It’s Ted Bundy’s turn in the pop culture true crime spotlight. Not only is there a new Netflix docu-series Conversations With A Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes ready for a good binge but now the first trailer has arrived for the movie biopic Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile, with Zac Efron starring as Bundy.
Bundy was of course the notorious serial killer who terrorised the Pacific Northwest in the 70s, eventually confessing to 30 homicides.
This biopic focuses on Bundy’s girlfriend Liz Kendall (played by Lily Collins) and her disbelief that Bundy was guilty. Bundy was notorious (in serial killer terms) for being handsome and charismatic which meant people found it hard to accept he could have committed the crimes he did. Certainly the trailer is pretty jaunty and upbeat for a movie about a mass murderer…
The film is directed by Joe Berlinger, who co-directed the Paradise Lost: The Child Murders At Robin Hood Hills documentaries with the late Bruce Sinofsky, and Metallica: Some Kind Of Monster, Brother’s Keeper and Whitey: United States of America V. James J. Bulger. He recently directed the recent documentary Tony Robbins: I Am Not Your Guru.
Berlinger also had a hand in the Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes.
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile premiered at the Sundance film festival last weekend and the first reviews have started to trickle in.
The Guardian gave the movie 3 stars praising Zac Efron’s performance but finding the movie lacked impact:
“It’s a star vehicle that starts and ends with its star, the film around him struggling to justify its existence. Efron is wicked, the film less so.”
Variety was more positive saying:
“Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile is an honestly unsettling and authentic inquiry into the question of who Ted Bundy was, how he operated, what his capture and trial and ongoing infamy has meant, and what, if anything, his existence tells us about our individual relationship to toxic evil.”
The Hollywood Reporter also praised Efron and the film’s style.
“Not to say that Zac Efron was born to play Ted Bundy, but the former High School Musical teen heartthrob is more than a bit convincing as the seductive, prolific and diabolical serial killer of young women in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile.”
“Berlinger attacks the story in a rough-and-ready style only somewhat more refined than what he employs in documentaries, and the approach feels entirely appropriate.”
While Little White Lies also saluted Efron but felt the film was lacking when it came to the portrayl of Liz Kendall.
“Zac Efron gives the performance of his career in a film which only scratches the surface of its subject.”
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile doesn’t yet have a UK release date. More when we have it.