In Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, It's Too Easy to Forget Ted Bundy Was a Monster

By Monica Castillo


Decades right after his death in the electric chair, Ted Bundy’s name still elicits a strong reaction. Because of renewed debate over Bundy’s looks and the trailer release of Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile — the new movie headed to Netflix in the fall starring a very charming Zac Efron because the infamous serial killer — these feelings have risen back to the surface.


The movie, which premiered at this year's Sundance Film Festival, earned plenty of attention for its casting choice and the way it approached its subject. Extremely Wicked tries to understand how Bundy was able to commit so several atrocities, across so several state lines, and get away with it all for so long. Joe Berlinger's film posits that Bundy’s good looks and charming personality had something to do with it. Bundy was allegedly a figure so persuasive, that any time the judge sentenced him to death (and gave the movie its distinct title), he mentioned that he wished the killer would have stayed in law school so he may practice in his courtroom. That’s not a statement mentioned in court often. Or ever.


'Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Vile and Evil' star Zac Efron at the film's Sundance premiere


The movie jumps back in time to get a glimpse of how Bundy became one of the most notorious serial killers In the United States, nevertheless it only manages to do so half-heartedly. Much of the opening half of the movie isn't from Bundy’s perspective, nevertheless that of his longtime girlfriend, Liz Kloepfer (Lily Collins), and the story starts any time while she confronts him for the last time before his execution.


because the movie goes on, the story fractures, shifting the give attention to Bundy while in his several stints in jail. While it seems like the organic course for the movie to follow, focusing on Bundy as a substitute weakens a potentially compelling narrative we haven’t heard before. Kloepfer might not directly have been the attention-grabbing marquee name, yet her story of survival is maybe the narrative that deserves more screen time. The movie often shows how Bundy would attempt to cover his tracks, manipulate those around him, and gaslight Kloepfer into believing that he was the real victim getting framed by the police. Hers is a horror story of an abusive relationship, although in attempting to meld her perspective with Bundy's, the movie makes the two points of view into a unholy match.


Efron is with little effort more charismatic and charming than the real Bundy, who finally shows up at the end of the film. Berlinger, who also directed the Netflix docu-series Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, unearths some of Bundy’s most notorious moments in court and faithfully recreates them for his version of events. Although, in attempting to retrace Bundy’s relationship from his side of the story, the movie gives Efron-as-Ted a romantic sheen as he woos Kloepfer, obsessively writes her letters, and calls her incessantly to insist he’s innocent. Yet, that behavior isn’t romantic; it’s psychologically damaging. The audience sees only a fraction of the toll it takes on her and why his case may have affected her life.


The film also specifics how Bundy later moved on to a new partner, Carole Anne Boone (Kaya Scodelario), once he was in jail. Boone, an old acquaintance-turned-lover, was far from the only woman coming to Bundy’s trial to show support and affection toward the sociopath. Unlike the quantity of time given to Kloepfer’s story, there’s very little in the movie to explain how Boone's obsession with Bundy started, although she would bear him a child once he waited in a Florida prison for his execution. That phenomenon of females falling for dangerous boys isn’t unique to the Bundy case, although it definitely was a piece of his legacy.


(Left to right) Joe Berlinger, Lily Collins, and Zac Efron attend the exceedingly Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile' premiere


case in point, the appeal of the "charming serial killer" can be noticed on another Netflix acquisition, You. Right after a quiet debut on Lifetime, the show — starring Penn Badgley as a problematic stalker, murderer, and love interest — has become a streaming hit on social media since debuting on the service in late December. There really are a assortment of theories over the years to explain the appeal of a forbidden crush on murderers or why the public is so fascinated by serial killers. If anything, Bundy’s case renewed the public’s curiosity in mass murderers like himself and gave a new twist to the old story of a killer on the loose: his so-called good looks, normalcy, and intelligence. The media coverage at the time so often remarked on Bundy’s apparent "charm," that the legend has overshadowed the facts of his case. Likewise, Extremely Wicked's humanization of Bundy makes him seem like much less of a monster despite his monstrous crimes.


Because Extremely Wicked tells Bundy’s saga from the perspective of his long term relationship, the specifics about his victims are concealed from Kloepfer and the audience for most of the movie. It isn’t up until Florida’s case against Bundy that viewers get a higher end look at his far less flattering side, which includes ghastly specifics about the terrible murders of two young Florida State University students and his attack on a couple of of their sorority sisters if they slept.


Berlinger insists that Extremely Wicked does not glamorize Bundy’s actions, nevertheless the way the movie tries to understand Bundy’s double life with Kloepfer makes his character morally ambiguous up until the end. And though it can would be argued that omitting his actions means the movie doesn’t sexualize the violence against Bundy's victims, putting his crimes aside for so long also permits the audience to be able to see him first as a charming stranger before his darker impulses are revealed.


Right before the credits, Extremely Wicked tries to recenter a persons vision on Bundy's known victims, because the 30 names appear on-screen in silence. However the scope of his damage against Kloepfer and the numerous other females he terrorized is never given a chance to register the same way.