The term "Serial Killer" not common in 1976

[RivkahChaya]

At the end of the 2002 film "Ted Bundy" starring Michael Reilly Bruke as Bundy (which I think was a straight to video production), a written message on screen states that the term "serial killer" was first coined to describe Bundy. I'm dubious about that. That movie wasn't half bad but it did contain several inaccuracies.

(Actually, when I first saw the movie I thought it was awful in its number of embellishments and inaccuracies, but I'd only done a minimum of reading on Bundy at the time and had only seen the much tamer t.v. movie "The Deliberate Stranger" about him starring Mark Harmon. After doing a lot more study, I realized that some of the crazier things in the "Ted Bundy" movie were actually true!)

Mark Harmon was a great choice for that role. By the time I ever saw an interview with Ted Bundy, or any of the courtroom footage*, I knew he was Ted Bundy, killer of women, and he looked scary beyond belief to me: he had cruel eyes, and a unibrow that was always gathered, keeping his eyes in shadow, and a sort of reptilian grin that reminded me of more than one actor who has played Mr. Hyde.

However, he must have been able to come across as friendly an appealing, Because he got a lot of women to be alone with him. NCIS was very far in Mark Harmon's future, and he wasn't as well know, so he took as risk of being associated with the role. That movie could have been really sleazy with a lesser actor.



*news cameras were not allowed in courtrooms at the time of his trial, but so many odd things were going on regarding the nature of his crimes and his pro se defense, that it was documented by the state for future analysis, probably with Bundy's consent. None of it was released until after the trial and appeals were over. Also, my memory is a little fuzzy, but I think the filming may have been limited to pre-trial motions, so no jury was present.

[sdreid]

I think Bundy has been in 4 movies. Additionally, according to some, the film American Psycho was "inspired by" Bundy.

[martin wilson]

Didn't Jame Gumb in Silence of the Lambs reference Bundy by using a plaster cast?
By coincidence I was reading Michael Biltons' Wicked Beyond Belief at the same time an episode of Trial and Retribution was on tv, I noticed that Lynda la Plante had used an actual passage of testimony from the trial of Peter Sutcliffe.
There are probably lots of films using real life cases, Gumb was primarily inspired by Ed Gein I believe, so there is a cultural awareness of serial killers beyond that of the real crime enthusiast. even if the public don't know the case the film is based on.
Having said that, perception of serial killers still depends on fictionalised characters that conform to audience expectations, tragically,the real life serial killer is rarely the guy you don't get in the car with, he's the guy you do.

[kensei]

Mark Harmon was a great choice for that role. By the time I ever saw an interview with Ted Bundy, or any of the courtroom footage*, I knew he was Ted Bundy, killer of women, and he looked scary beyond belief to me: he had cruel eyes, and a unibrow that was always gathered, keeping his eyes in shadow, and a sort of reptilian grin that reminded me of more than one actor who has played Mr. Hyde.

However, he must have been able to come across as friendly an appealing, Because he got a lot of women to be alone with him. NCIS was very far in Mark Harmon's future, and he wasn't as well know, so he took as risk of being associated with the role. That movie could have been really sleazy with a lesser actor.

The Michael Reilly Burke version (and sorry, I originally misspelled his last name as "Bruke") WAS really sleazy. But I don't think I'd call him a lesser actor than Mark Harmon. He did a really good job of portraying Bundy the way he actually was, which is hideous and flesh-crawling to watch.

By the way, Mark Harmon at the time he played Bundy was much more known for a doctor character he played on the tv show "St. Elsewhere."

[sdreid]

My guess is that Harmon wanted to play against type sort of like Toni Curtis playing DeSalvo.

[Errata]

I saw a Cary Elwes Bundy. I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

I think it is part of the human condition that certainty breeds contempt to a certain extent. If you "know" how to identify someone potentially dangerous to you, you look no further into it. Being confronted with the fact that in reality you have NO IDEA how to identify danger causes you to try and find a way to rectify the ignorance. Despite the fact that there really is no way to do that. We've all seen pictures of some serial killer or another and said "Well OF COURSE that guy's a serial killer. I mean, look at him." For me it's Gein. He looks creepy to me. Ted Bundy didn't look creepy, he didn't look dangerous, he didn't look crazy. People lost their **** the first time they saw pictures of Bundy defending himself. It was a gut shot to Americans. They were confronted with the fact that they didn't know who the wolves are and who the sheep are. Realization of ignorance breeds fear, fear breeds a demand for answers, a demand for answers breeds intensive research. Intensive research gains public attention, and this is how rednecks in my local bar know that some serial killers are bed wetters.

If we can get them to understand that bullied kids may come to their dead end jobs and kill their tormentors and everybody else in the shop, THAT I think would be useful. But the serial killer bit gives me hope that eventually, if for no other reason that self preservation, people will stop tormenting other people for sport.

[RivkahChaya]

Didn't Jame Gumb in Silence of the Lambs reference Bundy by using a plaster cast?

The book Silence of the Lambs was published in 1988, which, IIRC, was the year Bundy was executed-- or it could have been early '89. I haven't read the book, so I don't know whether Gumb uses the cast gambit in the book, but if he did, people would not necessarily have recognized it as a reference to Bundy back in 88. Not that the author still wouldn't have borrowed it. Ted Bundy was more famous in the US after his execution than before, and the Mark Harmon movie, which was a TV movie in 1986, actually had better ratings in a re-airing after Bundy's execution.

The Michael Reilly Burke version (and sorry, I originally misspelled his last name as "Bruke") WAS really sleazy. But I don't think I'd call him a lesser actor than Mark Harmon. He did a really good job of portraying Bundy the way he actually was, which is hideous and flesh-crawling to watch.

By the way, Mark Harmon at the time he played Bundy was much more known for a doctor character he played on the tv show "St. Elsewhere."

The Mark Harmon version was a TV movie on a broadcast network, so it had a lot of limitations. It was still pretty creepy.

As for Harmon's character, I wasn't a regular watcher, but as I recall, his character was a secondary character, who was a good doctor, but didn't treat women very well in his personal life, and did a lot of what we'd call "hooking up" now, only without necessarily being honest with the women that he was just interested in a one-night stand.

He ended up getting HIV, which in 1985 or 86, whenever it actually happened, was a bold storyline. I think he was the first TV character to become HIV+ through heterosexual contact.

Harmon is an interesting actor. He did a series with Marlee Matlin where she played an ADA, and he was a police officer who happened to know sign language because his mother was Deaf. He had several complaints on his record, and he was offered either an assignment as her investigator, or early retirement. I liked it, but it never had high ratings. I'm not a particular fan of NCIS, but I've watched a few episodes, and I think he's good on it.

[martin wilson]

I read Silence of the Lambs,although it was years ago, I can't remember if the plaster cast was in it or not.
My guess is that it was an invention for the film, it's been a while since I saw the film also, but I think there were plenty of other references to other serial killers throughout it.
Otherwise what errata said, with the following addition.
"I'm sorry Mr and Mrs Wilson but little Timmy has an irregular heart, we can try medication, but we may need to operate, he will miss a lot of time from school and we will need you to think about changes to his diet and exercise"
Probably fairly commonplace.
This isn't.
"I'm sorry Mr and Mrs Wilson but little Timmy has shown signs of an anti social personality disorder, we can try counselling but he may require psychiatric evaluation and possibly medication, he will miss a lot of time from school and we will need you to think about changes to his upbringing and your fitness as parents."

[RivkahChaya]

Yeah. I don't think anyone would dare diagnose that in a child, no matter how strongly he suspected it, even if the child had already committed a criminal act of violence.

There's so little known about its causes, and the prognosis for someone who shows symptoms in childhood may not be the same for someone who doesn't show definitive symptoms until adolescence or early adulthood.

There are people who grow up to be perfectly normal, psychologically intact adults, who committed an isolated act of animal cruelty as children. On the other hand, there are people who underwent abrupt personality changes after a head injury that happened in adulthood.

There's a lot we don't know about the brain. A small percentage of people who have epilepsy as children outgrow it, and occasionally children even spontaneously "recover," or normalize, after an autism diagnosis. I know some people who insist that autism by definition is something no one recovers from, so anyone who appears to was misdiagnosed, and then, there is one type of therapy that in some people can make a huge difference, and there have been controlled studies.

So, yeah. What you said.

[Errata]

Yeah. I don't think anyone would dare diagnose that in a child, no matter how strongly he suspected it, even if the child had already committed a criminal act of violence.

It happens more than you think. But one of the problems with any Axis 2 diagnosis (like Antisocial Personalty Disorder) is that the causes are so poorly understood that any treatment is a total crapshoot. There is no medication, any treatment is going to be primarily therapy related, and the person suffering from the disease has to actively want to get better and participate in the process. Something kids in general are not know for.

But the diagnostic process is primarily for the purpose of insurance. There are very few families who can afford a long term care for a child without insurance. And insurance doesn't pay out without a diagnosis. Ironically, once the child turns 25, the diagnosis precludes them from getting insurance at all, but that's another subject. So doctors are diagnosing children with severe problems. Even diagnosing them with Antisocial Personality disorder. If the family needs to put a child in a long term care facility, or have caretakers in the home, or put a child in a special school for children with severe problems, they will get a diagnosis.

[RivkahChaya]

It happens more than you think. But one of the problems with any Axis 2 diagnosis (like Antisocial Personalty Disorder) is that the causes are so poorly understood that any treatment is a total crapshoot. There is no medication, any treatment is going to be primarily therapy related, and the person suffering from the disease has to actively want to get better and participate in the process. Something kids in general are not know for.

But the diagnostic process is primarily for the purpose of insurance. There are very few families who can afford a long term care for a child without insurance. And insurance doesn't pay out without a diagnosis. Ironically, once the child turns 25, the diagnosis precludes them from getting insurance at all, but that's another subject. So doctors are diagnosing children with severe problems. Even diagnosing them with Antisocial Personality disorder. If the family needs to put a child in a long term care facility, or have caretakers in the home, or put a child in a special school for children with severe problems, they will get a diagnosis.

Are you sure they don't get a diagnosis of either Oppositional Defiant Disorder, or Conduct Disorder? please, no jokes; these are real disorders, and the first one will break your heart, because kids with it are usually miserable, and don't understand why they can't ever get things right. Some of them even want to please people, they just have some kind of disconnect where they can't parse requests, or something, and can't conform their behavior. It's sort of like you saying "Don't run across the street," and the only part they hear is "run."

ODD I think is a disability, so someone with that could get Medicare.

If non-Americans are scratching their heads, private insurance companies can refuse to insure people with pre-existing conditions, and employer provided insurance may put you on the plan, but not end up covering anything, because you've exhausted a lifetime cap. You still want the employer plan if you have a family. It's ironic to think that the children for whom the medication and therapy helped substantially will be the ones with honest jobs, paying premiums on employer-provided insurance they can't use (albeit, at least what they pay goes to the OOP, which is important if they have a spouse and children on the plan), while the ones whom treatment failed get free healthcare in prison.