Mordecai is accused of the sexual assault and attempted rape of numerous teenage girls, including his step-daughter Christi Probst.

As she digs further, sinister details about Mordecai’s past are uncovered, leading Sierra and her relatives to believe he could be the Santa Rosa hitchhiker killer. The unsolved case occurred between 1972 and 1973 when authorities found the remains of seven young female hitchhikers in Sonoma County and Santa Rosa of California’s North Bay area.

Midway through the series, Sierra discusses the case of Kathleen Johns. In 1970, Kathleen was abducted by a male driver on Highway 132. She managed to escape and flag down another driver, who took her to the police station. When she got to the station, she pointed to a sketch of a man on the wall and said, “That’s the guy.” The image she identified was the police sketch of the Zodiac killer. 

Sierra begins comparing the case with that of her step-grandfather. Physically, Mordecai fit the bill – he was the same height, the same stocky, athletic build, he had the same shoe size, and he looked like the police sketch. He also had delusional fantasies and was highly familiar with the areas the Zodiac stalked. Sierra shows an image of Mordecai at Lake Berryessa, seemingly not far from where the Zodiac attacked a young couple in 1969. 

But while it’s an interesting theory, there are a number of discrepancies between the two – the main theory is that Mordecai could have been the Santa Rosa killer, whose target was teenage girls. However, the Zodiac targeted men and women. Additionally, Mordecai’s and the Zodiac’s appearance – slicked-back hair and thick-rimmed glasses – was very common at that time. 

When Sierra presents the evidence to Butterfield, he says: “I can understand why you would have some base suspicions about it to begin with, but having looked at what you have, and having talked to you about it, and then thinking about your attitude about all this, which is – nobody wants anybody in their family to turn out to be one of the worst serial killers in history. There’s a saying that I’ve heard before, which is, ‘A cold case is no substitute for a warm life.’” Prior to this, Butterfield explains, “I don’t see much that would indicate he’s the Zodiac.”

This meeting allows Sierra to put the theory to bed and focus on the question at hand: was Mordecai responsible for the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders? In addition to his knowledge of the area, and even owning a nearby secluded ranch, Jim would often reference hog-tying – the method used by the Santa Rosa serial killer to discard the bodies. 

Additionally, when he died, Judy and Shannon discovered a box among his belongings – and inside of it were random pieces of mismatched jewelry, the type that would typically belong to teenage girls in the ‘70s. Unfortunately, they discarded the box, not knowing it could have been a key piece of evidence in the case. 

In The Truth About Jim, FBI profiler Raymond Carr puts together a profile of the killer based on the evidence surrounding the Santa Rosa murders. As he’s reading out the characteristics, it becomes clear that Mordecai fits the bill. Carr then shares a crucial piece of information – authorities obtained a semen sample from the remains, meaning somewhere, the killer’s DNA is on file. 

But while Sierra is able to retrieve a sample of Mordecai’s DNA to compare, alongside a compelling case of evidence, the ending of the true crime series reveals that authorities are still looking into the information. What she is able to do, however, is bring closure to her family. They all reunite in the final episode, where Christi tells her: “You coming forward and doing this has allowed all of us to heal.”

'Myth of the Zodiac' Trailer Begs the Question: Did the Killer Really Exist? [Exclusive]

Your changes have been saved

Email is sent

Email has already been sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

'9-1-1: Lone Star' Cast Member Shares Disappointing First Thoughts After Series Cancellation

'bleach: thousand-year blood war' season 3 finally sets release date, a new special agent joins the team in ‘fbi: international’ season 4 images.

From Jeffrey Dahmer to Ted Bundy , Ed Gein , and Randy Kraft , the United States has unfortunately come to know more than its fair share of serial killers over the last century. But, while all the aforementioned murderers were caught, there’s one case that will forever haunt the public. Known only as the Zodiac Killer, the person behind the mask of five slayings (that we know of) in the San Francisco Bay Area during 1968 and 1969 has never been apprehended - at least not for the murders.

A staple in true crime culture, the story of the mysterious phantom who stalked the streets, hillsides, and lakes of San Francisco has been the center of many Hollywood productions like the Jake Gyllenhaal , Mark Ruffalo , Brian Cox , and Robert Downey Jr. 2007 David Fincher -helmed thriller, Zodiac . And, while movies, books, and podcasts have set out to find the truth, the killer’s name is yet to be revealed. Now, one Zodiac enthusiast is hoping to crack the case by asking a question that no other person has brought forward - did the killer even exist?

Peacock’s latest two-part true crime docuseries, Myth of the Zodiac Killer , will jump into one man’s strong belief that the notorious slayer was merely a piece of American folklore. A new trailer released ahead of the series’ arrival sheds light on this bizarre theory as Thomas Henry Horan , an investigative journalist and the author of The Myth of the Zodiac Killer: A Literary Investigation by Thomas Henry Horan , and filmmaker Andrew Nock team up to get to the bottom of the riddle. Each taking different stances, with Nock staunchly standing by the one-killer theory and Horan testing his no-killer theory, the trailer sees the two men diving head first into the case . Because we know the murders took place, it’s unclear how Horan will line up his theory unless, like many others, his goal is to prove that there was more than one killer, thus solidifying that “The Zodiac” never existed.

RELATED: 10 Best Whodunits Of The 21st Century To Watch Before 'Glass Onion'

What Other True Crime Productions Does Peacock Have?

Earning a name for itself as a new home of true-crime documentaries, the network boasts an impressive lineup of interesting and well-thought-out titles. The current slate of originals includes Casey Anthony: Where the Truth Lies and John Wayne Gacy: Devil in Disguise , as well as a slew of content from networks such as Oxygen ( Violent Minds: Killers on Tape ).

Check out the trailer for Myth of the Zodiac Killer above and immerse yourself in the hunt when the two-part docuseries lands on Peacock on July 11.

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile

The title of Joe Berlinger’s “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile” comes from the famous post-sentencing remarks of Judge Edward Cowart to Ted Bundy, America’s most notorious (to this day) serial killer. Cowart called the killings “extremely wicked, shockingly evil, vile and the product of a design to inflict a high degree of pain and utter indifference to human life.” What is so interesting about Berlinger’s film is how strongly it resists showing Ted as “wicked” or “evil.” Bundy is never shown committing a crime. We are left instead with a terrifying void, the void of Bundy himself, a blank space where a human being should be. Knowing the details of Bundy’s life—his shame at being born out of wedlock, for example—only takes us so far. Lots of people are born out of wedlock. Only one became Ted Bundy. Refusing to explain Ted Bundy is the strongest possible choice Berlinger could have made because it destabilizes reality. The film itself gaslights us, and this is where Berlinger and Zac Efron —an inspired choice—are powerful co-creators. 

Loosely based on  The Phantom Prince: My Life with Ted Bundy , the memoir of Bundy’s long-time girlfriend Elizabeth Kloepfer (played here by Lily Collins ), “Extremely Wicked” starts in Elizabeth’s point of view. A single mother, holding down a secretarial job, Liz expresses to a friend her insecurities about finding a man. What man wants a woman with a kid? A predator like Ted Bundy is quick to sniff out insecure women like Liz. She meets him at a bar, and he charms her. Easily. She brings him home. They don’t have sex. The next morning, she finds him in the kitchen with her baby daughter, and he’s making breakfast, wearing a yellow apron. Liz can’t believe it. Is this guy too good to be true?

How something happens is more important than what happens, particularly in a story where the details are well-known. “Extremely Wicked” mixes Liz’s point of view with Bundy’s, but there are some crucial differences in approach. Berlinger puts us inside Liz’s growing terror that she’s been living with the guy who maybe did the horrible things she’s seeing on the news. Their happy relationship, shown in home movie footage, is intercut with extant local news reports of girls gone missing in the area, girls showing up dead, two brazen abductions in broad daylight. The police sketch released to the public looks kind of like her boyfriend, but Liz can’t be sure. Berlinger follows Bundy, too, but in the Bundy sequences, we only see his outer behavior, what he does . This captures Bundy’s opaque quality, the sense you get of a camouflage hiding his true nature. Bundy insists—with increasing aggravation—that he has been wrongly accused. 

A lesser film would have intercut the happy home scenes with scenes of Bundy killing college co-eds, just to remind us of Bundy’s evil. A lesser film would have provided flashbacks to his childhood, in an attempt to explain why. Instead, we are banished from his secret life, just like Liz is banished from it. We see him as she sees him, and he is a dazzlingly disorienting figure. This is what Efron taps into; this is what Efron understands. 

Efron became a child star when a generation of girls lost their minds over “High School Musical.” (Teenage girls are often the first to recognize who will be the Next Big Thing, and their screams of ecstasy are ignored or mocked. But teenage girls picked out Elvis Presley , they picked out Sinatra, they picked out Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson . Maybe, instead of belittling teenage girls’ frenzies, we should follow the sound to see what the fuss is about.) Efron’s transition from teen idol to adult actor has not always been smooth. His performance in the Seth Rogen comedy “Neighbors” had strangely deep stirrings, and critics took note. He was exhilarating in “ The Greatest Showman ,” because he got to sing and dance. (Classic Hollywood would not have been confused about what to do with Efron.) 

As Ted Bundy, Efron gets to use his natural assets—his face, his body, his charisma—and he gets to use them full-bore. Often really beautiful actors feel the need to “ugly” themselves up in order to be taken seriously. Efron so far has resisted. He has old-school movie star wattage and an ability to project his essence through the screen. Using his animal charm in service of Ted Bundy is so disturbing, but it works in subtextual ways, providing the “missing piece” when people ask why and how Bundy could have happened. It’s hard to be as charming as Efron is. Try it and see for yourself. Efron doesn’t telegraph to the audience Bundy’s sinister motives, he does not distance himself from Bundy’s charming modus operandi. His smokescreen is impenetrable. There are moments when Efron looks so much like Bundy (especially with the beard), it is truly eerie, but it’s more than just an outer transformation. Occasionally, there is a brief glimpse on his face of what Bundy’s victims probably saw in their final moments. But Efron is in charge of when and how we get to see it. It deserves to be called a thrilling performance.

Kaya Scodelario plays Carole Ann Boone, Bundy’s girlfriend during his imprisonment in Florida. Recently, the news broke that Christopher Watts, who killed his pregnant wife and two children in 2018, was being bombarded by love letters from women around the country. It’s a bafflingly common phenomenon, and Scodelario, in a very intelligent performance, suggests why. If there’s a void in Bundy, there’s a void in Carole too. Liz’s descent into alcoholism is handled well by Collins, as is the intervention of a co-worker, played by Haley Joel Osment . John Malkovich rules the roost as Judge Cowart, making Cowart’s famous words bristle with real ethical loathing. The courtroom scenes lack some of the dizzying charge of other sequences, maybe because it’s a re-creation of well-known footage (the entire trial was televised, a first of its kind). 

Ted Bundy was executed in Florida on January 24, 1989, making this year the 30th anniversary of his death. Similar to the glut of Manson movies this year marking the 50th anniversary of the Tate-LaBianca killings, Bundy is suddenly everywhere. In January, “Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes” dropped on Netflix, a four-part documentary also directed by Berlinger, featuring Bundy’s 1980 tape-recorded conversations with two journalists while on death row. Many seemed disturbed at the focus on Bundy’s looks, as though mentioning his handsomeness was akin to endorsing his diabolical crimes. A month or so later, the first trailer for “Extremely Wicked” dropped, and the online reaction was negative. According to its critics, the trailer glorified Bundy, it glorified Efron’s cuteness. What was fascinating about all of this, and why I’m mentioning it, was that these conversations were basically replicating the media firestorm back in the 1970s, when the horror of Ted Bundy’s killing spree became known. The focus on his looks struck many as unseemly back then, too. Women showed up in court for his trial giggling like they were at a Stones concert. People were horrified. Here it all was, playing out again in 2019.

There will always be those who want art to declare its intentions with neon signs pointing down like “This is bad. Don’t do this.” “Extremely Wicked” rightly resists such declarations and it refuses to offer explanations. You don’t ask why a tornado or a tsunami is destructive. You don’t dig into a grizzly bear’s past to understand why it attacks. You just know these things are dangerous and you need to avoid them. If you want to understand why Ted Bundy got away with what he did for as long as he did, watch Efron flirt with Collins in the scene where the characters first meet. Look for signs of Bundy’s malevolence. Squint for evidence of his evil. You won’t find it. Neither did Liz. That’s why it’s terrifying. 

Sheila O'Malley

Sheila O’Malley received a BFA in Theatre from the University of Rhode Island and a Master’s in Acting from the Actors Studio MFA Program. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

• Zac Efron as Ted Bundy
• Dylan Baker as David Yokum
• James Hetfield as Officer Bob Hayward
• Haley Joel Osment as Jerry
• Jim Parsons as Larry Simpson
• Jeffrey Donovan as John O'Connell
• Lily Collins as Elizabeth Kloepfer / Liz Kendall
• John Malkovich as Judge Edward Cowart
• Kaya Scodelario as Carole Ann Boone
• Angela Sarafyan as Joanna

Cinematographer

• Brandon Trost
• Dennis Smith
• Marco Beltrami

Writer (based on the book: "The Phantom Prince: My Life with Ted Bundy" by)

• Elizabeth Kendall
• Joe Berlinger
• Josh Schaeffer
• Michael Werwie

Leave a comment

Now playing.

We Live in Time

Look Into My Eyes

The Front Room

Matt and Mara

The Thicket

The Mother of All Lies

The Paragon

My First Film

Don’t Turn Out the Lights

I’ll Be Right There

The Greatest of All Time

Latest articles.

TIFF 2024: Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, Sharp Corner, The Quiet Ones

TIFF 2024: Dahomey, Bird, Oh Canada

TIFF 2024: The Cut, The Luckiest Man in America, Nutcrackers

The Telluride Tea: My Diary of the 2024 Telluride Film Festival

The best movie reviews, in your inbox.

Zodiac Review

18 May 2007

158 minutes

Jack The Ripper is remembered 120 years after he put down the knife for two reasons: a) someone (almost certainly not him) wrote taunting letters in red ink to the media and the police signed with the catchy ‘trade-name’; and b) he was never caught and cannot definitively be identified. The Metropolitan Police may not be working the case, but the Whitechapel Murders of 1888 are still open, and therefore the Ripper might as well still be at large and dangerous. Because the mystery remains unsolved, he is still frightening. How much more frightening, then, is San Francisco’s Zodiac Killer — who took great pains (including swatches of a victim’s bloody shirt) to prove that he wrote his own letters to the press, has also eluded the police for decades since his first crimes, and might conceivably still be alive?

Part of the modern-day ritual necessary for taking on board any horror, from the average killing spree to the 9/11 attacks, is to get the facts of any case straight in a succession of chronicles — paperback true-crime bestsellers, couple of TV movies, and (eventually) a more considered cinema film. With Zodiac, this pattern is frustrated — we have the books and the movies, but there are crucial gaps in the intricate and exhaustive tapestry of hard evidence. Robert Graysmith, the doodler and puzzle addict who picked up the case when more official investigators had walked away, is convinced he knows who the killer was, and David Fincher’s film adaptation of Graysmith’s two books on the case eventually comes near to the same conclusion. However, there’s really no way (short of the silly detours into fantasy that afflict most Jack The Ripper movies) of providing the ‘closure’ demanded of Hollywood films by audiences, development executives and screenwriting guru Robert McKee. Therefore, Zodiac was fated from its inception to be an uncomfortable experience, a whodunnit with the last few pages torn out, a film biography of a faceless man.

Even something as incendiary as Spike Lee’s Summer Of Sam or as disreputable as the endless schlock biopics of Ted Bundy, Ed Gein, Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy are able to deliver approximately happy endings — they caught the bastards! In the two-and-a-half-hour haul of Zodiac, we see all the certainties of the serial killer genre shredded. David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo), the bow-tie-wearing cop on the case, is a model of West Coast cool whose manner of wearing a gun-holster was copied by Steve McQueen in Bullitt. If this were a conventional movie, he would catch the killer — but Fincher shows the confident supercop become a crotchety, tired, greying figure, quietly bereft when his longtime partner (Anthony Edwards) transfers to something nine-to-five like fraud. In a crucial sequence, Toschi attends a special premiere of Dirty Harry — which fantasised a shoot-out finale to kill off a villain modelled on Zodiac, who actually tries to carry out the schoolbus attack the real murderer merely threatened — and walks out in disgust, muttering, “Whatever happened to ‘due process’?” Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.) comes on like that epitome of 1970s radical chic cool, the underground journalist with a mainstream outlet, making brilliant leaps around the befuddled authorities and going after the Zodiac like Woodward and Bernstein went after Nixon. He ends up drinking himself out of a job and hiding out on a boathouse, still paranoid that the killer will come after him.

Though Ruffalo, Edwards and Downey Jr. are outstanding in their various crash-and-burn approaches to the case, the film is built around Jake Gyllenhaal’s Graysmith, a boyish outsider who makes a few connections no-one else does and later devotes his whole life to a private crusade, to the extent of roping in his preteen kids as research assistants. Gyllenhaal is excellent, but suffers through a few too many scenes with poor Chloë Sevigny — who gets stuck with the traditionally annoying Teri Garr-in-Close Encounters role as a wife who nags her husband about spending too much time on the business we’re interested in. As always, it’s impossible not to sympathise with the character — but audiences also wish she’d shut up and let Graysmith get on with tracking down that last stray witness and joining the dots no-one else has bothered with.

It’s a truism that serial killers are media creations, but Zodiac — who may have taken his name and symbol from a watch advert, was perhaps inspired by the 1932 movie The Most Dangerous Game, and wanted a lawyer who had guest-starred in a Star Trek episode to represent him — remains a phantom of the tube and newsprint. Murderers who are caught get shown up as pathetic human beings rather than Lecter-like masterminds, but Zodiac was either clever or lucky, and remains a phantom. Fincher offers us his creepy, misspelled letters in voice-over and brings a hooded form on for one of the killings, but the film’s most unsettling moments come when the possible Zodiacs are around: convicted paedophile Arthur Leigh Allen (John Carroll Lynch) or repertory cinema programmer Bob Vaughn (Charles Fleischer). As in Seven and Fight Club, Fincher boasts an unparalleled ability to present ostensibly friendly, deeply twisted people credibly — one of Zodiac’s few melodramatic moments, as Vaughn spooks Graysmith so much he flees the suspect’s house, works entirely because of the unnerving performances.

While this isn’t as straightforward as Panic Room, Fincher’s previous film, it lacks the highly wrought style of Seven and Fight Club — and the few holdovers from his earlier method (like the frequent California downpours which strike whenever the characters aren’t depressed enough) don’t quite match the less-showy All The President’s Men-like docudrama manner used here. Whole stretches are merely conventional, with hits of the ’70s on the soundtrack to counterpoint the killings and cop-shop or newsroom scenes that could have come from a TV show of the time, like The Streets Of San Francisco or Lou Grant. Wonderfully acted as it is, there’s still a sense that Fincher — who is evidently as hung up on Zodiac as James Cameron was on Titanic — is working a notch or two below what he is capable of. Screenwriter James Vanderbilt’s CV includes Darkness Falls, Basic and Welcome To The Jungle, and his draft really could have done with a brush-up from some less pragmatic talent to make this as deep and affecting as it is long and brilliantly detailed.

Related Articles

Movies | 03 04 2020

Movies | 28 01 2020

Movies | 30 04 2018

Movies | 12 08 2014

Movies | 11 10 2012

Movies | 07 03 2007

Movies | 17 11 2006

Movies | 12 10 2006

Ted Bundy (2002)

• User Reviews

Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews

• User Ratings
• External Reviews
• Metacritic Reviews
• Full Cast and Crew
• Release Dates
• Official Sites
• Company Credits
• Filming & Production
• Technical Specs
• Plot Summary
• Plot Keywords
• Parents Guide

Did You Know?

• Crazy Credits
• Alternate Versions
• Connections
• Soundtracks

Photo & Video

• Photo Gallery
• Trailers and Videos

Related Items

• External Sites

Related lists from IMDb users

Recently Viewed

• Newsletters
• Account Activating this button will toggle the display of additional content Account Sign out

The Collected Works of the Zodiac

Was the 1960s serial killer a frustrated author, desperate for his voice to be heard.

As serial killers go, the Zodiac is pretty run-of-the-mill. His official victim count is seven: three couples and a San Francisco cab driver, all attacked within a one-year period in the late 1960s. Two of those victims, both men, survived. The murders themselves, although shockingly random, weren’t especially gruesome or freakish, even though one of the survivors described his attacker as wearing an executioner’s hood.

What made the Zodiac case a perfect rabbit hole, the stuff that obsessions are made of, were his letters and postcards, more than 15 of them, sent to local newspapers. Filled with sinister allusions to additional crimes, taunts aimed at the police, threats made against the public, weird collages, and above all, enigmatic cryptograms and clues, these communications have provided inexhaustible fodder for amateur sleuths and self-styled experts for decades.

And, of course, Zodiac was never caught. That generated a cottage industry in suspect development that has flourished on the internet and spawned countless feuds among the proponents of scores of different perps. People have argued that everyone from Ted Bundy to Theodore Kaczynski to stray members of the Manson Family were responsible for the crimes. At least three men have presented exhaustive cases accusing their own fathers of being Zodiac, one of which became a bestselling book and documentary miniseries on the FX network. Last year, the Case Breakers, an organization of volunteers with “law enforcement, military, forensic, academic, legal and investigative skill sets,” claimed to have conclusively identified a previously unnamed suspect as the killer. And earlier this year, writer Jarett Kobek published How to Find Zodiac , an impressively complex and unique attempt to identify the murderer by using the many cultural references in Zodiac’s correspondence.

Sign up for the Slate Culture Newsletter

The best of movies, TV, books, music, and more, delivered to your inbox.

Thanks for signing up! You can manage your newsletter subscriptions at any time.

Kobek argues that, unlike Bundy and most other serial killers, Zodiac did not “kill for the sake of killing.” Rather, his crimes were the “necessary spark” Zodiac needed to become famous—more specifically, “to be published.” Zodiac’s letters—which outnumber his confirmed victims and were mailed through the 1970s, long after he arguably had ceased attacking victims—contained references to comic books, science fiction, and other subcultural preoccupations of the day. Kobek further speculates that anyone who craved media attention as much as Zodiac would not have limited himself to only these attempts to publish. He was likely to have made a habit of writing letters to the editors of various publications. As a matter of fact, Kobek figures, wouldn’t someone with those interests and an overpowering itch to see his words in print have leapt into the robust fanzine culture of the time, even produced fanzines of his own? Kobek typed the words fanzines and Vallejo (a Bay Area suburb near where most of Zodiac’s crimes occurred and where Kobek assumed the killer lived) into a Google search bar and eventually found a man named Paul Doerr.

An obscure figure otherwise lost to history, Doerr, who died in 2007, was a madly prolific zine publisher and contributor of letters to other people’s zines, on subjects ranging from Tolkien and hollow earth theories to back-to-the-land projects, free love, paganism, and gun rights. Zine publishers typically sent out their mimeographed issues for free, swapping copies with other publishers and forming amateur publishing associations that bundled up copies of multiple zines to mail out to members. Most published letters, and some zines consisted of little more than letters from readers. “Fanzines were the Internet before the Internet,” Kobek writes.

What little Kobek can establish about Doerr’s life is that he grew up in Pennsylvania, married in 1949, moved to California in the early ’60s, worked at the Mare Island Naval Base, and lived with his wife in Fairfield, California, until his death. But the letters, articles, and countless classified ads Doerr published in zines, newspapers, professional magazines, alternative newspapers, trade publications, and such periodicals as American Pigeon Journal stand in extravagant contrast with this banal suburban existence. The Doerr of those writings claims to have sailed a boat from Lake Erie to San Francisco, to have established an off-the-grid homestead where he hoped to be joined by multiple female ex-cons interested in communal living, to have bought another boat that he planned to sail to Mexico after finding suitable female companions for the trip, to have been a member of the Akwesasne tribe, to have built hobbit-style dwellings called smials, to have found a ruby on Mount Shasta, and to have resolved a dispute extrajuridically in such a way that “there are fewer people here because of it now.” Kobek interprets the last of these as a “confession” to having committed murder, though to my ear it sounds like self-important bluster.

How to Find Zodiac is a kind of Venn diagram in which Kobek attributes aspects of Zodiac’s crimes or correspondence to certain subcultures, then establishes that Doerr participated in each of those subcultures. The hood Zodiac wore when attacking two college students at a lake in Napa County in 1969 he links to the Renaissance Pleasure Faire held all that month in Marin County and Doerr’s involvement with the Society for Creative Anachronism, whose members dress up in medieval garb. In 2013, an amateur Zodiac researcher discovered a 1952 comic book whose cover seems likely to have inspired a Halloween card that Zodiac sent to a reporter. Kobek then finds a notice Doerr published in a fantasy zine seeking to get in touch with comic book collectors. Kobek deems the crosshairs symbol that Zodiac used in his letters to the media to be the emblem of the Minutemen, a right-wing group that urged its members to paint or draw the symbol “everywhere possible that it will be seen by the public” to intimidate communists. Doerr’s name appeared on a list of Minutemen members obtained when authorities arrested the group’s founder. Furthermore, a Minutemen bulletin included the formula for an explosive that Zodiac also claimed to have used in a threatened attempt to blow up a school bus.

What are the odds that a man living in or near Vallejo would be part of the Society for Creative Anachronism and a comic book collector and a member of the Minutemen? What are the odds that the same man would advertise his interest in obtaining a copy of a book that, Kobek discovered, contained the phrase “slaves in the afterlife,” which Zodiac used in multiple communications? How to Find Zodiac is replete with correspondences like these, none of which seems meaningful on its own but in aggregate seem to conclusively pinpoint Doerr.

However, skepticism is in order whenever someone says “what are the odds?” in assessing a Zodiac suspect. The quintessential example of this is the 2020 FX documentary series The Most Dangerous Animal of All , a slow burn with a twist in its tail based on the bestselling book of the same title by Gary Stewart. The first three parts of the series build an impressive-looking case for Stewart’s theory that his biological father (whom he never met), Earl Van Best, was Zodiac. There is a remarkable similarity between the handwriting on Van Best’s wedding certificate and the Zodiac letters; a scar on Van Best’s fingerprint looks just like one on the partial handprint left by Zodiac; Van Best even has a background in code-breaking. Then, in the fourth episode, Stewart’s case falls apart. The wedding certificate turns out to have been written by the pastor who performed the ceremony, the scar was on a different finger, and so on. The series concludes with Stewart defiantly sticking to his father’s guilt while his co-author, Susan Mustafa—an experienced true crime writer whom Stewart deceived on multiple occasions—talks of her plans to burn a copy of the book they co-wrote.

Stewart first became convinced that his father was Zodiac while watching a TV documentary about the killer. He was electrified upon seeing the police sketch of Zodiac , a composite based on multiple eyewitness descriptions. The sketch is so iconic that Kobek, who doesn’t seem to have any useful images of Doerr, digs up some old photographs taken at an SCA tournament in 1968. In them, he pinpoints a man he judges to be Doerr because he’s carrying a camera and has a prominent chin. The man also has a mustache, but presumably Kobek thinks Doerr shaved it off before commencing his crime spree three months later. And the man doesn’t wear glasses, either, so I guess Kobek considers those to have been a disguise. He erases the glasses from the Zodiac police sketch, draws on a mustache and voila! —yeah, it looks kind of like the guy in the SCA photos. What are the odds?

The odds are not that low, actually. The Zodiac police sketch, with its crew cut and thick-framed spectacles, is a generic image of 1960s white manhood. It looks like a vast number of middle-class, midlevel professionals of the time—an engineer for IBM, perhaps, or an insurance salesman or even a junior exec from Mad Men . My own father looked a lot like that sketch for a certain stretch of the 1960s, a fact that I don’t find remotely ominous. My dad wouldn’t hurt a fly. But I’m not Gary Stewart, whose biological father was a controlling pedophile who seduced his 14-year-old mother and eventually did a stint in a mental hospital. And I’m not Dennis Kaufman, another sleuth who became convinced his dad was Zodiac after seeing that police sketch on a TV documentary. Kaufman’s stepfather, Jack Tarrance, was an abuser who—like a lot of deeply unpleasant men—liked to hint around about his capacity for homicidal violence and refused to deny being Zodiac when confronted. Each man’s instantaneous conviction that the sketch depicted his own father says more about the fathers than it does about any man’s conclusive resemblance to Zodiac.

I don’t find Kobek’s case for Doerr as Zodiac to be convincing. It’s an argument rife with confirmation bias and the dubious elision of such details as the Zodiac-brand watch found in possession of the San Francisco Police Department’s prime suspect, the face of which prominently features a crosshairs logo. But I still found How to Find Zodiac a fascinating portrait of a certain milieu and the people who populated it, hovering awkwardly between the establishment and the counterculture, attracted to the latter by tawdry fantasies of “free love” but resentful of political change and any other perceived diminishment of their own status. Doerr was perfectly capable of railing against both the government and flag burners. Guys like him were everywhere, not nearly as rare as Kobek seems to think.

How to Find Zodiac

By Jerrett Kobek. We Heard You Like Books.

Slate receives a commission when you purchase items using the links on this page. Thank you for your support.

Speculation about Zodiac suspects, taken all together, amounts to a bestiary of the seemingly countless creepy men of late ’60s Northern California. Along the way, How to Find Zodiac unearths a few nonsuspects of the same ilk, like the writer Walter Breen, husband of the prominent fantasy and science fiction novelist Marion Zimmer Bradley, who was well aware of his penchant for molesting young boys and provided him with cover. (Bradley would later be accused of sexually abusing their daughter. Doerr seems to have known both Bradley and Breen.) Kobek views this nasty history as indicative of “all the worst things that science fiction people believed about themselves,” that they were exceptional and therefore not obliged to abide by the mere conventions that restrained outsiders. And perhaps there was some of that in Doerr as well, although it’s unclear whether he ever did, or even truly intended to do, any of the sketchy stuff he professed to be involved with. It’s one thing to write cranky articles about burning hippies in an Edgar Rice Burroughs fanzine; it’s something utterly different to walk up to two 16-year-old strangers sitting in a parked car and shoot them to death. Doerr, after all, has no official history of violence.

And perhaps there’s more that caught Kobek’s eye in Doerr. How to Find Zodiac is self-published, and its author describes how, in the past, he did an event at the Strand Bookstore in New York City, “a dismal affair in support of a work destined for failure.” Does he see something of himself in Doerr, a writer forever struggling to be heard? I’ll confess to seeing a bit of myself—a critic—in Kobek, who offers something a lot like literary criticism as an alternative to forensics: nail down someone with tastes, influences, and interests identical to Zodiac’s, and you’ve got Zodiac. I think that’s one reason why the Zodiac case still exerts such an enduring fascination. He got away with his crimes, leaving the world with a sparse collection of clues—an oeuvre of sorts, one we polish and polish until it presents us with a reflection of our communities, our fathers, ourselves.

Extremely Wicked: How Accurate Was Zac Efron's Ted Bundy Biopic?

True crime is one of the hottest genres in media today. All manner of podcasts, TV shows, movies, books, and more are being created faster than Buffalo Bill could lower a bucket into a hole. Netflix has been especially keen to pump out serial killer content, with shows like Mindhunter and documentaries like Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes hitting the service. The latter preceded a biopic about Ted Bundy called Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile , which starred Zac Efron as the serial killer.

With all the true crime stories being turned into movies, it’s important to take a look at them and determine how accurate the films are. So, how accurate is Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile ? Well, it is actually pretty accurate, despite the criticism it has faced for various other reasons .

Most of the criticism of Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile , comes down to the way the story was told . Critics say that it’s too soft on Ted Bundy and too much of a love story. It kind of makes Bundy into an anti-hero when in reality there was nothing redeeming about him. He was, as the judge at his sentencing called him and the producers named the film from, "extremely wicked, shockingly evil and vile."

While it is true the movie doesn’t explicitly show his gruesome murders or his ability to lure young women into his car and later brutally murder them, it is a fairly accurate account of his longtime romantic relationship with Elizabeth Kloepfer, played by Lily Collins. The movie is based on her out-of-print memoir published in 1981, soon after Ted Bundy went to jail.

Lily Collins and the rest of the cast, especially Zac Efron , deserve high praise for their performances. Whatever flaws there are in the approach to Bundy and Collins’ lives in the movie, the acting performances are excellent.

So, putting aside the approach to the story and the angle taken by director Joe Berlinger, how accurate is the movie, factually? Let’s take a look.

Zac Efron Was The Right Choice To Play Ted Bundy

Yes, not only did Zac Efron do a wonderful job playing the creep, he also fits the character. Ted Bundy was a very good looking man, like Efron. Part of the shock of Bundy murders and subsequent trials was that Bundy was a handsome, intelligent, and otherwise “normal” member of society. He was as far from the serial killer stereotype as you could get at the time.

CINEMABLEND NEWSLETTER

Your Daily Blend of Entertainment News

Bundy was not a creepy birthday party clown like John Wayne Gacy, or a spooky shadow like the Zodiac Killer , or as bizarre as Charles Manson . Those were the serial killer archetypes at the time and Ted Bundy didn’t fit into any of those boxes, which made him that much scarier and was a big reason he gained so much notoriety. It also may be why he still commands attention today.

Elizabeth Kloepfer Was Far More Suspicious Of Bundy In Real Life

In the film, Kloepfer calling the police in Seattle early one when she became concerned that Ted Bundy might be the “Ted” that the police were looking for in connection to the Lake Sammamish murders. Where the film goes a little astray is that Elizabeth Kloepfer remained suspicious and believed he was the serial killer that he was being accused of being.

In Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile , Kloepfer seems to waffle back and forth between trusting and believing Ted Bundy and not trusting or believing him. In her memoirs, she discusses coping with the truth by drowning the thoughts out with heavy drinking. Her alcoholism is only a minor bit in the movie, when in reality, it consumed her throughout her time with the serial killer and during all of his trials.

Ted Bundy Never Outright Admitted His Guilt To Liz

That last conversation between Elizabeth Kloepfer and Ted Bundy in the movie is, by far, the biggest artistic license taken by Joe Berlinger. It didn’t go down like that at all. Bundy never wrote “hacksaw” on the glass while in the visiting room with Kloepfer, nor did he directly admit his guilt during their last conversation. She begged him to admit it, but he refused. Shortly after, he was executed in the electric chair. Berlinger told USAToday ,

…in this era of #MeToo accountability we wanted our female character to end the movie in a strong moment of forcing him to admit what he did. The movie is all about accountability.

So, not exactly true to the story, but the actual conversation, which Kloepfer recounted in her memoir, was close enough in Berlinger’s mind to make the artistic jump.

Ted Bundy Did Defend Himself In Court

The courtroom scenes are very accurate to the true story, with much of dialog coming straight from the transcripts. Ted Bundy was a former law student and he was very smart. The quote from Judge Edward Cowart, played by John Malkovich in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, did actually come from what he said at Bundy's sentencing. Take a look.

You're a bright young man. You'd have made a good lawyer and I would have loved to have you practice in front of me, but you went another way, partner. I don't feel any animosity toward you. I want you to know that.

Of course, he went on to say...

The court finds that both of these killings were indeed heinous, atrocious and cruel. And that they were extremely wicked, shockingly evil, vile and the product of a design to inflict a high degree of pain and utter indifference to human life.

... as he sent Ted Bundy to the chair.

Ted Bundy Did Propose To Carole Ann Boone In Court

But it wasn’t exactly how it was portrayed in the movie. In another standard case of artistic license, Berlinger fudged this one a little bit.

Ted Bundy actually had two trials in Florida. The first, the real media circus of a trial that took place in 1979, is the one portrayed in the movie. The second one happened about six months later, in early 1980. It was at this second trial that Bundy took advantage of that obscure Florida law that allowed him to legally marry Carole Ann Boone, played in the movie by Kaya Scodelario, right there on the spot.

So, Joe Berlinger combined that part of the second trial into the first trial because it was an important part of the story, but it didn’t warrant adding the whole second trial just for that moment. Although, interestingly, technically it was the death sentence in the second trial that was carried out on Ted Bundy on January 24th, 1989.

Much of the rest of the movie is historically accurate. Ted Bundy and Liz Kloepfer did meet in a bar. Bundy did escape the courthouse in Colorado by jumping from the window. He did escape prison a second time by cutting a hole in his cell and slipping through. He did lure women into his creepy VW Beetle by faking an injury. The trial was a complete and total media circus, really the first of its kind to by widely televised. And Bundy and Carole Ann Boone really did conceive a child while he was locked up after his convictions.

Almost 40 years since he first came into the public eye, Ted Bundy continues to fascinate and terrify the public. His story is so well known that the decision to take a slightly less direct angle at the crimes was an interesting one by director Berlinger and while it doesn’t completely work in showing how much of monster Bundy really was, it is extremely historically accurate and it deserves much credit for that.

Hugh Scott is the Syndication Editor for CinemaBlend. Before CinemaBlend, he was the managing editor for Suggest.com and Gossipcop.com, covering celebrity news and debunking false gossip. He has been in the publishing industry for almost two decades, covering pop culture – movies and TV shows, especially – with a keen interest and love for Gen X culture, the older influences on it, and what it has since inspired. He graduated from Boston University with a degree in Political Science but cured himself of the desire to be a politician almost immediately after graduation.

32 Funniest Lines By Melissa McCarthy

15 Black Celebrities Who Have Successful Businesses

After Watching The Bikeriders, I'm Convinced Austin Butler Is Perfect For Michael Mann's Heat 2

Most Popular

• 2 32 Times Real Siblings Showed Up in the Same Movie
• 3 Harry Potter’s Bonnie Wright Weighs In On Possibly Giving Advice To The Max Show’s Cast, And I Totally Understand Her Take
• 4 Yes, Andrew Garfield Is Aware Of Those Horse Memes Surrounding His New Romance Film. Yes, His Thoughts On Them Are Fantastic
• 5 Fire Country's Showrunner Revealed Bode And Gabriela Will Have A 'New Level Of Attraction And Complication' This Season, And I Have A Few Theories About Why

• Latest Reviews
• Behind The Scenes
• Write For Us
• Advertise With Us

Substance & Meaningful Entertainment

Against gossip & scandal, independent media network, global stories from local perspective, factual culture news, ‘zodiac’, ‘my friend dahmer’, & more: immortalizing american serial killers on film | true crime.

Grace Smith is a film critic and writer with 21 years of formative film exposure under her belt – and a focused interest in horror, surrealism, and substantial Cinema. Grace is passionate about The Hollywood Insider’s mission towards thoughtful and innovative media that expands audience perspectives towards entertainment. As a young writer and film-lover, Grace hopes to inspire readers towards not only broadening their horizons when it comes to cinematic media, but also raising their expectations.

Jan 31, 2022

Table of Contents

Photo: ‘Zodiac’ and ‘My Friend Dahmer’

While most people would hate to come face-to-face with these characters in real life, there’s just something about a killer on film. From the mystery of David Fincher’s ‘Zodiac’, to the bitter realism of ‘Monster’, to the warm-toned gore of ‘My Friend Dahmer’, these projects have invited audiences to learn more about the serial killers that litter our historical records through an artistic lens. With the aforementioned films, as well as ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ and ‘Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile ’, this article will explore some of the most acclaimed on-screen depictions of real-life American serial killers, and a brief examination of their origins in no particular order.

Related article: EXCLUSIVE: ‘Dune’ Full Commentary, Reactions, Making Of – Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya, Oscar Isaac

Related article: ‘No Time to Die’ Full Commentary, Behind the Scenes & Reactions, Daniel Craig, Rami Malek, Bond

Related article: ‘No Time to Die’ Royal Premiere & Reactions – Daniel Craig, Rami Malek, Léa Seydoux & More

Related article: ‘Halloween Kills’ Full Commentary & Reactions, Behind the Scenes – Jamie Lee Curtis & More

Related article: The Hollywood Insider’s CEO Pritan Ambroase: “The Importance of Venice Film Festival as the Protector of Cinema”

American Serial Killers in Movies:

‘zodiac’ (2007).

The lasting legacy of the “ Zodiac Killer ” has been preserved by his perplexing mode of communication, as well as his iron-clad anonymity. Though in recent years, he’s allegedly been identified according to a team of cold case detectives (you guessed it: he was just some guy), an air of intrigue will always surround the idea of these random and senseless murders.

In the David Fincher -directed film, ‘ Zodiac ’ tells the story of a group of journalists at the San Francisco Chronicle that first encounter the strange ramblings of the killer, who threatens them into publishing his message. All-around great performances from an outstanding main cast – Jake Gyllenhaal , Mark Ruffalo , and Robert Downey Jr. – these characters are integrated into a pretty historically accurate depiction of the ‘Zodiac’ killings, the concerns that people had surrounding his messages, and the sense of mystery that permeated his covert reign of violence. As is expected for a Fincher film, the tone is air-tight and the dialogue is perfectly succinct. With not a performance out of line, ‘Zodiac’ is the embodiment of a taut true-crime thriller as the audience follows an impassioned ensemble through their obsessive investigation of a killer that remains shrouded in obscurity to this day.

Related article: MUST WATCH – The Hollywood Insider’s CEO Pritan Ambroase’s Love Letter to Black Lives Matter – VIDEO

Subscribe to The Hollywood Insider’s YouTube Channel, by clicking here.

‘Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile’ (2019)

The name Ted Bundy has become completely synonymous with the idea of an unstoppable serial killer, our collective memory of him includes an image of charisma so deceptive that he could not only lure victims into his predatory grasp, but he could play the part of your average guy to his family and peers.

Zac Efron , especially when viewed in side-by-side comparison, bears striking resemblance to the notorious murderer. His committed performance is supported by Lily Collins , who portrays Bundy’s longtime girlfriend, Elizabeth Kendall, and their chemistry creates what might be a romanticized but engaging account of the relationship of one of the most depraved American killers.

‘My Friend Dahmer’ (2017)

Maybe Ted Bundy or John Wayne Gacy first come to mind, but when it comes to American serial killers, Jeffrey Dahmer is one of the most archetypal and infamous. Skinny, smart, stand-offish , and wrought by a desire to experiment on animals from a young age (guised in mere scientific interest), part of what made Dahmer so terrifying was his deceptive – though unstable – disposition. As is startlingly common for young, to-be killers, Dahmer was also considerably meek, and his descent into psychopathy proceeded under the radar of his family and friends. However, as ‘ My Friend Dahmer ’ imagines, sometimes unexplainable memories gain frightening clarity in hindsight.

Related article: Why Queen Elizabeth II Is One Of The Greatest Monarchs | Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of United Queendom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland (Video Insight)

Limited Time Offer – FREE Subscription to The Hollywood Insider

Click here to read more on The Hollywood Insider’s vision, values and mission statement here – Media has the responsibility to better our world – The Hollywood Insider fully focuses on substance and meaningful entertainment, against gossip and scandal, by combining entertainment, education, and philanthropy.

This film doesn’t explore the goriest details of his murderous, cannibalistic tendencies, instead, it dives into the core of his seemingly mundane Ohio upbringing. Ross Lynch , a former Disney-heartthrob known from ‘ Teen Beach Movie ’, portrays Dahmer as the slouching, awkward, covertly alcoholic class clown that he really was during his younger years. His portrayal is based on the comic book of the same name, written by John “Derf” Backderf (played by Nat Wolff in the film), who really grew up with Dahmer, and has lived insight into the years that would precede his depraved spree of killings.

‘Monster’ (2003)

While the jury is out on the moral culpability of Aileen Wuornos , she’s just as memorable as her counterparts, and since her alleged crimes of self-defense and subsequent death penalty conviction, she has remained the most infamous female serial killer among a sea of violent men.

Telling a much different tale than the mere brutal mystery of the other, male-dominated ‘serial killer’ themed movies on this list, ‘ Monster ’ turns morbid reality into a heart-wrenchingly raw depiction of a woman whose life was filled with trauma from beginning to end. Charlize Theron literally transforms into Wuornos, not only through strong makeup and styling, but an idiosyncratic performance for which she would win the Academy Award for Best Actress that year. In this film, Theron and supporting counterpart Christina Ricci explore a new layer to the story of Wuornos, one that pays respect to her authentic personality, mannerisms, and personal life.

Related article: The Masters of Cinema Archives: The Hollywood Insider Pays Tribute to ‘La Vie En Rose’, Exclusive Interview with Director Olivier Dahan

Related article: – Want GUARANTEED SUCCESS? Remove these ten words from your vocabulary| Transform your life INSTANTLY

‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ (1974)

All of these films are wrought with violence and brutality in their own way, but ‘ The Texas Chainsaw Massacre ’ is often considered one of the paramount mainstream examples of ‘grindhouse’. Directed by Tobe Hooper , this film imagines a killer named ‘ Leatherface ’ who is modeled in the image of Ed Gein , an infamous, skin-wearing killer with devastating mommy issues. However, the 70’s slasher calls Gein too mindless for analyzing his psychology, and more for turning our stomach with the tendency of Leatherface to wear the skin of his victims. 

Ed Gein, also known as the “Butcher of Plainfield”, remains one of the more gruesome figures in American history. Not content with being a killer and body-snatcher, Gein fashioned an entire catalog of furniture out of the severed remains of his unfortunate victims. While similarities between the obvious behaviors of Gein and Leatherface may vary, their gory interest in repurposing the bodies of their victims will never not be so, so wrong.

By Grace Smith 

Click here to read The Hollywood Insider’s CEO Pritan Ambroase’s love letter to Black Lives Matter, in which he tackles more than just police reform, press freedom and more – click here.

An excerpt from the love letter: The Hollywood Insider’s CEO/editor-in-chief Pritan Ambroase affirms, “The Hollywood Insider fully supports the much-needed Black Lives Matter movement. We are actively, physically and digitally a part of this global movement. We will continue reporting on this major issue of police brutality and legal murders of Black people to hold the system accountable. We will continue reporting on this major issue with kindness and respect to all Black people, as each and every one of them are seen and heard.

Just a reminder, that the Black Lives Matter movement is about more than just police brutality and extends into banking, housing, education, medical, infrastructure, etc. We have the space and time for all your stories. We believe in peaceful/non-violent protests and I would like to request the rest of media to focus on 95% of the protests that are peaceful and working effectively with positive changes happening daily. Media has a responsibility to better the world and The Hollywood Insider will continue to do so.”

Ways to support Black Lives Matter Movement to end systemic racism

More Interesting Stories From The Hollywood Insider

– Want GUARANTEED SUCCESS? Remove these ten words from your vocabulary| Transform your life INSTANTLY

– Compilation: All James Bond 007 Opening Sequences From 1962 Sean Connery to Daniel Craig

– Do you know the hidden messages in ‘Call Me By Your Name’? Find out behind the scenes facts in the full commentary and In-depth analysis of the cinematic masterpiece

– A Tribute To The Academy Awards: All Best Actor/Actress Speeches From The Beginning Of Oscars 1929-2019 | From Rami Malek, Leonardo DiCaprio To Denzel Washington, Halle Berry & Beyond | From Olivia Colman, Meryl Streep To Bette Davis & Beyond

– In the 32nd Year Of His Career, Keanu Reeves’ Face Continues To Reign After Launching Movies Earning Over $4.3 Billion In Total – “John Wick”, “Toy Story 4”, “Matrix”, And Many More

american serial killers, american serial killers, american serial killers, american serial killers, american serial killers, american serial killers, american serial killers, american serial killers, american serial killers, american serial killers, american serial killers, american serial killers, american serial killers, american serial killers, american serial killers, american serial killers, american serial killers, american serial killers, american serial killers, american serial killers, american serial killers

Grace Smith is a film critic and writer with 21 years of formative film exposure under her belt - and a focused interest in horror, surrealism, and substantial Cinema. Grace is passionate about The Hollywood Insider’s mission towards thoughtful and innovative media that expands audience perspectives towards entertainment. As a young writer and film-lover, Grace hopes to inspire readers towards not only broadening their horizons when it comes to cinematic media, but also raising their expectations.

You might also like…

Newsletter Subscription

• First * First
• Enter Your Email *
• Comments This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Related Articles

Limited Time Offer: Join for FREE today and get unlimited

The Hollywood Insider is against gossip and scandal, fully focused on substance & meaningful entertainment.

We choose quality over quantity, compassion over oppression, wisdom over intelligence.

• Phone This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

"Sleeping with a baseball bat under the bed, constantly looking over our shoulders, school buses with police escorts, and wondering just who among our neighbors might be a serial killer or his next victim." � So said a reporter who had lived in Vallejo, California during the late 1960s era of the Zodiac murders. � He offered his recollection for The Patriot-News as the movie of this infamous case hit its first-weekend stride, and director David Fincher ( Se7en ) deftly recreates this very mix of tension and terror. � While events are familiar to most crime buffs, the settings, choice of actors, polished atmosphere, and selected interactions are nevertheless satisfying. � For newbies to this tale, the suspense alone should prove gripping. � But beneath the surface, there's more.

The self-dubbed Zodiac's crimes began with the fatal shooting of a pair of Vallejo teenagers on their first date. Later, he killed two women, one in Vallejo and another in Napa County, taking credit for all three incidents before his execution- style shooting of San Francisco cab driver Paul Stine in October 1969. � Since he killed in several jurisdictions, before computers and fax machines were commonly used, he cleverly obstructed a unified investigation. �

Starring Jake Gyllenhaal as the political cartoonist and author Robert Graysmith, Robert Downey, Jr. as crime reporter Paul Avery, and Mark Ruffalo as lead investigator Dave Toschi, the film is structured as two distinct but connected stories: 1) the murders and their impact on the Bay area, and 2) one man's personal quest to unmask the killer. � The transitions are smooth and the urgency lively as each key character makes both allies and enemies. � Some lose their way entirely, victims of their inability to cope, while others find something essential in the scary events to care about.

A few reviewers have complained that once investigation loses steam halfway through, the pace declines, but in fact it's at this point that the story reveals the demands and frustrations of due process — the way it really happens, contrary to how today's crime show writers pace their tales. � An investigation like this was not easy and certainly not solvable with some quick deductions from obvious clues. � What replaces the breathless pace we've grown used to is the way the various crime-solvers in this film brainstorm together for personal closure, recalling the clue-developing conversations from the classic film, All the President's Men . � They stick with it, even when they know they can't take it to court. � "Just because you can't prove it," says Graysmith, "doesn't mean it's not true."

Yet, just because you have a good set of coincidences doesn't mean your interpretation is correct, either. � Mix ambiguity and coincidence with a craving for certainty and you'll get an answer but not necessarily the answer. � We see how slippery this approach gets for Graysmith in several scenes. � If a handwriting expert supports his notions, for example, the expert is credible; if not, the expert can't be trusted. � That's poor investigation: by hook or by crook, make the facts fit the theory.

The Zodiac Killer Feature Story

• Sweeny Todd - Man or Myth?
• Ted Bundy - Notorious Serial Killer
• Al Capone - Chicago's Most Infamous Mob Boss
• Robert Hanssen
• Charles Manson and the Manson Family
• Jack the Ripper
• Jeffrey Dahmer

Screen Rant

Every ted bundy movie ranked worst to best (including no man of god).

Your changes have been saved

Email is sent

Email has already been sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

How Netflix's Ted Bundy Documentary & Movie Are Different (& Which Is Better)

Extremely wicked true story: what the ted bundy movie changes (& cuts), why hollywood is obsessed with ted bundy movies.

• Serial killers like Ted Bundy are a morbid fascination for the masses, inspiring countless movies and TV shows.
• Some films focus on Bundy's involvement in other cases, offering a unique perspective on his crimes.
• Movies about Bundy often highlight his charm and manipulation skills, portraying him as a real-life monster.

Serial killers are a recurrent topic in movies and TV shows, and the most notorious understandably inspire the healthiest box-office returns and streaming numbers, so it’s no shock there have been many Ted Bundy movies. The world has unfortunately seen too many serial killers through, with different modus operandi and targets. However, some remain fascinating to the audience and the entertainment industry, making them part of pop culture. The idea of centering a movie around a serial killer like Ted Bundy is to try to understand the mindset.

Genres from true crime to thrillers to horror all rely on the morbid yet natural human fascination with the macabre, and serial killers are the closest thing to real-life monsters. Theodore Robert Cowell, the birth name of "The Campus Killer" himself and best known as Ted Bundy, captured the darkest parts of audiences' imaginations before he was eventually identified and apprehended. This resulted in several Ted Bundy movies, some inaccurate exploitative stories, and others examining this man in interesting ways.

25 Best Serial Killer TV Shows On Netflix, Ranked

Netflix is a source of tons of amazing true crime content, and there are some enthralling shows that focus on serial killers, both real and fictional.

10 Bundy And The Green River Killer (2019)

The movie has bundy consulting on another case.

Bundy and The Green River Killer

Bundy and The Green River Killer is a crime drama film that explores the parallel lives of two of America's most notorious serial killers, Ted Bundy and Gary Ridgway, also known as the Green River Killer. The film delves into their crimes, capturing, and subsequent confessions, raising questions about their motivations and the impact of their crimes on their victims and families.

One of the modern Ted Bundy movies released is actually not about Bundy's days as a serial killer, but about him consulting on another case. In reality, Ted Bundy was interviewed about the Green River Serial Killer when there were no leads in the case.

That's the story Bundy And The Green River Killer tells.

This is actually a practice law enforcement will take, especially when convicted serial killers might be serving multiple life sentences in prison. That's the story Bundy And The Green River Killer tells. In the real-life incident, Bundy was on death row, and he spoke to a detective named Dave Reichert and a Bundy investigator named Robert Keppel, whom Bundy reached out to offer his help.

Bundy's information led to the Green River Serial Killer's arrest. However, reviews complained about bad acting and historical inaccuracies. The movie received mixed reviews , having only a 3.4 out of 10 stars on IMDB and a 6% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, but a 3.8 out of 5 stars on Amazon's Prime Video.

9 Bundy: An American Icon (2008)

An unreliable biopic from an unreliable narrator.

Bundy: An American Icon

Bundy: An American Icon is a 2008 biographical crime drama that examines the life and crimes of notorious serial killer Ted Bundy. Directed by Michael Feifer, the film stars Corin Nemec as Bundy, capturing his manipulative charm and murderous rampage that terrorized the United States in the 1970s. The narrative delves into Bundy's psychological profile while highlighting the impact of his actions on his victims and society.

Bundy: An American Icon (also known as Bundy: A Legacy of Evil ) is a horror movie directed by Michael Feifer that purports to be a biopic of "The Lady Killer" Theodore Cowell. Unfortunately for anyone looking for a fact-based affair, it follows Feifer's other serial killer movies (including movies about Ed Gein , BTK, and the Boston Strangler) by caring little for the truth. It dramatizes Bundy’s life from his troubled childhood to his arrest and trial and feels like little more than exploitation of a "brand."

Corin Nemec played Cowell/Bundy, and the movie wasn't well-received by critics, who thought it didn’t offer anything new. It’s an often forgotten entry in the collection of movies about Ted Bundy. Corin Nemec was great in his role as Ted Bundy, but when the 37-year-old actor played Bundy in his college years, it seemed a little too unrealistic.

8 American Boogeyman (2021)

Told through the eyes of fbi agents.

Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman

Not available

The first of two 2021 properties, Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman is written and directed by Daniel Farrands ( The Haunting of Sharon Tate ) and stars Chad Michael Murray as the title character. The film starts with Bundy's first abduction of a woman in 1974 and the murders that followed. Much like another true-crime biopic, The Highwaymen which focused on the law enforcement tacking Bonnie & Clyde, this movie was less concerned about Bundy than it was about tracking this serial killer down, a journey that ended in 1978.

Like the rest of the movies based on Ted Bundy American Boogeyman follows his crimes but through the perspective of the FBI agents assigned to the case

Like the rest of the movies based on Ted Bundy , American Boogeyman follows his crimes but through the perspective of the FBI agents assigned to the case: Kathleen McChesney (Holland Roden) and Robert Ressler (Jake Hays). I t never quite manages to justify its own existence, offering nothing new to the conversation and also fictionalizing events to the point that it feels grossly unfair. On top of that, Murray was considered miscast as Bundy.

7 Ted Bundy (2002)

Critics thought it to be exploitative.

Ted Bundy is a biographical drama film that explores the life of notorious American serial killer Ted Bundy, played by Michael Reilly Burke. The film chronicles Bundy's early life, his rise as a charismatic and intelligent law student, and his subsequent descent into darkness as he commits a series of heinous crimes.

Ted Bundy was directed and co-written by Matthew Bright. The story picks up in 1974 when Bundy was a law student and began his murder sprees. The infamous killer was played by Michael Reilly Burke ( Mars Attacks! ), whose performance was pointed out as the best thing in the movie , though it was affected by the story and tone of the movie, which critics labeled as “exploitative.”

That assessment is thoroughly justified: the Ted Bundy 2002 movie's commitment to bothering with the truth, again, is questionable at best, suggesting that lots of these movies have more stock in the idea of Bundy over the truth of the matter. After this movie, director Bright only made two more movies in his career, with his last film coming just one year later, a movie called Tiptoes starring Gary Oldman and Matthew McConaughey that Bright was fired from during post-production (via Yahoo ).

The 15 Most Interesting Serial Killers On Mindhunter (& 10 They Should Have Had On The Show)

Mindhunter does a great job of examining the motivations behind real serial killers. These are some of the most interesting to be featured!

6 The Capture Of The Green River Killer (2008)

The tv movie doesn't really justify the effort.

The Capture of the Green River Killer

The Capture of the Green River Killer is a two-part television movie that chronicles the real-life hunt for the notorious serial killer Gary Ridgway, who was convicted of murdering numerous women in the Seattle area. The story focuses on the experiences of one of the lead detectives, Dave Reichert, and a survivor whose life was forever altered by her encounter with the murderer.

The Capture of the Green River Killer is a two-part TV movie that focuses on the story of the Green River killer serial murders between 1982 and 1998. Just like in The Riverman , Bundy comes into play when he offers his help to the detectives working on the case. Bundy's real-life involvement in the case also helped to inspire The Silence of the Lambs as serial killer Hannibal Lecter helps FBI agent Clarice Starling. This version of Bundy is played by Buffy the Vampire Slayer 's James Marsters .

As a Lifetime original movie, It's a hard one to get hold of, but it doesn't really justify the effort. The cast is better than the material – with Tom Cavanagh in the lead role – but the screenplay was seen as the biggest problem with the film. However, it did receive two nominations for the 2008 Gemini Awards (Best Direction and Best Costuming). At the time of its release, it was the most-watched Lifetime Movie of all time (via The Futon Critic ).

Netflix's Ted Bundy films were both directed by Joe Berlinger. We break down the differences between the documentary and the feature film.

5 The Riverman (2004)

Another movie about bundy and the green river killer.

The Riverman

The Riverman is a crime drama film based on the true story of Gary Ridgway, America's most prolific serial killer. The 2004 film explores the events leading up to Ridgway's arrest in 2001, focusing on the efforts of detective Dave Reichert, who dedicated his career to capturing the Green River Killer.

The Riverman was a Ted Bundy TV movie directed by Bill Eagles ( Beautiful Creatures ) and based on the book The Riverman: Ted Bundy and I Hunt for the Green River Killer by Robert D. Keppel and William J. Birnes. It follows criminology professor Robert D. Keppel who is offered help by Bundy to profile a serial killer, later dubbed “The Riverman”. Although Bundy wasn’t much help, he did shed some light on his own pathology.

Bundy was played by Cary Elwes, known for his roles in The Princess Bride , Saw (also inspired by a true story) , and Stranger Things . This one's a little like a prototype for 2021's far superior No Man Of God , in that it follows the profiler rather than Bundy and allows the audience to see Bundy and his crimes through his eyes. There's also an element of Keppel being dragged in a little too much, which promises more interest than it delivers.

4 The Stranger Beside Me (2003)

A co-worker tells all when it comes to ted bundy.

The Stranger Beside Me

The Stranger Beside Me is a made-for-TV movie based on the book of the same name by Ann Rule, who worked with Bundy before his murders and even considered him her friend. Rule worked for a suicide crisis hotline when she met Bundy , a work-study student studying psychology. In this version, Bundy was played by Billy Campbell, and Barbara Hershey played Rule.

Buoyed by two great central performances, it's a strong addition and easily one of the best made-for-TV true crime efforts of the Bundy catalog. It also makes the choice to stay away from Bundy's crimes consciously and gives Ann Rule a rare female voice in this otherwise male perspective-dominated space.

Rule's book shows that she considered Bundy a kind and empathetic person, and she never could have believed he was a serial killer, even though he was killing people while they were friends. Matthew McDuffie was nominated for Adapted Long Form at the WGA Awards for his script.

3 The Deliberate Stranger (1986)

A made-for-tv movie praised for being accurate.

The Deliberate Stranger

The Deliberate Stranger is a biographical crime drama film based on the life of Ted Bundy, a serial killer who murdered numerous young women during the 1970s. Directed by Marvin J. Chomsky, the film stars Mark Harmon as Bundy and follows his gruesome crimes and eventual capture.

The Deliberate Stranger is a TV movie based on the book Bundy: The Deliberate Stranger by reporter Richard W. Larsen, published in 1980. The movie skips Bundy’s childhood and first murders and begins with the murder of Georgann Hawkins, later following Bundy's crimes in Washington, Utah, Colorado, and Florida.

Bundy was played by Mark Harmon, best known for playing SSA Leroy Jethro Gibbs in NCIS , and Bundy's lawyer Polly Nelson called the movie "stunningly accurate" and praised Harmon's performance.

However, on the opposite side of the critical analysis, Ann Rule felt that Harmon missed the " insecurities " that existed under Bundy's confident portrayal. Regardless, Harmon earned a Golden Globes nomination for his performance . As it was initially a two-part miniseries, it clocks in at over three hours, but it never outstays its welcome and Harmon is very good as the charming law student with a terrible secret.

2 Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile (2019)

Zac efron in a different kind of role for the usual comedic actor.

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile

Zac Efron plays Bundy in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile. The movie is a crime drama directed by Joe Berlinger, and is based on the book The Phantom Prince: My Life with Ted Bundy by Elizabeth Kendall, Bundy’s former girlfriend. The title of the movie is a reference to judge Edward Cowart’s (played by John Malkovich) remarks on Bundy’s crimes while sentencing him to death.

The story begins in 1969, when Bundy and Elizabeth meet, and is told through her perspective, covering his journey all the way to his imprisonment. Somewhat rightly accused of exploitation of the material - and the victims, without a thought to giving them a voice - there's a little too much appreciation for the cult of Bundy without a great deal of showing him for what he really was as a serial killer.

How much does Netflix's Extremely Wicked change or cut? The Ted Bundy film alters context and leaves out important information, but for a good reason.

1 No Man Of God (2021)

Considered to be the best movie on the subject.

No Man Of God

No Man of God is a 2021 crime drama starring Elijah Wood and Luke Kirby. Wood plays Bill Hagmaier, a real-life FBI profiler who interviewed multiple serial killers. No Man of God focuses on Hagmaier's encounter with Ted Bundy, played by Kirby. The movie received mixed to positive reviews upon release.

The most recent Ted Bundy movie highlights a chilling performance from Luke Kirby as No Man of God 's Bundy . It's directed by Amber Sealey and written by C. Robert Cargill ( Sinister , Doctor Strange ). The movie is based on real-life transcripts selected from the conversations between Bundy and FBI analyst Bill Hagmaier (played by Elijah Wood) that happened between 1984 and 1989.

Also starring are Robert Patrick and Aleksa Palladino in supporting roles, but this is very much a two-man affair, with narrative presence for other perspectives more than real characters. It's intriguing without being exploitative and offers a genuinely clever comment on both Bundy's dark "appeal" and the irresponsible way that has been monetized without considering a space for female or specifically victimized voices in telling the tale. Both Kirby and Wood are great, and it's easily the best of the bunch.

Ted Bundy Is One Of The Most Prolific Serial Killers In History

Few serial killers have inspired more movies , TV shows, documentaries, books, or other media than Ted Bundy, whose crimes took place in the US in the 1970s (and quite possibly earlier). Catching Theodore Cowell wasn’t easy, as he denied all his crimes for decades and escaped from the authorities a couple of times, traveling to other states to continue his murder spree. He also gave his victims a variety of aliases, including Kenneth Misner and Chris Hagen, so those who escaped gave the police incorrect information.

Two new Ted Bundy movies are set to be released next month. Despite the backlash, Hollywood is certainly obsessed with the famous 1970s serial killer.

Bundy was jailed in Utah in 1975 for aggravated kidnapping and attempted criminal assault, which unchained a series of suspicions for more serious crimes. The "Love Bite Serial Killer," as some media outlets also referred to him, was recaptured in 1979, and he was already America’s most famous serial killer by that point. That same year he was sentenced to death for his crimes, though it's believed that not all his victims have been found, and he didn’t confess to all the murders he committed.

Just days before his execution, Bundy confessed to 30 murders during a series of interviews with Stephen Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth, which were the basis for Netflix's Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes docuseries as well as Elijah Wood's No Man Of God . Bundy died in the electric chair in January 1989, and his story has since been adapted to multiple types of media. The strange fascination over his case hasn’t ceased.

Why There Are So Many Ted Bundy Movies

Serial killers have inspired fiction since the days of Jack the Ripper , but there is a handful over whom Hollywood and audiences obsess disproportionately, and Bundy is among them despite not being the most prolific killer in US history – Bundy is the third most active, with 25 confirmed murders and many more suspected but not proven. Yet there are far more movies about him than Samuel Little, who is still alive today and has confessed to the murder of over 93 women, or Gary Ridgeway, the Green River Killer who killed 49 people.

The Ted Bundy obsession Hollywood has can be explained. Like John Wayne Gacy and Ed Gein, Bundy's crimes had a disturbing horror movie-like element that went beyond simple murder. John Wayne Gacy was the killer clown who inspired IT , and Ed Gein made his victims into furniture and clothing. As well as killing possibly as many as 100+ women, Bundy was a rapist and necrophile. His crimes were truly disgusting, and as much as their depravity makes them harrowing to consider, it makes them equally compelling fodder for filmmakers wanting to create a monster movie about one from real life.

The other reason Bundy is notably popular in movies is that he had, for lack of a better term, the Dracula factor. Theodore Robert Bundy was, by all accounts, an incredibly attractive man, which made it easy for him to lure his female victims. He'd sometimes also pretend to have an impairment to more easily gain their trust, something else that inspired The Silence of the Lambs, as Buffalo Bill uses a similar trick. It shows Bundy was a master manipulator, coming across as suave and sophisticated.

His personality was a huge juxtaposition to the utterly inhuman ferocity of his acts, which is in part why it took so long to pin him to the murders, and this Jekyll-and-Hyde dissonance further breeds easily exploitable audience curiosity. He is partly responsible for the rejection of the old idea of serial killers as ugly societal rejects. As unjust as it is, Ted Bundy has become a celebrity serial killer, and there will likely be many more movies made about him.

The Best Movies Based On Real Serial Killers

Ted Bundy is certainly a source of fascination for the public, but there have been many movies over the years that have been based on killers. In some cases, these film are only inspired by real-life cases while a lot of the details are fiction. This includes the aforementioned The Silence of the Lambs , which not only took inspiration from Bundy but also Ed Gein. Gein has inspired a number of classic horror movies, in fact, with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Psycho also drawing from his case.

Other movies take a much more factual look at real cases, using the real names and details to tell the story. Monster is a complex and challenging serial killer story that makes the killer the protagonist, with Charlize Theron earning an Oscar for her performance as Aileen Wuornos. Bong Joon-ho's excellent Memories of Murder tells the true story of South Korea's first serial killer and the flawed police investigation that ensued.

However, the greatest serial killer movie to many is David Fincher's Zodiac , a stunningly accurate and gripping account of one of the most infamous unsolved serial killer cases in history. The movie details the murders and the way the killer terrified the nation by having letters printed in San Francisco newspapers, taunting the police, and promising more murders. With the identity of the killer unknown, the story focuses on the decades of meticulous work done by detectives and journalists to crack the case.

For an exploration of the work that goes into stopping a serial killer, the fear that they can inspire, and the fascinating details of a true-crime story, Zodiac is the best of the genre.

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

• Upcoming Movies and TV shows
• Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
• Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

• About Rotten Tomatoes®
• Login/signup

Movies in theaters

• Opening This Week
• Top Box Office
• Coming Soon to Theaters
• Certified Fresh Movies

Movies at Home

• Fandango at Home
• Prime Video
• Most Popular Streaming Movies
• What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

• 77% Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Link to Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
• 95% Rebel Ridge Link to Rebel Ridge
• 100% His Three Daughters Link to His Three Daughters

New TV Tonight

• 100% Slow Horses: Season 4
• 97% English Teacher: Season 1
• 93% Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist: Season 1
• 100% Wise Guy: David Chase and The Sopranos: Season 1
• 54% The Perfect Couple: Season 1
• -- Tell Me Lies: Season 2
• -- Outlast: Season 2
• -- The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Season 1
• -- Selling Sunset: Season 8
• -- Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Season 14

Most Popular TV on RT

• 74% Kaos: Season 1
• 83% The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Season 2
• 89% Terminator Zero: Season 1
• 100% Dark Winds: Season 2
• 93% Bad Monkey: Season 1
• Best TV Shows
• Most Popular TV

Certified fresh pick

• 100% Slow Horses: Season 4 Link to Slow Horses: Season 4
• All-Time Lists
• Binge Guide
• Comics on TV
• Five Favorite Films
• Video Interviews
• Weekend Box Office
• Weekly Ketchup
• What to Watch

Best TV Shows of 2024: Best New Series to Watch Now

All Tim Burton Movies Ranked

What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming

Awards Tour

The Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Cast on Reuniting with Tim Burton

New Movies and TV Shows Streaming in September 2024: What to Watch on Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, Max and more

• Trending on RT
• Beetlejuice Beetlejuice First Reviews
• Top 10 Box Office
• Toronto Film Festival
• Popular Series on Netflix

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile

Where to watch.

Watch Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile with a subscription on Netflix.

What to Know

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile often transcends its narrative limitations through sheer force of Zac Efron's compulsively watchable performance.

Critics Reviews

Audience reviews, cast & crew.

Joe Berlinger

Lily Collins

Liz Kendall

Haley Joel Osment

Liz's Co-Worker Jerry

Kaya Scodelario

Carole Anne Boone

John Malkovich

Judge Edward D. Cowart

More Like This

Related movie news.

Sundance Film Review: ‘Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile’

Zac Efron gives an eerie, on-target performance as Ted Bundy in a drama that digs into why this serial killer with a "normal" surface still haunts us.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

• ‘Unstoppable’ Review: Jharrel Jerome and Jennifer Lopez in the Rare Sports Crowd-Pleaser You Can Believe In 17 hours ago
• ‘Queer’ Review: Daniel Craig Shows a Whole New Side in Luca Guadagnino’s Bold and Trippy Adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ Ahead-of-Its-Time Novel 4 days ago
• ‘The Room Next Door’ Review: Tilda Swinton Gives a Monumental Performance as a Woman Confronting Death in Pedro Almodóvar’s First English-Language Drama 5 days ago

Serial killers are the ultimate compartmentalized criminals — the fear and horror they represent isn’t just there in the gruesomeness of their violence, but in the way they pass among us, impersonating normal people. Seen in that light, Ted Bundy was the ultimate compartmentalized monster. He wasn’t the first hideous murderer to become infamous in the media age; that would be Richard Speck, in 1966. But Speck, at the time, seemed a killer out of central casting; he looked like the monumentally damaged cold-blooded demon-creep he was. Charles Manson, likewise, in his zombie-eyed snake-charmer way, was ideally cast for the role of savage hippie psycho.

Whereas Ted Bundy was handsome and “presentable,” with an easy-going all-American grown-up-boy-next-door jocularity. In the key decade of his crimes, the 1970s, when he was caught and put on trial and rose to a new kind of mass notoriety, a lot of people had trouble wrapping their heads around the fact that this guy could have done what he did. But that’s what’s so scary about Ted Bundy. His presence in the world seemed to make a statement: that the most twisted sick puppy imaginable could be just about anybody.

Related Stories

Disney’s Theme Parks Problem Is a Monster of Its Own Making

'Bosch: Legacy' to End With Season 3 at Amazon Freevee, Prime Video

“Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile” is a drama, directed by the veteran documentarian Joe Berlinger, that casts Zac Efron as Ted Bundy, and the movie devotes so much screen time to Bundy’s “normal” side — i.e., the side that wasn’t out bashing, strangling, and dismembering young women — that you could make a case that the film itself is compartmentalizing Bundy’s evil.

Popular on Variety

The whole reason a movie like this one exists is that a great many people have a fascination with serial killers, an obsession that has spread, in recent decades, to the culture at large. Dramatizations, true crime shows, documentaries like the current Netflix offering “Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes” (created by Berlinger): It all feeds the lurid maw of that intrigue. But is there something voyeuristic and unseemly about it? Or can the fascination with Ted Bundy that’s tapped by a movie like “Extremely Wicked” escape exploitation to become, in its way, a valid and even moral dramatic impulse?

It all depends on the movie, of course. In my judgment, “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile” is an honestly unsettling and authentic inquiry into the question of who Ted Bundy was, how he operated, what his capture and trial and ongoing infamy has meant, and what, if anything, his existence tells us about our individual relationship to toxic evil. That said, his story is also freaky as hell, in a jaw-dropping you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up way. It now plays as one of those only-in-the-’70s sagas, like the Patty Hearst affair, where the nation was spellbound by a criminal spectacle that seemed to say something about how the very essence of our communality was falling apart.

So how is Zac Efron as Bundy? I think he’s startlingly good: controlled, magnetic, audacious, committed, and eerily right. With his hair grown out into a sort of Bert Convy ‘do, Efron looks the part just fine, and he uses his insidious charisma to grab us from the start, when Ted, haunting a college bar in Seattle in 1969, meets Liz Kendall ( Lily Collins ), the single mom who will become his romantic and domestic partner throughout the years of his crimes. Ted is a kind of actor, a maniac playing a role, yet doing it with such sincerity and flair that it’s not just a role. It’s the person a part of him wants to be.

Ted is the sort of ladies’ man who turns heads when he walks down the street. He’s a charmer, a sexy-eyed player, a catch. But he’s a shrewd enough manipulator to know when to play up that image, and to know how to play against it as well. He woos the naïve, fawn-like Liz, who thinks no man could be interested in a secretary with a small daughter, and when he’s in her presence he puts on a major show of being kind, warm, doting, and gentle.

The two fall in love, and from that it may sound like “Extremely Wicked” is soft-pedaling the very notion of Ted’s feelings (did he even have any?). But from what we know (the film is based on Kendall’s 1981 memoir “The Phantom Prince: My Life With Ted Bundy”), this was a genuine attachment — and the fact that Ted, once he gets arrested, lives in trembling fear of the idea that he might lose Liz doesn’t seem far-fetched. The “human” side of Ted is real, and even, at times, a quality we’re asked to identify with. And that in no way undermines the film’s portrait of his warped landscape of interior mayhem. What it shows us, with a shudder, is how he can hide that violence even from himself.

Ted gets accepted into law school and goes to live in Salt Lake City (though he and Liz are still a couple), and in Utah, a cop stops him and spies a suspicious bag in his back seat. He’s arrested, picked out of a line-up, and charged with the kidnapping of a victim he didn’t succeed in killing. And that’s the first act in what becomes the surreal horror circus of his legal odyssey. He is put on trial for kidnapping, and is now vaguely linked to various disappearances of young women in Washington, Utah, and Colorado. But the evidence, from our vantage, is scanty; mostly it’s his beige VW bug, as well as a police drawing of a suspect who looks like him. It’s odd, and dislocating, to see a crime drama set in the late ’70s and to realize that though this was hardly the Stone Age, the cops didn’t have forensics yet, at least not the way they do now.

The dramatic engine of “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil” is Ted’s insistence, right up until the final minutes of the movie, that he is innocent. It’s as if he took a page from the book of some of our sleazier and more sociopathic politicians: Deny, deny, deny. He denies his guilt to Liz so ardently, and so stridently, that she stands right by him, even as she’s drowning her hidden doubts in alcohol. And he denies it to the cops, based on his supposition that they have no definitive evidence, but also on the fact that he’s using  the whole Ted Bundy persona — the looks, the charm, the sexy hint of mellow — to imply at every turn: How could I have possibly done that ?

The movie takes some hair-raising twists and turns that are, in fact, just what happened — like Ted’s leap to freedom from the second floor of the Aspen, Colorado, courthouse, or his later escape from prison, or the bite marks on one of his victim’s buttocks that ultimately did him in. He’s awfully clever about escaping, less so about what to do when he’s on the run. (He’s still driving his Beetle and, at this point, almost flaunting his homicidal compulsions.) Yet the most strange-but-true section of the movie has to be his murder trial in Florida. Brushing his state-appointed counsel aside, he acts as his own attorney, transforming the court into a theater of the absurd. It’s the first nationally televised trial in America, and for Ted, in his blue blazer and big dark bowtie, that gives him the chance to treat the trial as showbiz. He’s playing the star defendant, and portraying his “innocence,” the same way he fooled his victims: by pretending to be someone he’s not.

Efron’s acting takes wing in these scenes. We see the desperate soul hidden in the psycho hidden in the charlatan hidden in the handsome straight-arrow. Ted’s got more tricks in court than Johnnie Cochran — he’s like the world’s most impassioned used-car salesman. Graced with a judge, played by John Malkovich (striking the one false note in the movie: He seems, frankly, like the last person on earth from Florida), who is at once scolding and indulgent of his antics, Ted now tries to fool the whole world.

Mostly, though, he’s trying to fool Liz, and it’s the final scene in prison, right before Ted is set to go to the electric chair, that gives us the chill the movie has been withholding. It’s a daring choice on Berlinger’s part. His direction, for most of the film, hasn’t been poetry; it’s more like solid prose. Only now, in this penultimate scene, where Liz begs Ted to finally release her by confessing the truth, Berlinger crafts a moment that haunts us, linked to the word that Ted writes on the glass partition. In the entire movie, we have not seen one of his crimes, and now, in the briefest of quick-cut scenes, we do. “Extremely Wicked” doesn’t rub our noses in the horror of Ted Bundy. It shows us just enough, keeping the horror where it belongs, in the recesses of our imagination, where it remains what it should be: dark as midnight, and altogether too much to fathom.

Reviewed a Sundance Film Festival (Premieres), January 27, 2019. Running time: 110 MIN.

• Production: A Voltage Pictures release of a COTA Films, Ninjas Runnin’ Wild Productions, Voltage Pictures production. Producers: Nicolas Chartier, Michael Costigan, Ara Keshishian, Michael Simkin. Executive producers: Jason Barrett, Joe Berlinger, Jonathan Deckter, Michael Werwie.
• Crew: Director: Joe Berlinger. Screenplay: Michael Werwie. Camera (color, widescreen): Brandon Trost. Editor: Josh Schaeffer. Music: Marco Beltrami, Dennis Smith.
• With: Zac Efron, Lily Collins, Haley Joel Osment, Kaya Scodelario, John Malkovich, Jim Parsons, Angela Sarafyan, James Hetfield, Jeffrey Donovan, Dylan Baker.

More from Variety

Quinta Brunson and ‘Abbott Elementary’ Have Risen as Broadcast TV’s Heroes

Dissatisfied With Its Rate of Erosion, DVD Biz Fast-Forwards 2024 Decline

Remembering TV’s ‘Very Special Episode’ — and How It Paved the Way for Today’s Dramatic Comedies Like ‘The Bear’

As ‘Reservation Dogs’ Finally Gets Emmy Attention, Maybe It Means TV Academy Members Are Actually Listening to Us

Reality TV Survived the ’07 Writers Strike. Why Is It Hurting in 2024?

What’s Going on With Emmys’ Drama Category? Should It Cast an Even Wider Net?

More from our brands, ‘we will prevail’: venezuela’s opposition leader is not giving up.

An NFL Legend’s Custom Vacation Retreat in Montana Is Heading to Auction This Month

Michael Jordan-Owned Team, NASCAR at Odds Over Future

The Best Loofahs and Body Scrubbers, According to Dermatologists

Thursday Night Football: How to Watch the Bills/Dolphins Game Live Online

Get the Reddit app

r/AskReddit is the place to ask and answer thought-provoking questions.

If it turns out that Ted Bundy is the Zodiac Killer, how would you react?

By continuing, you agree to our User Agreement and acknowledge that you understand the Privacy Policy .

Enter the 6-digit code from your authenticator app

You’ve set up two-factor authentication for this account.

Enter a 6-digit backup code

Create your username and password.

Reddit is anonymous, so your username is what you’ll go by here. Choose wisely—because once you get a name, you can’t change it.

Reset your password

Enter your email address or username and we’ll send you a link to reset your password

Check your inbox

An email with a link to reset your password was sent to the email address associated with your account

Choose a Reddit account to continue

• Celebrities
• Secret Invasion
• The Marvels
• Disney Plus
• Apple TV Plus
• Dwayne Johnson
• Brie Larson
• Ryan Reynolds
• The Witcher
• About & Advertising
• Affiliate Policy
• Privacy Policy

What is Ted Bundy’s zodiac sign? The serial killers’ birth chart explored.

Ted Bundy is one of the most notorious serial killers of our time, but for all the world, he kept up his image as a well-mannered, clean-cut law student. It is a mystery as to what could have caused a life filled with so much potential to go so wrong — could the fault lie in Bundy’s stars?

When the term serial killer is mentioned, Bundy is one of the first names that comes to mind. There is a good reason for that, the term serial killer didn’t even exist before Ted Bundy. It was coined to describe someone who seemed to crave murder like the next installment in a television show. Someone who was always searching for something, some sort of resolution or satisfaction, but never finding it, causing them to murder over and over again.

So, what could have driven this deep-seated, unmet need in Ted Bundy? Was it something that he didn’t get from his difficult childhood, a fault in his mind or nervous system, or perhaps it was written in his stars? Here’s what we found out.

What is Ted Bundy’s zodiac sign?

Interestingly enough, the majority of serial killers fall within four specific zodiac signs and Ted Bundy was no exception. He was born on Nov. 24th, 1946, making him a Sagittarius.

Sagittarius is a fire sign that is represented by the symbol of the archer. It is a sign that values travel, philosophy, and higher education, all things Bundy appeared to be drawn to. They are often social, free-spirited, and artistic – also traits Bundy embodied. Yet there are some other less positive attributes that the zodiac sign can sometimes bring to the table.

Sagittarius as a fire sign can be prone to bursts of temper, as its fiery playmates are Aries and Leo. Also, compared to the other signs, Sagittarians are especially more prone to impulsivity. They tend to follow their passion, good, bad, or otherwise. The thought of consequences or long-term repercussions is not always part of their thought processes. Ted Bundy seemed to demonstrate this tendency, especially in his later years.

Ted Bundy’s birth chart explored

According to AstroSeek, Ted Bundy’s Mars placement is also in Sagittarius. Mars is the planet of war, aggression, and conflict and it shows up in his fourth house, the house of home and family. In fact, Bundy has six planets in the house of home and family, which in any chart, is quite crowded. It can indicate that his sense of anger, aggression, and incense could have originated within his family. It could even paint a history of aggressive tendencies in his lineage, which according to reports, checks out.

Ann Rule, the famous true crime writer and former friend of Ted Bundy conducted an extensive study into Bundy’s family of origin. She discovered many reports that his grandfather (who was also rumored to be his biological father) was supposedly a very violent man. Bundy was raised by him for several years, thinking his mother was his sister before she finally took him and left the family home.

Bundy also has the sign of Scorpio falling into his fourth house of home and family. Scorpio is the sign of death, transformation, the subconscious, and what lies beneath. It represents our shadow aspects, secrets, and our subconscious drives and desires. The fact that his lineage contained dark family secrets is not surprising with his fourth house partially in this sign. Also, as symbolized by the scorpion, Scorpio can be prone to retaliation, vengeance, and revenge, often lashing out when provoked.

The women in Ted Bundy’s life

The planet of Venus is also in the sign of Scorpio in Ted’s fourth house, particularly indicating darkness and secrets around the feminine presence in his life. All this combined can be interpreted to mean that there were secrets and aggression in his lineage, which were showing up in his subconscious and in how he related to women. Ted held a great deal of anger towards his mother for her deception, so could he have been taking out that rage on all women? Lashing out at the women who rejected him, the way he felt his mother did? Many, including Ann Rule, felt that his upbringing drove his behaviors and his chart certainly indicates that is a possibility.

Finally, Bundy has the point known as the Black Moon Lilith in his house of home and family. Paired with Venus, it shows the light and dark aspects of the feminine, the demure and passive, and meets the outspoken and empowered. The presence of both could indicate conflicting feelings towards women. Bundy could have felt both great kinship and respect for women, while also harboring anger towards some of their darker qualities. It was a confusing aspect of his life as he murdered at least 36 young women but also held multiple long-term intimate relationships.

He had a years-long relationship with Liz Kendall as portrayed in Netflix’s Extremely Wicked Shockingly Evil and Vile , who also had a young daughter. He then married Carole Ann Boone after years of dating and had a daughter with her. Neither of those women nor their children were harmed. He held a close friendship with Ann Rule, who was even described as a “touchstone” for him, someone he greatly admired.

He was also known to describe his mother in contradicting terms, sometimes applauding her as a single mother who cared for him, other times feeling rejected by her and angry at her choices. His chart would indicate this conflicting dynamic and feeling towards women, all stemming from his home and family.

Ted Bundy was a notorious serial killer who murdered many women. Could these tragedies have been prevented by peering into his birth chart? Unfortunately, while his chart does provide an insight into his motivations and life setup, the choice to become a murderer was Ted Bundy’s, not his stars.