Ted Bundy Director Hits Back at Claims His Film Glorifies the Killer

Making a biopic about any kind of murderer is always going to be risky ground, never mind when that murderer is one of the most infamous serial killers in history.

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile tells the story of Ted Bundy from the perspective of his girlfriend, Elizabeth Kloepfer, and debuted at the Sundance Film Festival last month.

The film’s director, Joe Berlinger who also produced the Netflix documentary Conversations With a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, has faced backlash for the new film with many claiming that it goes too far in glorifying Bundy.

Kayla Stetzel

Can we not sexulize Ted Bundy? He raped, murdered, and decapitated women and had sex with their dead bodies. Not here for this hyper-sexualized Zac Efron film. I know the youth of twitter will obsess over him, and I’d prefer not to read thirst tweets about a serial murderer

Berlinger has refuted those claims though, insisting that this isn’t the case.

“I think the idea of this particular story, making a movie about Bundy, equals glorification of him is a very naive and knee-jerk reaction,” he told Bustle. “If you actually watch the movie, the last thing we’re doing is glorifying him.

“He gets his due at the end, but we’re portraying the experience of how one becomes a victim to that kind of psychopathic seduction.”

The response to the new Netflix documentary was a bizarre one. Netflix actually had to remind people that they really shouldn’t find Ted Bundy hot.

Netflix US

I've seen a lot of talk about Ted Bundy’s alleged hotness and would like to gently remind everyone that there are literally THOUSANDS of hot men on the service — almost all of whom are not convicted serial murderers

Despite criticism towards the film, a surviving victim who was attacked by the serial killer has defended it.

Kleiner Rubin was 20 when she was attacked by Bundy in her sorority house at Florida State University in 1978, and was left with a broken jaw and her tongue nearly bitten in half. The same night, Bundy murdered her two Chi Omega sisters Margaret Bowman, 21, and Lisa Levy, 20, and viciously attacked her roommate Karen Chandler.

She told TMZ: “I don’t have a problem with people looking at it, as long as they understand that what they’re watching wasn’t a normal person. I believe that in order to show him exactly the way he was, it’s not really glorifying him, it’s showing him. And when they do say positive and wonderful things about him, that’s what they saw, that’s what Bundy wanted them to see. It was picked up as that.

“The movie does glorify him more than I think he should be, but like I said, I think everyone should see it and understand him as what he was, even when he was the perfect son.”

Kathy added: “Hopefully it will make women to be more aware of their surroundings and be cautious.”