Evil Bundy tried to kill me... but I’ll watch new film with an open mind
A SURVIVOR of an attack by mass killer Ted Bundy says she plans to see a controversial new Zac Efron film about the murders with an “open mind” – despite claims the film romanticises his evil crimes.
Kathy Kleiner was 20 when the killer crept into her shared bedroom at Florida State University after brutally raping and murdering two fellow students across the hallway.
Bundy knocked her unconscious but was disturbed by car headlights shining through her window and fled.
Now 62, Kleiner says the movie, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile, is right to present the monster’s human side.
Kleiner added: “I think it’s good for people to learn about Bundy. I really do. They need to know there’s evil out there but they can control it.”
The new film is just one of a raft of programmes about Bundy, who killed at least 30 women. These have included Conversations With A Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes and Ted Bundy: Serial Monster.
Critics claim Efron portrays Bundy as a handsome, charming womaniser who winks mischievously at the camera before raping, murdering and mutilating his victims.
That and other scenes, including one in which Bundy declares in court: “I’m more popular than Disney World, left some audience members incensed when Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile had its debut last week at the annual Sundance Film festival in Utah.
Lauren Jauregui, a former member of the band Fifth Harmony, declared: “The wink is extremely disturbing and the romanticisation of a serial killer is exactly why these sick ******* continue to do things like this to women. Notoriety.”
Washington Post writer Meagan Flynn slammed a soundtrack of “upbeat” rock music “making some feel they were watching a trailer for a rom-com”.
However Kleiner, one of only two women who survived an attack by Bundy, says she intends to see the film “with an open mind”.
Bundy was executed in January 1989 aged 42. He confessed to murdering at least 30 women, decapitating 12 and keeping severed heads in his apartment.
The psychopath twice escaped police custody and had to be recaptured prior to standing trial, adding to his “cachet as an antihero,” according to one viewer.
Joe Berlinger, who directed the Efron film and Conversations With A Killer, said: “There’s a fine line we’re drawing between people’s perceptions we are glorifying him versus having a real reason to be telling his story again in this way.”
And he revealed the idea was to allow the audience to experience Bundy as a “believable, charismatic man” despite his heinous crimes.