'Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil & Vile': Zac Efron Plays Serial Killer Ted Bundy [Sundance Review]

Our cultural fascination and glamorization of killers, often male, over victims and survivors, always female, is nothing new especially when it comes to serial killers and our obsession with their merciless indifference and cold unfeelingness. Horror movies have learned to flip this script; the final girl put through hell that perseveres in the end (though thoroughly abused before she does), but serial killer movies seem content to remain fixated on our incomprehension with the unknowable twisted psyche and oh my, how horrific and monstrous they are, the end.

That formula is becoming tired frankly, which makes esteemed documentarian (the terrific “Brother’s Keeper,” the “Paradise Lost” trilogy), sometimes dramatic feature director (the god awful “Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2) Joe Berlinger’s Ted Bundy thriller “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile,” ostensibly refreshing. It purports to be told from the perspective of Bundy’s girlfriend Elizabeth Kloepfer, who suffered for years with Bundy on trial struggling to accept the reality of her boyfriend’s mania (or at least that’s one POV it holds). Unfortunately for everyone involved, this appears to be nothing more than disingenuous lip service perhaps to engender good will to savvy (and woke) audiences hoping to see some female agency (which the film does not deliver, though boy it does try all of sudden late in the game). But the fact that ‘Extremely Wicked’ peddles itself as from the victim’s POV, at least in the beginning before it becomes more enamored with Bundy, is actually more off-putting and distasteful than if it didn’t, considering just how little of the story truly revolves around Kloepfer. A superficial tale about the casualty at the center of the story, ‘Extremely Wicked,’ rings hollow and false and is really just as interested in the sensational and salacious as any other reductive thriller. Though perhaps, to the injudicious eye, does a better job of disguising it than the average film.

In a stunt casting move that somewhat works, but just doesn’t always quite fit, Zac Efron plays the infamous serial killer Ted Bundy who brutally raped and murdered dozens of women in the 1970s in the Pacific Northwest, Denver, and Florida. ‘Extremely Wicked’ opens in Seattle, in 1969 where Liz Kloepfer (Lily Collins), cannot resist his looks and many charms. Bundy doesn’t care that she’s a single mom with an AWOL father, and appears to be loving and caring, and the two share some domestic bliss for a scene or two.

But soon, Bundy is arrested for alleged kidnapping, and detectives from Seattle, Portland, and surrounding areas start to come out of the woodwork trying to pin him to crimes that sound ever-so suspiciously similar. Then its Denver, Florida, the list grows and ‘Extremely Wicked’ spends the bulk of its time as a court case drama—Bundy is either in prison, or on trial while Liz sits at home anguishing that the love of her life is no longer providing her with sustaining rays of sunshine. No matter how much evidence mounts, no matter how many states and jurisdictions are trying to put him way, Liz’s love for Bundy rarely falters. When they are together, in prison visits, or between trials when he’s out on bail (only early in the movies), Bundy somehow convinces her that he’s been railroaded, framed, etc. etc. with his repulsive half smirk at the end, like a full-of-shit period concluding each sentence.

And while ‘Extremely Wicked’ might be trying to paint a portrait of a woman gaslit by a charming, intelligent man, neither Efron or his characters’ mental gymnastics convince of his innocence. Instead, Liz just comes off as a kind of a dope, frankly, blinded by love and a phony huckster who seems transparent, so it’s hard to empathize with her. And if it’s her story, it’s one of sitting at home, worrying, fretting, waiting by the phone for Ted to call and similar anguish while she descends into alcoholism and delusion. But maybe it’s not hers because ‘Extremely Wicked,’ is really smitten with the cult of Bundy.

And given that Berlinger hints at Bundy’s crimes throughout—though conveniently never really shows much of his heinous acts to truly demonize the killer—there’s really zero suspense as to whether he’s telling the truth because we know he’s not (though, the movie still has the gall to sort of suggest that maybe he is innocent after all, when clearly that’s just a silly, mid-movie red herring because, why not keep people on their toes a little bit when the movie begins to sag).

With all that in mind, it’s difficult to see what Berlinger’s trying to achieve and this is where the documentarian comes in as ‘Extremely Wicked,’ seems very interested in presenting the facts of the Bundy/Kloepfer story, but says next to nothing meaningful about it other than a occasionally engaging, always unbelievable dramatic document about a guy who fascinated America for a time.

Ultimately, while it doesn’t quite sympathy or humanize him (though it comes close at times), the ill-conceived drama is there to shine a spotlight on Bundy, his supposed fierce intelligence that sometimes sways, or more accurately entertains courtrooms —he often acts as his own attorney— and the charms and good looks that somehow convinces young women across America—the very same that he’d torture brutally in a heartbeat—to come root for and cheer him on due to their fascination. As an indictment of celebrity culture and our misguided addiction to it, this works, but that’s not at all what Berlinger’s film is about, and it’s another “well, women did actually root for him fact that actually happened” that doesn’t really help the film.

Efron does his best with the material that goes out of its way to reinforce the idea of Ted Bundy as Mr. Charisma 1973, he’s creepy and chilling, as does Collins, but the film itself doesn’t really do them any favors. While every little last bit seems real—none of it feels well dramatized and Berlinger slavishly sticks to the linear and then this happened narrative with boring documentarian zealousness. That theme runs throughout. So much of ‘Extremely Wicked,’ feels utterly preposterous and laughable. The director would tell you, well, it actually happened, and it surely did, but there needs to be a middle ground somewhere, and this is why it’s called drama and fiction.

The tone is objectionable, sometimes odious too, trying to engender sympathy for Liz—who the movie seems to mostly forget in its second half consumed by Bundy’s worsening trials—while working hard to not enjoy itself too much with Bundy’s courtroom mania and showboating antics. Fixated on period piece details (perhaps more so than the characters), ‘Extremely Wicked’ features a lot of jarring, unfortunate 1970s rock and funk aww, f*ck yeah, isn’t this cool needle drops in the weirdest places that just feel so out of place and inappropriate given the subject matter and its supposed gravity. But it also can’t resist making Bundy look like a little bit of a rock star at times even though the movie purports to condemn him. Berlinger simply wants to eat his cake and have it too and with this kind of story, and what it’s pretending to be, it’s more than a little offensive.

Berlinger did so much research for ‘Extremely Wicked’ he also crafted the companion documentary series “Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes,” which is streaming on Netflix now, but that doc, seemingly just giving Bundy’s insanity another platform for his self-serving horseshit, doesn’t really illuminate much either, aside from Bundy as serial fabricator, convinced of his own ego and innocence, as told over four hours.

The Liz character end of this movie is maddening given how it believes its somehow doing her story justice. And there’s a twist at the end of the film that’s meant to give Liz extra dimension and complexity, but it just feels like a convenient, cheap wild card pulled out of nowhere at the end to redeem her, and it’s all far too late.

Before true crime podcasts and Serial/S-Town et al., there was Joe Berlinger, crafting terrific documentaries about injustices and crimes, but this second dramatic effort is just as misguided as his first. No one should be told to stay in their lane, but maybe know your strengths because this phony movie isn’t it. By the time ‘Extremely Wicked’ ends and has the audacity to puts its many female victim’s names on the screen, silently and somberly, trying its best to cast itself as some kind of concerned ally and not the fraud that it is, you’ve felt insulted and cheated enough. [D+]

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