Is anyone watching the lifetime mini series where James is playing a cameo as Ted Bundy?

Yeah, I watched it. So cute how James seems to think he's in a real movie, not a Lifetime movie like everyone else. :) Definitely the best four minutes out of the whole two hours; otherwise, it just felt like a reaaallly long episode of CSI. But James was tremendously creepy.

If anyone else wants to watch it, they're repeating part 1 tomorrow at 6pm EST, although you really don't need to tune in until about 7:25 to see James. But beware it's on the Lifetime Movie Network, not the regular Lifetime channel.

I just watched the five minutes he was in. My friend watched the whole thing and called me over to the television when he came on.

I know he's going to be back tommorow. But yeah, he did make a very creepy Ted Bundy, well, Ted Bundy's suppose to be creepy.

My friend thinks JM's looks are fading though, I think he's still hot.

He was damn hot in person yesterday at the San Diego Music Fest! Seriously, TV frequently makes the man look less pretty than he is. :D  I'm going to have to get a download of this, though, as I don't have Lifetime.

CM

But beware it's on the Lifetime Movie Network, not the regular Lifetime channel.

I checked my schedule so many times trying to figure out why it was not listed - There was this big spread on the series and then when I tried to watch on Lifetime it was no where to be seen.  Wish I had known this was not the regular Lifetime - hope that I can get it at itunes -  Like a total blockhead, I miss his last appearance on Smallville - since I don't watch that series I simply forgot to watch.  That's the trouble with making little notes, after a while you don't really notice them.

Never seen James in person. But I still think he is hot. He looks older yes, but still hot and a good looking man.  But I have always liked older men. Let me just say this, I wouldn't say no to him. LOL

I didn't see in this Lifetime movie because I don't get the channel. I hope someone will post it up online

I know he's going to be back tommorow. But yeah, he did make a very creepy Ted Bundy, well, Ted Bundy's suppose to be creepy.

He certainly was "very creepy" - don't know if you saw the "death scene" but it was horrible to watch -

If anyone's interested, James' scenes are up on YouTube. And yeah, that electrocution was very disturbing...

I watched this against my will.  I really tried to be objective, and I gotta say James Marsters was miscast for this role.  Seriously, anyone who's ever seen tape of Bundy knows it.  Marsters got typecast, the producers probably hoping he could draw on his vamp stuff to do a murderer, but Ted Bundy was simply out of his league.  The real Bundy had these dead fish eyes that are really hard to mimick, and James didn't do himself proud trying to humanize this freak. 

I think Bundy was less like a vampire than he was like a comic-book villain.  Dunno if anyone here ever read "Only Living Witness,"  but I definitely use that as a bible for writing non-human characters.  Those interviews were pretty terrifying, more like talking to a robot or some kind of pink lizard.  Honestly (and to his credit) Marsters is probably too human to inhabit Bundy's character and make it seem real.   They should've asked what Alec Baldwin was doing, instead.

:)

I quite liked his performance; thought it was different from his portrayal of Spike; it was creepier somehow.  Spike had such a joy to him, you almost didn't mind that he was a killer!  But the Bundy character... *shiver*  The lack of inflection in his voice sometimes, and the part where he was talking about the killer having sex with the dead bodies...  *shudder*  Don't know that I'd want to see the whole movie, cause I'd spend the entire time waiting for JM's scenes, but even out of context, it was quite good.

I get what you mean, Lostboy. I think it's hard for a nice person, a good person, to play a complete sociopath. James was a very creepy character. Could anyone play Ted Bundy.....probably not. But it was a small role, so it won't harm anything. :)

CM

I think James did wonderful in the role. If you check a lot of the reviews James always got a great review even if they didn't like the movie.

it just felt like a reaaallly long episode of CSI.

Damn.  That must have been torture :-P  Luckily, you pointed me to YouTube, so I don't have to watch the whole thing :-)

Don't get me wrong - I think he's a good actor.  I don't think anyone's very good at these serial killer roles.   It's either too over-the-top and theatrical like Hannibal Lecter or it's just too soft.  The only guy I think could've played Bundy right is Robert Chambers (if he was an actor instead of, you know, another killer).

I think this sort of thing is usually more the fault of the writers and directors than the actor.  In reality, Bundy talking to those Green River cops was just another in a long line of ridiculous ploys by his lawyer to try to get him off death row.  The cops involved have gone to lengths to insist that Bundy didn't help them AT ALL, and that in fact they used the interviews as an excuse to try to pry out more information about Ted's own victims.  As a writer, I would have attacked that angle more, and tried to show the cops using reverse-psych against Bundy while doing an end-run around the prison shrinks and his lawyers.  I would have also used actual transcripts from Bundy's interviews for the dialogue, which were tons scarier than the weak lines they fed to Marsters.

Actually, I think the best performance in that whole thing came from the woman who played that one victim, who kept showing up as a ghost.  The whole thing she does on the videotape was really  good.

Marsters got typecast, the producers probably hoping he could draw on his vamp stuff to do a murderer, but Ted Bundy was simply out of his league.
He did the role as a favor to John Pielmeier. I suppose it could still be typecasting, as he must have picked JM over all his other actor friends who haven't played murderers in the past, but from James' interview, it sounded like they couldn't find a Bundy, so he stepped in. Having very little frame of reference for what Ted Bundy actually sounded and acted like, I can't say whether James' performance was accurate, but as a generic uber-creepy serial killer, I think he fit the bill.

LB, I think your idea sounds more interesting than what they did with it, but it seemed like Bundy didn't even have enough of a role in this movie to put effort into creating that kind of spin on the scene. To be honest, you could probably remove his scenes altogether, and it wouldn't affect the story at all, except that it's based on real life, and in real life, they met with him.

I don't know...I've only seen the You Tube clip since I don't get the channel but I thought he did a fine job.  I liked the far away look in his eyes and flaring nostrils when talking about what the killer was wanting/getting out of his kills.  I thought he made it quite like Bundy getting off on remembering his own.  I didn't see Spike (or JM) at all actually.  Bundy was a "regular guy" in many respects even babysitting for and working with Anne Rule (who wrote the definitive book on those killings even before Bundy was discovered...quite a shock to her and she had been a police officer too).  He was a popular fella with a fiance (with a kid), community respect (worked for the Republican party and a public help hotline at one point).  The dead look was mostly in the newspaper pictures.  I think James captured the affable but chilling predator that was Ted Bundy quite well even to his arrogance in the quick scene on his prison bed when he hears the police giving THEIR thoughts on the killer...he has that whole, "They're such idiots" look in his physical acting there.

We'll agree to disagree then, LB, but glad to see you again.

Kathleen

They should've asked what Alec Baldwin was doing, instead - LOL lost boy.  Don't forget that other fine member of the House of Baldwin - Daniel.

I thought the clip was extremely creepy and interesting the way he was remembering his own kills and also tweaking off the cops with the maybe he tells the victims he's a cop.  He had the charming psychopath part down, but I guess, like lost boy says, he doesn't have the cold blooded killer going. 

I think Mr. Marsters did a great job with what he was given.  There's only so much an actor can do...and Bundy was a creep.  He was as close to pure evil as I think you can get without being in Hell, but remember, too, that we're looking at him with 20/20 hindsight.  We know what he did, and some of us lived through the time when Bundy was killing girls, and as much as I hate to even think about it now, Bundy *was* a real person.  People trusted him, and that is what's so appalling.  Bundy didn't *look* like the deranged killer he was and that is how he got so many girls to trust him.  That is what made him so good at the evil he did.

I don't fault Mr. Marsters for making Bundy seem to be human...I think it just made Bundy that much more chilling to watch, IMHO.

I'm with lostboy -- I wasn't huge on James's acting there. I think that he should have taken a few minutes to watch Ted Bundy's interviews, no matter how bad he said it would make him feel -- just to capture Bundy's mannerisms and way of speaking.