No Man of God

FBI special agents who study serial killers must be able to look directly into the darkness, without flinching - not everyone can do this. If you study real life horrific acts of any kind, you must look right into that abyss, or you will not be able to do the crucial scientific research into the subject.

We all look at life through the lens of our experience and how we see our identity. From this we build a set of belief systems. In the 1980’s a young special FBI agent, Bill Hagmaier, entered a prison interview room through the lens of his faith, his religion. This may have allowed him to sustain a different type of conversation with serial killer Ted Bundy. Hagmaier spent over 200 hours interviewing over five years.

What Hagmaier brought with him into that prison interview room was not only his religion and professional training but something more personal: a childhood spent navigating an alcoholic father’s volatile temper. Bundy’s conversations at the end of his life were very different with each individual. The film fixes its attention on this meeting - Bundy bargaining with what he knew, long past the point where it could save him.

What sets this film apart is Hagmaier’s involvement as an executive consultant.

His firsthand accounts of time spent with Bundy - the conversations they had, the way those exchanges unfolded - give the film a texture that most psychological portraits don’t match. It’s among the most compelling psychological films of its kind that I’ve seen in years.

Psychology brought me into contact with some of the dark subjects and research. I wrote in essays about the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, I talked about the Nanking atrocities in one essay, the war atrocities of the 1940s. Then there were the monkey experiments— the pit of despair, which I will not describe here. Sexual predators and child predators. And that is only a fraction of it. Of course, I studied many other psychological subjects, but I’m talking about the darker ones here for a reason. The questions you pick tend to reflect your main interest. You might be interested in one fundamental question. That was true for me.

In this film Hagmaier has his own questions. Why do people commit horrific acts? What led to this? What does someone with anti-social personality disorder (DSM-5 diagnostic handbook) see around them? How do they see the world? How do they see people? What was their early caregiving and environment? What methods did the killer use to evade capture? What was their mother like? What were their grandparents like? These questions are relevant to understanding future research and helping catch predators faster, hopefully saving victims.

People often believe they are in full control of their thoughts and behaviour - but this is not always the case. The unconscious mind can perceive any challenge to a long-held belief system as a threat, causing the brain to retreat into familiar patterns of thinking rather than absorb new information that might contradict them. This dynamic makes the clash between the two men compelling to observe. Each man has his own fixed belief system; through conversation there are times when a structured long held belief loses its power. Hagmaier has a more open mind to being challenged, to look at things with a new perspective.

There are moments when the impact of one man’s words, influences the other. At one point, Bundy asks, “You think I should just be killed, don’t you?”—a startling directness from someone who, in every other recorded interview, remained slippery and opaque. Bundy was a chameleon, reshaping himself to suit whoever sat across from him. He liked to be the centre of attention; he enjoyed fame and control.

Luke Kirby’s Bundy is unnervingly precise - a chilling mimicry of posture, speech, and affect. Opposite him, Elijah Wood embodies the earnest, almost fragile conviction of a devout FBI agent, his performance layered with quiet intensity. What stands out about Wood is his consistent willingness to embrace unconventional roles. Together, their dynamic anchors the film. Archival inserts - grainy, intimate glimpses of domestic life from another time - end an eerie texture, deepening the unsettling allure of the narrative.