The Black Mass

I went in thinking this would be a campy slasher set in the time period that inspired it. Nope. This is a legitimately disturbing serial killer movie.

The soundtrack is of the era and upbeat enough to disarm the audience. The pace is slow, methodical, everything framed from the perspective of a man unnamed for the majority of the runtime. We get to know a group of college girls as he stalks them. The camera peers over his shoulder as he spies on them through their windows. Its all pretty uncomfortable stuff even before the inevitable killings.

I watched this at a small film festival at my local town and out of all the new films they showed, this is the one that really got under my skin. When the violence does finally occur it is blunt, ugly, unstylised and entirely believable. Not entertaining but excruciating. The film allows the audience to sympathise with these girls, but the voyeuristic camera work makes us an accomplice in the atrocities against them. A proper serial killer flick that leaves you feeling nasty. Not an easy watch.

Recommended for fans of Henry: Portait of a Serial Killer (1986), Angst (1983), and The Golden Glove (2019).

Arriving in a small Floridian community, a series of disappearances have the locals convinced a charismatic stranger might be the serial killer responsible for the reign of terror in the community when his handiwork is discovered at a local sorority house that he has targeted.

This was a highly enjoyable and entertaining genre effort. One of the better features is an immensely strong and engaging setup that plays rather nicely with the idea of the killer lurking in plain sight but no one being obvious to his actions. The laid-back attitude of the times due to its period setting helps this quite a bit with the unassuming nature of the central killer being able to make his way amongst the suburban landscape of the sorority house who he seems to target comes off quite well in the first half with it clear he's involved with them from the beginning. Skulking around their house, eavesdropping on mundane conversations, and getting interrupted in seemingly obvious if inconspicuous abductions that are played off with a natural sense of just being around an unfamiliar community that doesn't know him, creating a perfectly serviceable setup. This manages to be incredibly worthwhile at playing up the second half where his psychotic tendencies spill over into a massive killing spree against the various students at the sorority house. This whole section of the film comes off impressively due to the filmmaking style employed throughout the sequence where the use of the non-breaking camera shots of the killer moving through the area knocking off the sorority members in quite graphic and brutal fashion, and with the films' unflinching nature due to the way this section of the film is shot it's all incredibly up front and confrontational in a grand manner. The main issue here is the somewhat flat ending that comes about naturally due to its origins so it's not truly to be held against the film but does leave an unsatisfying feeling afterward due to how it all comes off. Again, this is to be expected given the subject matter and origins, but on the whole, there's a lot to like here.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Graphic Violence.

Ted Bundy and the sorority house.... That's this film.

The first 50-55 minutes is rather boring. Filmed as if you are mouse sitting on Bundy's shoulder - listening to his conversations on the phone, watching as he stalks the women in the sorority house... really rather boring, and drab, just an odd voyeuristic approach. There's zero character development for any character in this film.

At around 55 minutes it gets very brutal and violent. And is conveyed as fairly realistic overall. Rather disturbing in general.

The last 10 minutes is pretty poorly acted police footage outside the house... then past newsreel footage of Bundy in court.

I couldn't really recommend this to anyone.

It wasn't enjoyable as a film... it might be somewhat interesting given the speculation of what happened in the sorority house if one has some sense of morbid curiosity. But as "entertainment" not so much. Has an air of a "snuff film" really. It's not horror or thriller.. it's just brutal violence based on real life... almost exploitive given there were real, undeserving, innocent, victims. It's not at all a condemnation of Bundy as a person or his horrific actions.

Ted Bundy seems to live on forever as an inspiration for both books and movies. I recently finished my twenty-fourth book on the serial killer. Kathy Kleiner-Rubin survived a brutal attack at FSU in January of 1978 and filled in the past forty-five years of her life after surviving the assault.

We see Ted shaving in a mirror at the start while mumbling incoherently. He then heads off in his car of choice, the VW Beetle, to a spot near a house where high school girls are having a cheerleading practice on a front lawn.

Mr. Bundy is later seen at a sorority house peeking through the windows while the girls discuss their various problems. At a bathroom window, the peeping Tom watches one of the girls undressing and we get a fantasy sequence with Teddy bloodying up the young lady.

In the early morning hours, the script is fairly accurate in the portrayal of the Chi Omega murders. The film ends abruptly with a description of his final murder. The names are changed and real life footage is used with clips which have been seen many times by anyone interested in the story.

Instead of this movie, I recommend No Man of God, the best of all the Bundy features.

I watched it without knowing anything about the plot. I thought this is a "mindless fun" slasher movie. It's not. There is nothing enjoyable here, too bleak/sad/disturbing. This is how serial killer Ted Bundy spent a day of his life, having a psychotic break. There are positive things here, i mean, this movie takes you to a journey into Bundy's mind. Camera focuses on the victims, not him, but there is nothing voyeuristic here. It's just raw and real. This movie doesn't glorify serial killers as many other movies do. It shows you the truth, the ugliness, nothing charming here, it's a movie about the victims not the monsters. It made me uncomfortable to say the least. And i didn't like it, i was not ready for this. It looked more like a documentary or like a FOUND FOOTAGE than a "normal" movie. It gets a bit satisfying in the end, when it shows some shots from the actual Bundy trial. But overall, it was too disturbing for me.

There is zero entertainment value here but if you find it interesting as it was described, you might like it more than me. It's a journey into the heart of darkness. I got goosebumbs when i realise what the title THE BLACK MASS actually means. It's not a sick movie like so many movies, it doesn't "idolize" serial killers and that's a good thing but still, if i knew what this is about, i would have never watched it.