With the release of No Man of God, it's fair to ask Hollywood to please stop making Ted Bundy movies and TV shows. The film, directed by Amber Sealey and written by Kit Lesser, saw its world premiere at Tribeca Film Fest in June and has just hit theaters. It revolves around the series of conversations FBI Special Agent Bill Hagmaier (Elijah Wood) had with serial killer Ted Bundy (this time played by Luke Kirby) spanning the years of 1984-89.

At the time of this writing, No Man of God holds a solid 79% on Rotten Tomatoes. Critical reviews have pointed out the film doesn't offer much that's revelatory in terms of new information, nor does it do anything particularly new with the oft-retreated story of serial killer Ted Bundy, his crimes, his trial, or the years he spent in prison. However, the performances are particularly strong and compelling and generally enough to overcome the basic presentation.

Related: No Man Of God Cast: Who Plays Ted Bundy & Where You've Seen Him

Still, audiences could be forgiven for mixing up this Ted Bundy movie with any one of the countless adaptations that have been recently released or are currently in the works. There's an egregious number of movies and TV shows all shining a spotlight on the brutal serial killer least deserving of such attention. It's time for Hollywood to wean its addiction to Ted Bundy.

Why Hollywood Is Obsessed With Making Ted Bundy Adaptations

Chad Michael Murray Ted Bundy American Boogeyman

Hollywood making movies and TV shows about salacious topics and scandals is hardly new. Humanity has thrived on gossip and scandalous stories for millennia. Nor is the obsession with serial killers particularly new, either. When H.H. Holmes, widely regarded as America's first serial killer, was arrested for his gruesome string of murders in 1895, he gained fast and widespread notoriety. Newspapers across the country, and even international papers, covered his trial, and people at the time avidly consumed reports and stories of his gory crimes. Likewise, the fascination with Jack the Ripper has lasted even longer, with the mysterious killer having spawned questions about his identity since 1888.

Still, the proliferation of "true crime" stories and serial killer-centric has been expansive in recent years, with Ted Bundy as the driver. This can arguably be attributed to the rise of streaming platforms, particularly the true crime-obsessed Netflix, whose need for massive quantities of original content and an ever-growing audience has resulting in the streaming service churning out hordes of cheap, quick crime documentaries. No matter the era, audiences will always tune in for the tawdry and salacious, and streaming services know it. As long as they keep making Ted Bundy documentaries and serial killer series, someone will always be there to watch it.

Yet, that doesn't address the reason why people watch in the first place. Entertainment has always been drawn to the darker corners of human nature because people are. In the same way that watching a horror movie enables a viewer to experience a terrifyingly cathartic situation from the safety of their own home, movies and TV shows about serial killers enable people to explore dark and aberrant human behavior with none of the repercussions. There's a strange sort of fascination in trying to understand the psyche of someone like Ted Bundy, someone whose mind has gone so wrong, so far away from what most normal, upstanding people could possibly conceive. For the vast majority of people, committing crimes of the horrific nature of serial murders is a completely foreign urge. Exploring how a mind can grow so twisted while seeming so sane is to dip one's toes in dark waters without being in danger of falling in.

Related: Why Hollywood Is Obsessed With Ted Bundy Movies

This is especially true of Ted Bundy, who, on the surface, appeared to have it all: charm, relative good looks, and an articulate manner. Bundy's story also had a number of outlandish, flashier elements, such as his decision to represent himself at his own trial. Add to that his multiple semi-successful escape attempts and his marriage to the seemingly normal, level-headed Carole Ann Boone, who married Bundy even after he was convicted, and it's all a recipe for a made-for-Hollywood story.

Ted Bundy's Story Has Been Told Too Many Times

Fascination or not, however, one could argue Ted Bundy's story has been told far too many times. Over 20 scripted or documentary movies based on Bundy have been released, with two Ted Bundy movies releasing in 2021 alone with No Man of God and American Boogeyman both releasing this year. And that's even with Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile and Bundy and the Green River Killer both having just released in 2019.

Nor are movies the only projects being made about Bundy; there are plenty of episodic stories about the serial killer, as well. Documentary series Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes hit Netflix in 2019, while Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer hit Amazon Prime Video in 2020. One could add to those Ted Bundy: Mind of Monster, Ted Bundy: Serial Monster, Ted Bundy: An American Monster, In Defense Of, and Ted Bundy: What Happened, among others, all of which have released within the last four years. His story has been told. And told. And told.

At this point, there is virtually no way to add to his story or approach it from a unique angle. Every drop of intrigue that could possibly be wrung out of Ted Bundy's story has been squeezed from it by now and any new information pertaining to his case has long since dried up. Few, if any, Ted Bundy movies, documentaries, or TV series offer anything even remotely new and they haven't for years. It's ground that has been retreaded so often that the proverbial grass has worn down to the dirt has worn down to nothing but dead rocks below. Quite frankly, telling Ted Bundy's story is the least interesting thing a filmmaker or documentarian can do.

Related: Every Ted Bundy Movie Ranked Worst To Best (Including No Man Of God)

The Danger Of Making Bundy A Cult Antihero

No Man Of God Ted Bundy Luke Kirby

Beyond the basic issue of Ted Bundy being a worn-out, uninspired topic, there's a moral question to be asked regarding the wisdom of giving so much attention to a serial killer. Make no mistake, despite so many Ted Bundy projects having "monster" in the title, Hollywood has long romanticized Ted Bundy. If the best Ted Bundy movies and shows simply retread old ground, the worst try to paint him in a sympathetic light, playing up his supposed good looks and charm. This is particularly prevalent in the biopics that inevitably always cast some actor who is far better-looking than Bundy ever was and tell them to play up Bundy's dubious charisma, with Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile a particularly notable offender in this regard. Hollywood loves to play up Bundy as a ladies' man, a suave and charismatic charmer who swept women off their feet.

The truth is that Ted Bundy was relatively plain and nondescript-looking, and his charm a mirage. Bundy was a thorough misogynist who couldn't hate women only because he didn't view them as beings worthy of emotion to begin with. "Women are possessions," Bundy once said in an interview. "Beings which are subservient, more often than not, to males. Women are merchandise." The idea of "possessing" women is a throughline of his beliefs. The charm he flashed was nothing more than the false light of an anglerfish attracting prey. He was a complete blank space, a diagnosed psychopath who felt no remorse or concern for the horrific things he did. "I don't feel guilty for anything," he said. "I feel sorry for people who feel guilt."

Hollywood's insistence on continually positioning Ted Bundy as handsome and charismatic lends him qualities normally attributed to leading men and protagonists. But there's a danger in reframing Bundy as a cult antihero because it softens and dulls the fact he was truly monstrous, his bland human skin a husk to hide the utterly dead rot within him.

Even the judge at his trial was duped by Bundy's disarming surface normalness. "Take care of yourself, young man," he said, just before sentencing Bundy to death. "It’s a tragedy for this court to see such a total waste of humanity," he lamented–except the judge hadn't been referring to the multiple women whose lives had been cut short by Bundy, but to Bundy himself. Even after endless hours of testimony documenting Bundy's gruesome crimes, the judge's focus was on Bundy's well-being, not on the women he had killed. It's a microcosmic example of why Hollywood's obsession with Ted Bundy, and serial killers in general, is so wrongheaded. They never tell the stories of Ted Bundy's victims or make honoring their shortened lives the focus, but Bundy. It's the wrong way around, and ghoulish, not the least of which because many of the immediate family members of his victims are still alive. While it's notable that No Man of God is one of the rare Ted Bundy movies to be directed by a woman, it still offers nothing beyond perpetuating the idea that a serial killer's story is worthy of endless spotlight. It's beyond time for Hollywood's obsession with Ted Bundy to stop.

Next: Why No Man Of God Is Right Not To Answer Why Ted Bundy Killed