Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019)
Review of Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019), directed by Joe Berlinger.
Prefacing this review, making movies about serial killers generally isn’t my forte. If, you can say, I have this bias and distaste against making serial killer films, specifically when they’re about real ones with real victims. There’s a blurry line between making a film that interrogates the psyche, but, if you don’t do the film right, then you’re just stirring the pot. This is the case for the film Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile.
This film largely follows the perspective of Bundy’s girlfriend at the time, played by Lily Collins. She denies that her boyfriend, who seemed so charming to her and her daughter, could potentially be a serial killer. As he continues to deny it, and she becomes exhausted with his persistent denial that he murdered all of these women, she is left with a critical decision to make and a past with him that could haunt her for the rest of her days.
Content
My qualm with this movie largely is what I mentioned before, where I’m very iffy about the prospect of making a movie about a serial killer that actually existed in real life. Ted Bundy is a very recent serial killer, and some of his victims who survived are still alive today. Now, it creeps me out seeing people online and in my real life saying that Zac Efron is hot playing a serial killer. It’s almost as if we’re desensitizing ourselves to the actual tragedy that occurred, reducing Bundy down to what made him appealing in the first place: he was attractive.
The pivot to Lily Collin’s character being the main focus is what I imagine to be the film’s attempt to try and decentralize Bundy as the focus. We are led to sympathize with her plight of being a single mother, how she merely has a job as a secretary that probably doesn’t pay as much as she needs to survive. But then, as she gets charmed by Ted Bundy, we, of course, know the truth behind her new boyfriend that she quickly becomes engaged with. His behavior is disturbing with this context, snarling and pretending to take a bite out of her neck.
Zac Efron did a hell of a job as Ted Bundy, that’s for sure. He was believable, he was lovable in those moments where he wasn’t exposed as a psychopath, and he owned the role all the way until the end. That was the most redeeming part of this movie; I found myself not caring for the scenes without him because of the slow pacing, such as when Collin’s character begins a romance with her coworker after Bundy clearly is a serial killer to her.
Thankfully, the film doesn’t go into details about the actual crimes themselves, which is good for my vendetta. But, at the end of the day, Ted Bundy loved a spectacle and he’d enjoy the fact an entire movie was about him, which makes me vaguely uncomfortable in the long run.
Overall Thoughts
It’s an okay movie if you want to exclude the detail in which this is very real. The acting was fairly solid all around with an all-star performance from Zac Efron leading this ship as it sinks. I think I’m just the wrong niche for this film at the end of the day, if that wasn’t obvious already from my distaste for real serial killer films. It’s free on Netflix, so if you’re ever bored and shopping for movies with good acting, this’ll be a solid pick for you if the content isn’t triggering.
