Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile is directed by Joe Berlinger, and is based on the true story of notorious serial killer Ted Bundy (Zac Efron), told through the perspective of Liz Kendall (Lily Collins). The film retells events from when Kendall and Bundy meet, up to the day she visits him before his prolonged execution in 1989, all while presenting the many times had escaped and been put on trial in three different states across the country.
Netflix has been sort of a serial killer vibe as of late; not only did they open this year with a documentary series on Ted Bundy’s crimes, but this past summer gave us the Bundy biopic they purchased at Sundance, as well as Mindhunter season 2, featuring Damian Harriman as Charles Manson (again). It was especially interesting, given that Berlinger helmed the documentary series as well, meaning there was passion and desire to make this film happen; even Netflix themselves were confident in it enough to push this to theatres, in the hopes of being in the awards circuit. In some ways, it kind of succeeds, but not quite to that level.
If there is one consensus that I agree with most everyone on, it’s Zac Efron; he is absolutely HAUNTING, and I’d say this is his best performance. The delivery he has, not only captures Ted Bundy, but you could swear it was him for a second; the antagonistic talking, the quick but careful choice of words through loopholing the system, he manages to slowly evolve into that master manipulator he would be known for, even towards his own girlfriends. One of the biggest complaints that were made about his casting was that it made Bundy too pretty, but that’s actually why it works so well; Bundy was notorious for having an hypnotic presence towards women, which is why it made it easy for him to commit as many kills and not get caught. The scenes of him and either Lily Collins or John Malkovich as the judge are easily the best, as he’s given the chance to both show more of his drama chops and his hamness in one go. It was a scarily accurate recreation of Bundy from what we’ve seen in interviews, and so far he’s been the biggest push as far as nominations go.
However, the biggest problem that a majority of people, myself included, have with this movie is that it’s too by the numbers. It doesn’t really go much further into what we already come to know from the documentary series, aside from getting some of Liz’s perspective. While Efron is entertaining to watch, the rest of the movie didn’t exactly seem to rise up anywhere close to him. Lily Collins is good, but it seemed like Efron was the one pushing her to strive more of this performance, looking between their scenes and hers with Haley Joel Osment as her lover after Ted. Dylan Baker, Jeffrey Donovan, and Jim Parsons are in it as well, but aside from the latter having more screentime, none of them left much of an impression on me. Heck, most of the film is on recreating the courtroom cases we’ve seen already.
It felt like Berlinger only wanted to adapt what HE thought was interesting to him or at least, what he thought was safe to represent without causing much backlash with the victims and their families, if they're still alive. What it covers is adapted fine, but it would have been interesting to dive more into Bundy’s life between trials a little bit more; his work as a political spy for the Republican party in '72, how he got caught living in the mountains after escaping Aspen, and just a little bit more of Ted and Liz’s relationship before his arrest would have been nice.
It felt like Berlinger only wanted to adapt what HE thought was interesting to him or at least, what he thought was safe to represent without causing much backlash with the victims and their families, if they're still alive. What it covers is adapted fine, but it would have been interesting to dive more into Bundy’s life between trials a little bit more; his work as a political spy for the Republican party in '72, how he got caught living in the mountains after escaping Aspen, and just a little bit more of Ted and Liz’s relationship before his arrest would have been nice.
With both the docu-series and bio-pic being on Netflix, I would definitely recommend the series over the movie; I would only suggest watching this if you’re just now discovering who Ted Bundy is, since it is a quick two hours, or if you’re really curious to see Zac Efron as a darker role. There are some prominent highlights, especially with Efron’s performance as Bundy; whenever he shares the scene with Collins or Malkovich, that’s where he shines. Aside from that, there isn’t much new to discover from the Ted Bundy case that we haven’t seen.
Rating: C+
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