Film Review: Ed Kemper (2025)
Ed Kemper is one of several marquee serial killers who terrorized California during the 1970s, and as the modern true crime boom enters its waning years, he has garnered a lot of attention for his distinctive personality, keen intelligence, and willingness to engage with police after his capture. His unique chemistry earned him an extended, Emmy-nominated portrayal in 2017’s Mindhunter, wherein a fictionalized Kemper served as an unorthodox consultant to the FBI.
While Ed Kemper has been portrayed in film before, none of these efforts have been especially well-received, and I don’t know that I’ve come across another serial killer biopic that is as comprehensive as DREAD’s 2025 film, the adequately-titled Ed Kemper, which takes a very measured and impressively thorough eye to Kemper’s life prior to his incarceration, mapping his childhood, teenage institutionalization, and subsequent murder escalation in a way that makes each element feel like natural progression of what preceded it.
I went on a bit of a ride with this one, initially valuing the slowburn groundwork that went into showcasing Ed’s personality and reasoning process before being jarred by the tonal shift as the film pivoted to focus on his crimes. The murders of Ed Kemper are portrayed in graphic detail in this film, and while I appreciate writer/director Chad Ferrin’s willingness to take an unflinching look at all sides of Kemper, it leaves the film feeling a bit unbalanced and lacking a coherent style.
While I personally liked the pacing of this film and appreciate the great deal of screentime spent developing spaces peripheral to the murders, particularly Ed’s relationship with his mother, Clarnell (Susan Priver), I think it may struggle to find an enthusiastic audience, as it does everything in considerable detail. Horror fans tend to fall into buckets, and the horny-gorey people who want to see the violence may tune out during the extensive character work scenes that define the first half of the film, and viewers who value the more cerebral, dramatic elements of a serial killer’s story will likely find the extended murder scenes and gratuitous depictions of Kemper’s crimes too much here. It ends up feeling like a film with two directors who swap midway through the production, but comes out alright in the end.
The craft elements here are adequate or slightly better than average: The script is a mix, well-paced, but with some of the individual lines faltering, and the acting isn’t bad, though overdone in moments. There are a few scenes that illustrate Kemper’s delusions that I think the film would have been better served without. Do we need child Ed Kemper to stand in the basement as a vaguely Captain Spaulding-ish devil howls threats at him? Similarly, if your CGI isn’t up to it, maybe omit the scene where Ed has a conversation with a severed head? These are the moments when the seams really show in the film, and it undermines a lot of the quality, non-technical elements. Finally, there are some interesting side quests into explorations of manhood and John Wayne, hippie culture, and the sense that the story is being well-positioned amid the cultural frictions of the time, and these give the film some much-needed texture.
The last topic I’ll comment on is the violence in this film, which is brutal.
When we move into Kemper’s murder escalation, it gets really gnarly and features extended necrophilia and dismemberment scenes, which kind of makes it feel like this movie is trying to please everyone: murder pervs will probably get bored of the extended explication and character building scenes, while less indulgent viewers might find the violence too much. In trying to be for both ends of the spectrum of horror fans, it may displease a lot of them.
Final Thoughts
This isn’t a bad rendition of Kemper’s story, but it is a slightly muddled one, trying to do everything rather than adopt a consciously-styled lens through which to recount the story. I want to commend Chad Ferrin for trying as hard as he did to tell this story, but his ambition may have worked against his craft in some aspects of this film. All in all, I think if you’re hungry for a serial killer biopic, you can do a lot worse than DREAD’s 2025 Ed Kemper, just temper your expectations accordingly.
Score: 6.5
Strengths
Thorough, extended exploration of Kemper’s formative experience
Above-average serial killer film
Solid craft elements for its budget
Weaknesses
Lacks a coherent style
Some scenes aren’t up to the wider quality
Unsure of its audience
You can watch Ed Kemper on VOD.
