Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile

Well, just yesterday I was complaining about the tendency to sensationalize heinous criminals on the silver screen, and here we are again. The film centers around Ted Bundy, but his crimes seem almost secondary. Instead, the creators chose to highlight how disgustingly charming that bastard appeared (particularly to women). While they weren't wrong in their portrayal, I found their approach deeply unsettling. It felt like watching a film about Josef Mengele where they focus on his exemplary family life, his appeal to women, and how dashing he looked in his SS uniform, only briefly mentioning his penchant for experimenting on people and deciding their fates by the thousands. Wouldn't that be a pleasant watch? Absolutely not. This film disappointed me primarily because it seemed to glorify this charismatic asshole (and I won't apologize for that word) who tortured and murdered women for sheer pleasure, without the film giving adequate attention to his victims. If I had known any of his victims personally, I doubt I could stomach watching this until the end. / Lesson learned: Murderers aren't rock stars; they're killers of innocent people. (03/27/2022)

He's young, charming, educated, handsome, and he also kills women sometimes. Ted Bundy was one of America's most terrifying serial killers, but what he was doing was long refused to be believed by those closest to him and much of the American public. And Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile shows that this is actually quite understandable... Zac Efron gives a very good performance and Joe Berlinger is quite clever at playing with the audience. Unfortunately, the film runs out of ideas somewhere in the middle and starts to become unnecessarily transparent and frankly a bit untrustworthy. Which is quite a pity. (05/23/2019)

Excellent work in terms of topic and screenplay. The same may be said of the two main characters, Z. Efron and L. Collins, one of whom gave a wonderfully in-depth studied performance which was almost completely flawless and the other presented a really dramatic struggle between feelings and conscience. I hadn’t heard about the real events before seeing this movie and I liked how the filmmakers left out the violent part, concentrating more on the main hero and demonstrating why he was so admired and popular. This movie really is worth seeing. (12/13/2020)

Netflix really hit the mark here. I expected it to be a more average crime show, but Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile was a full-blown surprise. Zac Efron has mostly played comedic roles throughout his career, so there were some reservations about his portrayal of Ted Bundy. But he delivered an absolutely phenomenal performance. I truly did not expect that. The acting in the film is top-notch; even Lily Collins, who played Bundy's wife, performed like her life depended on it. The film doesn't focus as much on depicting individual murders but instead offers a psychological spectacle, fully showcasing what a manipulator Bundy was (in hindsight, it's incredible how he managed to sway so many fans to his side). The courtroom scenes are quite convincingly done, and I was stunned by Bundy's audacity in court. Of course, it also has its chilling moments (the scene where he confesses to his wife gave me huge chills). Solid work on all fronts. For me, it's an 8/10. (12/11/2022)

Before watching it, I had no idea what Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile was actually about. Maybe that's why I found it quite suspenseful. Zac Efron isn't one of my favorites, so it's a wonder he was able to keep my attention for the duration of the film. And not only that! He played the womanizing serial killer Ted Bundy so well that I believed in his innocence until the last moment. (70%) (12/03/2021)