Bazaar Bizarre: The Strange Case of Serial Killer Bob Berdella--DIRECTORS CUT
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Film Overview

Directed By: Benjamin Meade View Official Website	Release Date: 2005-01-09 Running Time: 0:00 Content Rating: R18 (Restricted)	Media Format: NTSC-DVD Aspect Ratio: 16:9 Audio Language(s): English Subtitle Language(s): English
Genres: Horror >> Based on True Events Influences: Helter Skelter

Synopsis

Robert "Bob" Berdella tortured, sodomized, photgraphed, and murdered six men, cutting their bodies up and setting them out for trash pickup. His secrets emerged when on Easter Sunday in 1988 a naked man wearing only a dog collar was found running done the street screaming. Berdella later confessed to killing 6 men, injecting them with animal tranquilizers, torturing them with electrical shocks, and cutting them up into pieces. This film is very graphic and is the directors cut, NOT THE ONE RELEASED BY PATHFINDER PICTURES on EABY. This is the real deal.

Narrated by James Ellroy, this film is disturbing as it features BOTH Bob Berdella himself and Chris Bryson, the man who escaped.

Go there, but do so with caution!

Cast

Himself: Bob Berdella
himself: Chris Bryson
Himself: Roger Coleman
Bob Berdella: Christopher Leo
Chris Bryson: Justin Daniels
The Big Guy: Mike Viola
Commentator: James Ellroy

Crew

Director: Benjamin Meade | bio
Benjamin Meade is an Associate Professor of Film and Digital Media in the School of Visual and Communication Arts. Dr. Meade received his Bachelor of Science in Communication from Central Missouri State University in 1977, his Masters Degree in History from Baker University in 1994, and a Ph.D. in Theatre and Film from the University of Kansas in 1999. Dr. Meade is extremely active and highly skilled in multiple fields of production, is an award winning filmmaker with shorts and features playing worldwide in festivals including IDFA (The International Documentary Festival of Amsterdam, The Sundance Film Festival, The Zagreb International Film Festival (Croatia), The Mostra Valencia Film Festival (Spain), Hot Docs Canadian International Film Festival, International Film festival of Copenhagen (Denmark), The Tribeca Film Festival, The Boston Underground Film Festival, The Sidewalk Festival, The Denver International Film Festival, and The Santa Fe Film Festival, just to name a few.

His films have also screened at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas, and the Melrose Theatre in Boston, Mass. Two of his feature films, VAKVAGANY (2002) and DAS BUS (2003) were acquired by the Sundance Channel and screened for television in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. Dr. Meade co-produced the film CSA-Confederate States of America (2004) which screened at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, was signed onto by Spike Lee as Executive Producer, and later released theatrically by IFC Films in 2005. For his next film, he partnered with crime novelist James Ellroy (L. A. Confidential; Black Dahlia) on the feature film BAZAAR BIZARRE (2005). This film was acquired by Pathfinder Pictures in 2005, and has since been released for television in 9 European markets.

In 2006, Meade released the critically acclaimed documentary American Stag, a film that was screened at more than 40 film festivals worldwide. It went on to be acquired for television by the BRAVO! network, and was also acquired for television in the United Kingdom. It was then screened during the summer of 2007 at the Australian Center for the Moving Image in Melborne, Australia. He just finished the film American Music: OFF THE RECORD with Noam Chomsky, Jackson Browne, and Douglas Rushkoff. American Music: OFF THE RECORD is a Music documentary that interrogates of the American music industry from the authenticity of live music, to the circumvention of the corporate machine by indie distribution, to the demise of the privately owned music store.

Dr. Meade' s forthcoming book is entitled "Experimental Film: The Missing Frames", an anthology of experimental film and filmmakers. His research interests include film spectator research, avante-garde/experimental film, film history, and film theory. He serves as a director of the Institute for Cognitive Studies in Film and Video at the University of Central Arkansas, has presented research at the University of Denmark at Copenhagen, Janus Pannonius University in Pecs, Hungary, the American Psychological Association, and Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan and is a guest lecturer at Janus Pannonius University in Pecs, Hungary. He also serves as co-editor of the Journal of Moving Image Studies, is founder of the Kansas International Film Festival, and currently serves on the executive board of the Hot Springs Documentary Film Institute, in Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas.
Executive Producer: James Ellroy | bio
Famous Fiction Writer. Known as "the demon dog",his works include Black Dahlia and L A Conidential

Bonus Features

Actor Commentary

Accolades

Press Reviews

Film Threat | show/hide snippet
It’s not every serial killer film that’s presented by James Ellroy. That’s why this one grabs your attention immediately. For those interested in serial killers, this is like getting that one gym coach in high school that was worth a shit while all the others were rubbish – you sit up and pay close attention. In the opening moments of Benjamin Meade’s latest film, Ellroy greets the viewer and presents the case of one Bob Berdella, a man who was convicted of torturing and killing six young men in the mid-eighties. In a way it’s a stamp of approval. This will be a story to take note of. And it is, even though it really is the story of another sick fucker who gets his rocks off by performing hideous misdeeds upon people he’s attracted to. But what really sets this story apart from the pack is the way it’s presented here. Those of you that know Ben Meade’s work (Das Bus) know to expect something out of the ordinary and “Bazaar Bizarre” does not spoil those expectations. This is the most creative, and successful, re-telling of a true crime that I’ve ever seen.
Meade gets the title of his latest film from the shop Bob Berdella owned and operated in Kansas City called Bizarre Bazaar. Those who fond of the darker things in life could always find something they fancied at Bob’s shop as he hustled over the counter ghoulishness such as replica skulls and other occult items. You know the type of store I’m talking about. And if you frequent them, you also know that the people that run these shops are some of the nicest people around, even if they are a little strange. Not the case with Berdella. Between 1985 and 1988, he acted upon his love of the sick and twisted by kidnapping, torturing and murdering six young men, slowly, in the privacy of his own home, only to leave their dismembered corpses out by the trash for the garbage men to take away. Torture methods involved cruel experiments such as injecting Drano in the throats of his victims and administering electric shocks to sexual abuse such as rape with various objects such as vegetables and Berdella’s own fist. When his last victim managed to escape his grasp, running through the street, naked, except for a dog collar and a leash, Berdella’s reign of terror ended and that’s when authorities finally uncovered this torture den where Berdella also resided and kept note of all the demonic things he had done. While behind bars, reporters, psychologists, authorities poked and prodded at Berdella until he finally croaked from a supposed heart attack four years into his life sentence. “Bazaar Bizarre” is his story.

This isn't a documentary as much as it is an experimental re-telling of Berdella’s grisly tale utilizing archival news footage, as well as recent interviews of those associated with the case, including the victim that got away. Between these interviews, James Ellroy pops up now and again to act as the “voice of reason” or as I like to call him “The Bullshit Detector”. After comments are made by various interviewees, Ellroy will stop in for a moment to add his own two cents and it’s always the most levelheaded view – cutting through the bullshit.

Gluing this all together is re-enactment footage shot by Meade of Berdella’s hideous activities. This footage blends seamlessly with the rest of the material, fleshing out the gruesome story. But it’s Meade’s own penchant for the bizarre here that makes the film stand out. Featured here along with the graphic re-enactments of torture and slaughter are musical numbers and staged footage of Berdella just being a fat, sick pig. It’s not that Meade is making light of the situation, it just seems that he’s rubbing Berdella’s face in his own misery by poking fun at him just in case he’s watching from his spot in burning hell. It’s just enough that it doesn’t come off as ridiculous, but it is enough to create an all new experience in handling this sort of documentary subject matter - with just a hint of a sense of humor. Meade's approach makes the facts all the more grisly.

If you're sick of all the lame true crime serial killer flicks clogging the shelves of your local video store that are essentially dull TV movies with boobs, blood and bad words, then you're advised to check out "Bazaar Bizarre." It provides creativity in a genre of film that has long since run dry of imagination.