Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile Quick View A Solid Court Trails Drama Grade: B

Source: IMDB

People just couldn't get enough of the mini docu series Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, that Netflix just had to purchase the new Ted Bundy court case drama from Sundance Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile. The film is about all court cases Ted Bundy (Zac Efron) was involved in with the murders of many abducted women. We also go through his girlfriend Liz's (Lily Collins) reaction through these trials and how it killed her emotionally dealing with guilt. This film reminds me of the FX show The People vs OJ pretty much, we just go through the court cases without seeing much of Ted Bundy's actual life, short glimpses of his life is all you see. I gotta say for one whom hasn't seen the docu series: This film made me interested in taking a look, I enjoyed this film. I think we all can agree the trailer turned off a lot of people, it was a poorly made trailer that was tone deaf, well don’t you worry because this film delivers. The Cinematography was solid, I especially liked the 4X4 Polaroid shots in the couple flashbacks. The Score was serviceable. I enjoyed the cast in this film, thought everyone did a nice job. I've been wanting Zac Efron to challenge himself as an actor and take serious roles. A few comedy films he did were good, but he's not a comedic actor in my opinion, he's not that funny at all as other comedians had to carry the comedies he's in. He was a great casting choice for Ted Bundy and I shall say I'm impressed with Efron because he did a great job with this role. Although Ted Bundy is diabolical and evil, he found a way to convince women that he be the last person to murder anyone, because not only by his good looks but the way he presents himself as he had a lot of charm and charisma. Zac Efron does a great job capturing the realstic nature of this character, behind the charm within this character there is a sick crazy guy behind the mask, I hope Efron continues trying more serious roles in the future. Lily Collins was great as Liz, I found this love interest to be interesting as she actually had a character. While carrying this guilt with her, she always had a sense of doubt that Ted did it because again: Ted has this thing that convinces women that he's harmless. There's two factors why it was troubling for Liz to let Ted go: Love and the Single Mother factor. Nobody loved Liz the way Ted did as her mind claimed herself he did, so of course when your deeply in love it's always hard to let go. It's an accurate portryal as you can see the pain she was suffering in her heart, love does blind the truth as Liz despite all the factors weighing in seemed Ted was guilty, the way Ted loved Liz made it hard for Liz to believe in these assumptions. Of course when raising a child on your own, it's hard to find someone worth trusting being around your kid. Ted was the perfect fit for Liz's daughter, they were attached at hip, so Liz couldn't bare for her daughter to lose a solid father figure for her. The film did a great job with the love interest, it made sense and had a character to her instead of being a prop. There were a few other solid supporting performances I liked, including John Malkovich especially in the final moments. I expected this film as titled, would be more disturbing and violent, we get a short glimpse at the end but that's about it. For what it is I thought the story was well told and was interesting, a well executed trail court cases film. Some occurrences that happen was crazy to believe he done all that, not just the crime portion but what he did at the court house and his prison cell, this guy was pretty intelligent believe it or not, just didn't use it for good use. I have a couple issues with the film. One being repeating the same scenes we've already seen in the beginning for the end, kind of felt a bit unnecessary. One of Ted Bundy's victim's that escaped from Ted Bundy, I would've liked the film to start off with showing that scene. Even so I rather have that scene shown rather than being told, would've given the film a bit more grit which the film honestly needed. For what it is it made an impact as I feel inspired to watch the docu series as this film worked well with me. Overall, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile is a solid film. I recommend seeing this film on Netflix, if you want a better recommendation that is more violent, dark, and a better character study do check The House That Jack Built. -Mitch Smietana