Local film makers bring Berdella back to life

Some people are reputable, known and appreciated by entire populations. Others are the exact opposite, notorious for their negative impact on society.

Robert Andrew Berdella was both.

So when two local college graduates decided to make a movie, Berdella's story was the ideal subject.

Directed and produced by Paul South (UMKC graduate) and Bill Taft (Rockhurst University graduate), "Berdella" is a narrative adaptation of the offender's rise and fall in the Kansas City community.

"He was a well-known and respected individual in Kansas City," Taft said. "You ask anybody who's over the age of 30 and they'll tell you stories of Bob Berdella."

The most popular stories all refer to Bob's Bizarre Bazaar, his novelty shop inside the Westport Flea Market. With items ranging from witchcraft books and jewelry to knives and daggers, Berdella's shop tended to appeal to those with darker tastes.

He helped organize local community crime watch programs, ran the Hyde Park neighborhood coalition and worked with numerous charities.

His reputation prevailed until April 2, 1988, when a man claimed to have escaped from Berdella's home (4315 Charlotte St.) by jumping from a second story window.

Wearing nothing but a dog collar around his neck, he explained how he had been sexually tortured and abused by Berdella. He also informed authorities of others who had been tortured, abused and murdered.

After searching Berdella's home, police found a variety of torture devices. They also recovered hundreds of Polaroids of victims in compromising positions. In the yard were several human bones - skulls included.

During the next couple days, authorities continued to gather evidence, including a notebook, in which he documented every torture session and murder he committed.

On December 19, 1988, Berdella pled guilty to several counts of murder. He was sent to the Missouri State Penitentiary.

The news of his conviction came as a shock to most of Kansas City.

"When he got arrested, everyone was like 'What the hell?'" Taft said. "Because everybody around town knew who he was. He was a very active person in the city."

Berdella remained in prison until Oct. 8, 1992 when he died of a heart attack.

Having known about this disturbing piece of Kansas City history since a young age, South and Taft decided to take it to the big screen.

"I've been a real big movie buff my whole life," Taft said. "And Paul wanted to get into filmmaking. He had his camera and his computer and all the editing equipment. He was like 'Bill, let's make a movie.'"

They got to work immediately. Taft, who originally considered going into journalism, wrote a script. Then South revised it. In the summer of 2008 they held a casting call at the Plaza Library.

"We had a lot of local actors come out and audition for us," Taft said. "So we had real actors playing the roles."

They also cast some of their friends for small cameos to provide some comic relief.

Completing the cast are two more members of the UMKC community. Rocky Varela, a friend of South's and UMKC graphic design major, did the lighting and most of the graphic design. And Rebecca Scott, another UMKC student, was chosen for an acting roll after she showed up at the casting call.

Putting the film together was a team effort.

"I worked a lot with the actors," Taft said. "(Paul) was behind the camera and then he edited on his computer. And we were pretty much marketing it the whole time."

Marketing for the film consisted of several different approaches, including launching a Web site.

"We registered www.bobberdella.com which was the smartest thing we could possibly have done," Taft said. "It's gotten a lot of exposure. We've gotten almost 15,000 hits to our Web site in a year."

Taft said they have "taken over the Internet." In most search engines, when somebody looks up "Bob Berdella," their Web site is usually one of the first results. They also created a Facebook event for the film premiere on Sept. 10 at the Screenland Theater.

But the process has not been simple.

Taft and South agreed that making a movie based on a true story could get extremely tricky.

"I'm trying to make him into a slasher character like Jason or Michael Myers or Freddy Kreuger," Taft said. "And it's hard to do that when it's a real person. It's a very controversial movie."

Other forms of marketing for "Berdella" included stickers and t-shirts.

Taft said the stickers were their "guerilla marketing approach." Based off of Shepard Fairey's "OBEY" sticker campaign, they created stickers that read "BOBEY" with a photo of Berdella and placed them around town. The areas surrounding UMKC and Rockhurst University are particularly dense with them.

The t-shirts display a photo of Berdella on the front, which proved to be a controversy in itself.

"I'll wear the t-shirt to a bar and I'll hear somebody go 'Oh my God that guy has a serial killer on his shirt," South said. "Or somebody will be like, 'Haha that's real funny. Bob Berdella killed my cousin.' I'm like, 'No, I'm supporting my movie. I'm trying to get the word out there.'"

Dealing with these problems was only part of their battle. They also receive their fair share of hate mail to the film e-mail address, bobberdella@gmail.com.

But the hard work and determination has paid off.

"One of my life goals was to make a movie," Taft said. "So I could successfully say I have achieved one of my life goals at the age of 23."

The film premiere had two showings - the first one was for cast and crew, family, friends and media. The second was open to the public.

With a film premiere under their belts and a film company to their names, these local graduates are well on their way to success.

hsaskin@unews.com