BY Allie Pinick

Rating: Three out of five stars

The true-crime genre is very popular throughout many platforms including podcasts, movies, shows, and books. People have a certain fascination with the darkest part of our society and human behavior; serial killers.  This concept is fairly new as the term “serial killer” wasn’t used until the 1970s. 

Ted Bundy was an infamous serial killer. Some consider him to be “Jack the Ripper” of the United States. He was involved in at least 30 women’s deaths until he was caught in 1979. His actions helped society realize that there is danger in this world, and they are walking among us.

On January 24, 2019, the limited Netflix series “Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes” came out. It premiered on the 30th anniversary of Bundy’s execution, which is only one of the controversial things involving this documentary series. The fact that it was on the anniversary of Bundy’s execution, triggered quite a few of the viewers. They saw it as a way to honor the man that took so many women’s lives. However, that was not what the people who put this movie together were trying to say.

This four-part documentary relied on the two journalists, Stephen G Michaudinto and Hugh Aynesworth, who interviewed the killer for about 100 hours. From those long hours of interviewing they finally find a use for them. It is used as the base for a 4-hour long documentary series. 

The documentary starts off by showing you what it was like back in the 70s and how people lived. Then it goes in chronological order, from Bundy’s childhood to Bundy’s days in jail; serving his debt to society. 

Bundy recants stories of his childhood, attempting to prove his innocence. But instead of the entire series being Bundy lying straight through his teeth, the director, Joe Berlinger, had a different take on how to approach these events.

The director ends up interviewing quite a few people from Bundy’s past. Bundy would try to explain his childhood as something glorious, it would immediately get shut down by another point of view; the correct point of view.

Overall, this documentary was just stating what we already know about Bundy. It doesn’t try to create a new idea about what happened. For someone who is well-versed in true crime and has heard a lot about the notorious Bundy and his crimes, I didn’t gain anything from it because I already know a decent amount of information on his killings. For someone who doesn’t know much about Bundy and wants to get all the information from one place, then this documentary is probably your best choice. It might have a big impact on how you view this topic because actually seeing it can have a different effect on your opinions and feelings.