Barely three months since writer/director, Joe Berlinger, unleashed Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes on Netflix, and he already has a new Netflix release on the same subject matter. Except this one is a narrative feature that’s made its mark at Sundance earlier this year – Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile, which is one mouthful of a title, and I wish the movie were good enough to justify the title’s indulgence. It’s not a bad film, by any stretch of the imagination. However, it is a film that doesn’t seem to have a full grasp on what it wants to say, and how it wants to go about saying it.
Zac Efron plays Ted Bundy, and instead of going into great detail about the murders he committed, it thankfully focuses more on the relationship he had with his girlfriend, Liz Kendall (Lily Collins), who struggles in knowing what to make of the many allegations placed against Ted, yet remains at his side as a supportive figure during the legal battle.
On one hand, the film tries to lean hard on the whole did-he-or-did-he-not-do-it game, which is a baffling choice considering we, as an audience, knows very well that he did – in fact – commit the murders. The murders are never shown on screen, we only hear about them in passing and during the trial. The film keeps a lot of information out in order to keep Ted’s role in these crimes ambiguous.
However, at the same time, it also seems to know that we know Ted is guilty, so it sometimes becomes weirdly playful with Ted’s presence, honing in on his charisma, and his ability to play with a crowd. And other moments where it shows Ted with Liz and her daughter, there’s this ominous feeling in the way it frames him.
The film doesn’t make up its mind, and the result is a very odd experience. If it wanted to deal with Liz slowly coming to the realization as to what it going on – which seems like the intention, given the ending – the film should have stayed in Liz’s perspective. We keep shifting to Ted’s point-of-view throughout the story, throwing us in the middle of his struggle of dealing with accusations that he claims to be innocent of. We see that Ted is at the least super shady, so there’s reason for suspicion on the audience’s part, but because we don’t ever really get inside his head, it’s hard to connect with him, so as a character study, it doesn’t work. There is a weird disconnect because of this, and it makes the film a bit hard to stay engaged with.
If there’s anything that makes the film at least worth a watch, it’s very much the performances. Zac Efron has grown into a strong actor (and literally too, have you seen those abs?), and he does a great job at capturing a figure that is equal parts charming and menacing. Lily Collins is dealt with far more challenging material as she finds herself not knowing what to believe during the investigation. Unfortunately, because the film is almost split half-and-half between being a Bundy biopic and being a story about Bundy’s girlfriend, her arc doesn’t have the impact it should.
There are elements of Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile that I did quite enjoy. The trial is a compelling watch with actors like John Malkovich and Kaya Scodelario play a big role. It’s a fairly well put together film, Brandon Trost’s cinematography is rock solid, and the score from Marco Beltrami and Dennis Smith is appropriately ominous. It’s not a terrible film, but it is very much a mixed bag. It simply doesn’t take enough advantage of its strong ideas, and it wastes some really good performances. A killer (if you’ll pardon the pun) ending does at least leave you feeling like you watched a movie much better than it actually is, but at the end of the day, this was a big wasted opportunity.