Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019)
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Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile Movie Review
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile is a 2019 biographical crime film directed by Joe Berlinger and starring Zac Efron and Lily Collins. It’s a very interesting experiment.
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“The crimes were extremely wicked,
shockingly evil, vile, and the product of design
to inflict a high degree of pain“
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The film follows Ted Bundy’s examinations and trials while heavily focusing on his girlfriend and what she went through. I did find the shift toward the end to his character from hers rather problematic structurally speaking, but overall I liked both of them a lot.
The film actually follows her story along with his which was very intriguing and it led to a very different type of crime movie. Liz Kendall was a very stupid woman who simply could not separate her great relationship with Ted with the obvious facts of his horrible murdering spree, and she thus stayed on his side for many years.
The film so greatly showcases the dangers of being in denial and how that can even cost you your own life or lead you to many desperate times spent on wondering and delusion. And yes, the emphasis on their great loving relationship was problematic quite a bit as it thus humanized Bundy, but still that’s realistic as he truly was good to her only and it led to that interesting murderer’s girlfriend angle of the story so I was ultimately fine with it.
Lily Collins was so good in the role and much better than Kaya Scodelario who had such a thankless role of Carole Ann Boone who was extremely stupid beyond any belief. But the real star of this picture has to be Zac Efron who genuinely surprised me with his powerful performance.
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He played Ted Bundy so well as he sold his charming, nice side as well as his horrible, dark and inhuman side. Couple that with his ridiculously close physical resemblance to Bundy, especially when put into 70s clothes and with that hairstyle, and you’ve got one truly inspired casting choice.
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile is superbly titled and I just love seeing a long-titled movie in this day and age of very short titles for movies. And it fits perfectly with that judge’s famous quote after sentencing Bundy. The movie itself isn’t technically particularly memorable. it’s well shot and maybe a bit too realistic as it needed a more cinematic approach, but overall the pacing is very good, the dialogue is excellent and only the structure can be problematic, especially in its shifts in focus.
Not only is the focus different and unique and mostly really working, but the film also features a very different approach crime-wise and I am of course talking about its highly restrained approach. Yes, at times it bothered me as this story was made for the movies how unreal and atrocious it is, but ultimately it was maybe too horrible to witness so it’s better left portrayed this way.
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And that way is with a lot of dialogue in its approach and that worked as they described so horribly what happened and thus left you as the audience member shocked and guessing and constantly on the edge imagining it which is even worse and it was a terrific choice. The highlight for me was the last conversation between the two which took some liberties as it probably did not happen in real life, but the way they portrayed his confession to Liz was downright chilling to the bone.
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile isn’t just a cool title, but it’s a strong film in its own right and quite underrated when all is said and done. Yes, its restrained approach isn’t for everyone, but ultimately it worked for me as Ted Bundy’s murders were too atrocious to portray on screen and this dialogue-heavy, courtroom drama approach was a much better choice. I also found the decision to focus on his girlfriend very interesting and thus the movie examined powerfully the dangers of being in denial. A couple of scenes here are chilling to the bone while the true star of the picture is Zac Efron who not only eerily looks like Bundy, but also delivered a surprisingly strong, powerful performance.
