Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes

posted February 5, 2019 in Arts & Entertainment by Lilly Adams.

Throughout the many years of Netflix, viewers have witnessed a fantastic transformation of their media services. Beginning as an online DVD ordering site, to a platform of films and television series and now they are one of the most used streaming platforms ever. It’s safe to say it is not going away any time soon.

With the first Netflix original series, "House of Cards," being the extremely successful, they have produced a slur of amazing, binge-worthy programs, from popular drama series like "Orange is the New Black" to "Stranger Things." However, it might be surprising to know that one of their highest genres continues to be documentary series.

On Jan. 24, thirty years to the day Ted Bundy was executed, Netflix released "Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes." It was an instant sensation among viewers.

The short four episode series follows the infamous serial killer Ted Bundy from his childhood to execution, containing private interviews with Bundy and paralleling them to his reign of terror throughout the 1970s. Joe Berlinger created, produced and directed the series, with almost all of his work having to do with social justice issues among true crime cases in America.

Each episode highlights the interviews between Ted Bundy and journalists Stephen Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth. The interviews in the docuseries were done while Bundy was awaiting his execution on death row.

Episodes are about an hour long each, which is why some may find it to be slow-paced and even a little boring. However, they each hook and intrigue the viewer with the shocking information about the killer, while eerily mixing in his conversations throughout the run-time. 

A commonly overused theme in true crime docuseries is hiring a string of actors to reenact the scenes depicting what is known to have happened. When reenacting true crime series, it is easy to bring a sort of humanization to the killer, and almost a coercion to see the crime as it was done.

What is so scary about this series is that it does not need to do that to make the audience terrified. It naturally created the fear in the audience just like Ted Bundy naturally created a fear in America by just being alive. It doesn’t need added dramatization, a good call on Berlinger’s part.

With the absence of that cliche cable television feeling, the series brings a gritty, unfiltered realism to the viewers and almost forces them to experience the fear and chaos erupting in the country at that time, specifically for young women.

The series holds nothing back, letting the audience see the true nature of such a manipulative, twisted human being and the mark he left on America. What is so terrifying about Ted Bundy is his utter sense of normality; a charming man in his mid-twenties studying to be a lawyer. It evokes a fear in audience members, that every person, no matter the appearance, harvests dark secrets.

Rating: 4/5

 

 

Lilly Adams is a sophomore majoring in film/video. To contact her, email lillyadams11@gmail.com.