Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile

Rating: 3.25/5

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile is not as good a film as it wants to be, but not a complete waste of time.

Amid the 1970s, Ted Bundy (Zac Efron) has seemingly mastered his charade of appearing to everyone as a charming and kind man, when in secret, he has been leading a far more appalling life than anyone could have imagined. When Ted is pulled over for what looks to be a routine traffic stop, he is taken into custody for the suspicion of an attempted abduction.

As more and more evidence of Bundy's crimes come to light, his girlfriend Liz Kendall (Lily Collins) tries to deny his guilt and assume, along with many others, that he has been wrongly accused, no matter how damning the proof may be.

Before watching this film, I had scruples about whether or not I should watch it, as I feared it would attempt to glorify the acts one of the most vile monsters to walk the earth outside of a horror movie. However, I was surprised and fairly content with the way Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile told the story. If someone were expecting to watch this movie and have it be a slasher film chronicling all the heinous acts committed by Bundy, then they are going to be very disappointed, because Extremely Wicked focuses more on the courtroom aspects of his infamous trial rather than showing the murders themselves. Is Ted Bundy's life something that really needed to be made into a movie? Probably not, but the film industry knows the power of human curiosity and people’s inexplicable fascination with the what causes someone’s mind to do such unspeakable crimes.

Given that this movie is quite a change from what you’d expect to see Zac Efron in, he gives a very respectable performance. Now, I’m not someone who’s spent a lot of their time watching serial killer documentaries or researching Ted Bundy, so I can’t speak very much on the accuracy of his portrayal, but you can certainly see the amount of time and effort that Efron put into the role. There are a handful of moments where his acting doesn’t come off as being well honed, and you can see some of his acting techniques from his Disney days slip through, but overall, he paints a frighteningly charismatic picture as the real life demon who was able to fool almost everyone around him for decades.

There were definite times where I felt Extremely Wicked tried too hard to come off as artistic or edgy, but those were mostly in the very beginning of the movie. In those scenes, you could practically imagine the director thinking how “cool” these shots would look, and unfortunately it came off that way, making them feel a bit clunky and out of place to the rest of the film's attempts at fluidity. The bulk of the movie, especially the scenes involving Bundy's trial, were very well done, especially thanks to the addition of John Malkovich and Jim Parsons. Their roles thrive on subtlety and a quiet disposition, and basically steal the scene, even though they aren’t the central focus of it. Malkovich and Parsons made these pieces of the film feel very authentic as well as helping to heighten their overall impact.

While Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile definitely ran the risk of feeling like an overproduced Lifetime movie, especially given its lead casting choices, it narrowly escaped falling into that trap. The performers give it their all, and though it may not be as well polished as other biopics (likeminded or not) have been, it’s a decent effort nonetheless.