EXTREMELY WICKED, SHOCKINGLY EVIL AND VILE / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR:JOE BERLINGER / SCREENPLAY: ELIZABETH KENDALL, MICHAEL WERWIE / STARRING: LILY COLLINS, ZAC EFRON, ANGELA SARAFYAN / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW (NETFLIX), 9TH SEPTEMBER (DVD / BLU-RAY)
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile chronicles the events of serial killer Ted Bundy’s arrest and subsequent trial, all as seen through the eyes of Elizabeth “Liz” Kloepfer (Lily Collins), Bundy’s long-term girlfriend.
It starts when Kloepfer reflects on first meeting Bundy (Zac Efron) in 1969 and the bliss he brought her as a single mother. Life seems good until he is arrested and convicted for abducting a young woman. At first it seems like a miscarriage of justice, with Bundy seen as a victim of coincidence, matching the description of the suspect and driving the same car. As the years roll on, a picture begins to unravel when detectives from several US states, all with evidence of abduction and murder of young women, seek to indict Bundy, which culminates in a landmark trial in Florida. How could Liz possibly still believe him now?
Initially, Extremely Wicked throws out the question: what is Zac Efron doing in this film? However, he absolutely nails it in the part of Bundy. He is subtle, charming, clean cut (as Efron has been perceived in previous films) yet highly manipulative, so superficially you are drawn in to the idea that Efron couldn’t possibly be a murderer just like Bundy was (strategically, there is only one scene in which Efron as Bundy kills someone, to heighten this perception). Equally, Lily Collins plays Liz with such awareness and sensitivity that you understand how someone could be manipulated to an unhealthy point of self-doubt. They are supported with appearances by Kaya Scodelario as Carole Ann Boone, who eventually carries Bundy’s child, John Malkovich as the judge who ultimately sentences Bundy (and describes him with the words in the film’s title), Jim Parsons as the prosecutor (nice to see him in a role that’s not Sheldon!) and Haley Joel Osment as the man who helps Liz to move on with her life after Bundy.
However, with such an excellent cast, Extremely Wicked makes some serious mistakes with its handling of the narrative. Firstly, it makes use of some blinking obvious visual metaphors (like a dog barking at evil Bundy, the image of a shark always drawn by Liz’s daughter etc) which border on patronising. Secondly, when the trial takes off, it diverts from its original story about the relationship between Bundy and Liz in an attempt to comment about the media’s relationship with the US judicial system (Bundy’s trial was the first to be televised); it just feels out of place.
Extremely Wicked is a very interesting film; its cast makes the film engaging to the point that you can overlook the more careless elements of storytelling.
