response to the film, calling it a "melodrama" and giving it a score of 2/4 before writing, "It's grisly going, but no more exploitative than a lot of mainstream TV reporting about violent crime." Marrit Ingman of The Austin Chronicle gave Ted Bundy a score of 1/5, having found aspects like its disquieting atmosphere and commentary on 1970s society to have been undermined by how "muddled" its tone was, ultimately concluding that that the film did not seem to know "what to say about its subject." Similarly, Neil Smith of the BBC lambasted the film, giving it a score of 2/5 while disparaging it as nothing but an "orgy of gratuitous violence" in which "We learn next to nothing about what made Bundy tick, and leave no closer to understanding how such aberrations occur." Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian found the film to be a plodding and "drearily pointless" affair, and wrote, "This picture is arguably more honest than sexy star vehicles like Red Dragon. That doesn't stop it from being unrewarding, unpleasant and very, very boring." David Chute of LA Weekly was critical of the film's tone, derisively stating, "It's possible that something hip and transgressive was being attempted here that stubbornly refused to gel, but the result is more puzzling than unsettling." Mike D'Angelo of Time Out was largely dismissive of the film, opining that there was "too much exploitation and too little art" and that, "The sight of ordinary-looking people committing unspeakably vicious acts no longer carries an inherent charge, and Ted Bundy offers little else." Jack Mathews of the New York Daily News condemned the film, deriding it as nothing but "revolting exploitation" and further stating, "If the goal of this biographical horror film about one of America's sickest serial killers was to be as loathsome as its subject, mission accomplished." Likewise, Megan Turner of the New York Post deemed the film a "trashy, exploitative, thoroughly unpleasant experience" that was both "tone-deaf" and "more than a little misogynistic." In a review written for The Village Voice, Michael Atkinson opined that the film "never digs very deep" and concluded, "In the end, Ted Bundy's only justification is the director's common but unexplored fascination with the frustrated maniac; there's no larger point, and little social context. Badlands this ain't." Matthew Reilly Burke and Boti Bliss were nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress, respectively, at the 2003