Bazaar Bizarre: The Strange Case of Serial Killer Bob Berdella (2004)

To me, this movie is perfection.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I checked the box for "contains spoiler", but there's no box for "contains spoiled material", which would have been more apt. I'm not sure it's possible to make a more inept documentary, but I haven't seen the director's other work. Perhaps, sadly, this is his Godfather.Here's an overview: Weak flashback dramatizations, odd musical tributes, and actual archive material have been mixed together (can't quite call this editing) in a haphazard way and presented for your viewing displeasure.I gave it a 2/10 simple because I felt bad giving it the 1/10 it probably deserves. If you LOVE bad movies, watch it. If you have something other than ALF re-runs to watch instead, I suggest you do so.

Normally I enjoy documentaries about serial killers but this one I cannot in all honesty call a documentary, but a travesty of a documentary, for it approaches its subject in a manner more appropriate to a high school student trying to go the easy way getting his grades.You will not find any consistent notifications of interviewee's identifications during the progression of the show but only random reminders when, it seems, the makers of this "documentary" deem that it is appropriate - or I may be completely wrong - when they had any chance of inserting information pertaining to their subject.All in all, this is still very much worth watching if you appreciate the baffling mind frame of the serial killer. *** out of *****

I thought the way this film was presented was very good, although I could do without "The Demon Dogs" playing songs as the film progressed. A documentary such as this has no business interjecting a rock band playing songs because it has nothing to do with the story. The film contains archival footage of Berdella's victims as well as actors portraying the people involved in the case. I would love to see a documentary on serial killer DEAN CORLL presented in this way, with actors portraying Corll doing what he did to the victims. The Dean Corll case is one of the spookiest, most disturbing case of serial murder that has ever happened and to date, nobody has ever devoted much time to the case. At any rate, I was very pleased with "Bazaar Bizarre" and would recommend the movie to any serial killer buffs out there. You won't be sorry.

I attended a screening of Bazaar Bizarre last night at the Glenwood Arts Theatre. Filmmaker Benjamin Meade was there to introduce the short film, which runs 86 minutes. As a Kansas Citian who used to buy stuff at Berdella's shop (much to my disgust), I'd been looking forward to seeing the movie for quite a long time.It's OK. But that's about as far as I'd take it.The good: Ellroy is always a stitch. His unapologetic lack of sympathy for Berdella is entertaining and even enlightening as he discusses the general MO and predilections of serial killers.Most of the re-enactments are fine and pretty well filmed and acted -- a rarity for this type of movie. The gore is also pretty impressively convincing, largely because the footage has been artificially aged and damaged. I was surprised that the production values easily outshine some much higher-budget films, such as Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Now, whether the re-enactments amount to anything more than voyeurism is up to you. The chili-cooking scene in particular doesn't really do much for me, either as comedy or as documentary. It's one of the most highly speculative (and I think improbable) parts of Berdella lore.The most valuable passages of the movie are undoubtedly the interviews with Berdella himself, as well as with the cops, prosecutors and Kansas City Star and Times reporters involved in uncovering the man's horrific misdeeds. Berdella was an absolute jerk as well as a murderer, and his repugnant personality comes through loud and clear. An interview with the only known surviving victim seems promising, but it really doesn't allow much insight. The man, now grown, stays in the shadows and describes his experiences with the detachment of a longtime drug addict who's undergone so many tortures that none of them stands out any longer.The bad: The movie is really a mess from a structural standpoint. Meade jumps around his time line, which makes absolutely no difference. But he's strung his bits together with some truly embarrassing music videos by an absolutely execrable "rock" band singing vacuous, trite songs about Berdella. I'm sorry, but Meade obviously has absolutely no feeling for contemporary culture if he could center his film so fundamentally on this band's work.Another clue and Meade isn't quite as up on what's au currant: Before the screening, he pretentiously declared that his movie would have trouble being exhibited -- probably receiving an NC-17 -- because it features male frontal nudity.Uh, Mr. Meade, do you not GO to movies? Did you see Sideways? Did you see Kinsey? The mainstream comedies EuroTrip or Super Troopers? Scary Movie, a blockbuster hit released in every city in America, where a man is shown being stabbed in the head BY AN ERECT PENIS? For crying out loud, did you see Porky's 20 years ago? Meade's statement is ridiculously ignorant and provincial.The nudity in Bazaar Bizarre is not sexual. It's a guy in his 20s with a flabby gut, jumping off a roof and running across the street. The totality of the footage is perhaps ten seconds, almost all framed from fairly far away. It doesn't even amount to controversial.The problem is NOT with male frontal nudity from an obscenity standpoint. I can name you 20 Hollywood movies with a penis for every one that actually shows female pubic hair, not to mention female genitalia.In fact, I don't think I can remember a single major American film that's shown actual female genitals. Basic Instinct? Watch it again. The Center of the World? Requiem for a Dream? Gus Van Sant's Psyhco? Again, re-watch them. No, you're not seeing what you think you're seeing. This is the sort of sloppy claims of persecution that make artists look like whiny babies.Anyhow, Bazaar Bizarre is what it is. Worth a Netflix rental when it comes out. I don't think I'd drive to see it in theaters.