Bazaar Bizarre Review

Bazaar Bizarre pulls no punches, wallowing in shock via grainy, home movie style reenactments of serial killer Robert Berdella’s crimes with actor Christopher Leo in the lead. But these scenes are balanced well with more straightforward documentary material – interviews with the surviving abductee, detectives, journalists and neighbors, tours of the crime scene, etc. We even hear from an emergency room nurse that treated Berdella’s genital self-mutilation on several occasions.

Some of it’s most compelling and weird footage comes from an interview conducted with the killer himself in prison. The subject of serial killers lends itself well to both dry documentary examination of police procedures and sensational sideshow spectacle, and while many serial killer movies only concentrate on one side of this equation, director Benjamin Meade is smart enough that he doesn’t ignore either. It gives us the facts in the case in detail, but not to the degree that we’re numbed to the horror. It shoves gore and madness in our faces, but not so that it becomes a gruesome theatrical piece.

It also gives us the reaction of the community, from the opinions of locals to a silly disc jockey parody song. Overall, it gives us the truth of the matter, a repellent but unfortunately banal tale of extraordinary/ordinary madness.