The following piece was originally written May 6, 2019
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile is the Ted Bundy movie that Ted Bundy would’ve made. Played to great effect by the charming and convincing Zac Efron, who gets what must’ve been Bundy’s handsomely coiffed attractiveness down pat, the movie tells the story of the Bundy who those who knew and loved him wanted to see. This is portrayed by Lily Collins as Liz Kendall, Ted’s longtime girlfriend, who starts the film madly in love with Ted and stays in his grip up until the very end, although she seems to be sleepwalking her way through most of the film, not putting in any emotion until the final scenes.
The story of Bundy’s escapes and murders are likely going to be familiar to anyone who is interested in true crime dramas and even Netflix themselves put out the more informative Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes. This film doesn’t add anything to the narrative. In fact, it detracts from the horror of Bundy’s crimes by allowing Efron to strut and preen his way across the screen. Although the story is supposed to be told through the eyes of Liz, too much time is spent on Bundy’s self-assured swagger and denials that he has done anything. Even as he escapes by jumping out of the courthouse window, changing clothes in an alley and walking into the wilderness, he catches the eyes of attractive young women walking down the street. There is no dichotomy to his character shown, no cutaways to the brutal side of Ted, and no physical violence against women is shown until the very end of the film, when Liz finally confronts him and extracts a disturbing admission as he waits to be executed.
Liz herself gets drunk and goes to work as Ted repeatedly calls and writes her, disturbing her life as she wrestles with the fact that she herself was the one who reported her suspicions about Ted to the police after the initial disappearance of two women from Lake Sammamish. Watching her in the background is her coworker Jerry, played by an extraordinarily creepy Haley Joel Osment, who comes off looking like the exact opposite of Ted Bundy – an unattractive, stoutly average creep, today’s prototypical “nice guy” who hangs around to pick up the pieces after Liz finally breaks away from Ted. Although this is supposed to be her story, watching her sit around and mope in a bathrobe and drink straight vodka doesn’t hold the audience’s interest like Ted’s escapes and courtroom shenanigans.
Even the film’s few high points, like the cinematography, costumes, and set design, which perfectly emulate the period in which the film takes place, can’t save it from being more of the same kind of cookie-cutter crime drama that has been seen a million times before. Big Bang Theory’s Jim Parsons throws in a surprisingly good performance as lead prosecutor for the trial, but that can’t save the courtroom scenes from their direct-from-reality script, as evidenced by all of John Malkovich’s lines, who playing Judge Cowart has practically no deviation from what was said in Ted’s actual televised trial over forty years ago.
Overall the film does a disservice to Ted Bundy’s victims and makes him look like a wrongfully accused man whose life was wasted because of his girlfriend’s suspicion. Even the reveal at the end can’t save the audience from being left with this impression, and that is what’s truly vile.