Ted Bundy (film)

"Ted Bundy" is a 2002 film directed by Matthew Bright about the crimes of serial killer Ted Bundy. It stars Michael Reilly Burke in the title role, and Boti Bliss as Bundy's girlfriend, Lee (a character based on Elizabeth Kloepfer, Bundy's real life girlfriend during his killing spree). Tom Savini also makes an appearance in one scene in which he plays a police detective interrogating Bundy.

Differences between film and real events

The film's fictionalized narrative takes many creative liberties, changing or conflating events and shifting their timing, as is common in Hollywood re-tellings of real-life events. Examples include:

*In the movie, Bundy says he flunked out of law school and psychology classes. In real life, while Bundy was a poor law school student, he graduated with honors from the University of Washington as a psychology major.
*The film shows Bundy snatching two victims by a lake and then shows a third dead girl. At the real Lake Sammamish in Washington state, Bundy only claimed two victims: Janice Ott and Denise Naslund.
*The "cheerleader" victim was not a cheerleader in real life; Debby Kent was leaving a high school class play when Bundy snatched her.
*The film has the murder of Caryn Campbell (in the ski resort) and Bundy's first arrest take place in 1976, when both those events took place in 1975.
*Bundy was not arrested while trying to steal a car as depicted, but rather for driving erratically after he had successfully stolen a car.
*In the film Bundy says Colorado authorities are "asking for the death penalty"; in actuality prosecutors there had decided not to ask for the death penalty in his case.
*In the film Bundy hot-wires a car. The real Bundy did not know how to hotwire a car and only stole a car if he found the keys inside.
*Bundy's arrest is shown happening in a field in broad daylight; in actuality it was in a residential neighborhood at 1 a.m.
*Some of the portrayal of Bundy's execution is inaccurate. Specifically, by that time the practice of packing the condemned's rectum with cotton to prevent soiling had been discontinued.

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