'Venom' Writer Weighs in on Bizarre Feud Between Ted Bundy Romantics and Symbiote Suitors

In one of the strangest fandom feuds we've seen in a while, there's a clash going on between fans [...]

By Nicole Drum

In one of the strangest fandom feuds we've seen in a while, there's a clash going on between fans of Marvel's Venom and notorious serial killer Ted Bundy online and now Venom writer Donny Cates is weighing in.

Ted Bundy, the serial killer responsible for at least 30 horrific murders between 1974 and 1978, has been having something of a moment lately thanks to the release of a Netflix documentary about his disturbing crimes as well as the feature film, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, starring Zac Efron premiering recently at Sundance Film Festival. It's led to a somewhat disturbing situation of people talking about how "hot" Bundy is with some going to the extreme of admitting they would, if they could, have sex with Bundy.

It's a situation that even Netflix has expressed concern about, but it gets even stranger. This is where Venom fans come in and by fans, we mean a particular subset of fans of the alien symbiote -- specifically as presented in Sony's 2018 film starring Tom Hardy -- who are sexually interested in the character. So-called Venom-sexual fans have gotten into a bit of a flame war social media with the Ted Bundy fans over the matter.

No, we aren't making this up, as you can see in this report by Mashable.

Now, though, Cates is weighing in with what might just be the only truly appropriate response.

The whole situation -- particularly the Venom/Bundy feud -- is admittedly a bit bizarre, but not entirely unexpected. It is honestly not terribly uncommon for people to have a fascination with monsters, both fictional and real, that sometimes leans towards the intimate. A prime example of this is Netflix's You, a psychological thriller now streaming on the service that follows a bookstore manager named Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) who ends up obsessed with a customer who he ends up stalking and killing. The show and the character Joe have become very popular with viewers.

What's problematic here and appears to be a point that some of the Venom fans are making, is that Venom and Joe are both fictional monsters. They simply aren't real, while Bundy was a very real nightmare who not only murdered people, but whose crimes shattered lives -- including that of Elizabeth Kloepfer, his long-term girlfriend whose perspective Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile is told from. In real life it was Kloepfer who ultimately turned Bundy into the police and while the movie does play up Bundy's real-life attractiveness and charm, even one of his victims has come forward to support the choice as it's true to who Bundy was -- and hopes viewers understand that he wasn't a normal person worthy of the adoration.

"I don't have a problem with people looking at it, and as long as they understand that what they're watching wasn't a normal person," Kathy Kleiner Rubin told TMZ. Rubin survived an attack by Bundy on Florida State University's Chi Omega sorority in 1978. "I believe that in order to show him exactly the way he was, it's not really glorifying him, but it's showing him, and when they do say positive and wonderful things about him ... that's what they saw, that's what Bundy wanted you to see."

What are your thoughts on this unusual internet feud? Let us know in the comments below.

0comments
Start the Conversation

of