As strange as it sounds, the Ted Bundy business has been booming recently. Since the beginning of 2019 alone, we’ve seen Zac Efron give a career-best performance as the infamous serial killer in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, and there’s another two spins on the Bundy story coming this year through American Boogeyman and No Man of God.
Chad Michael Murray portrays the killer in the former, which is coming to VOD next month, but No Man of God is getting out of the gate first having already screened for critics. Luke Kirby, who won an Emmy for his supporting turn in Amazon’s awards season favorite The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, gets into the mindset of Bundy as he faces execution and strikes up an unlikely rapport with Elijah Wood’s Bill Hagmaier.
No Man of God isn’t releasing until August 27th, but the early reviews have been encouraging, with the crime drama currently sitting on a solid Rotten Tomatoes score of 76%. Wood is a very underrated dramatic actor that excels when he plays the sort of parts you wouldn’t typically expect to see him inhabit, and his wide-eyed mix of stoicism and unease looks to play well against the unnerving charisma of Kirby’s Bundy.
Amber Sealey directs from a script Kit Lesser, and the filmmaker revealed that she struck up a friendship with the real-life Hagmaier, the FBI agent credited with convincing Bundy to come clean about the extent of his crimes while awaiting the death penalty, so No Man of God could offer an insight into their exchanges that other projects of a similar ilk could not. After three feature films and two docuseries in the space of two years, it’ll take a lot to stand out from the Bundy back, but the trailer looks hugely promising.