Besides the excessive lengthy title of the movie, Netflix did not disappoint with “Extremely Wicked Shockingly Evil and Vile,” combining a genre of drama, suspense, and crime to satisfy film lovers and the fascination with serial killers all in one film.
Netflix has decided we still haven’t had enough of the disturbing cases of Ted Bundy’s heinous crimes and presented a fresh perspective in the new film “Extremely Wicked” that was released on May 3.
There was a major difference between the “Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes” that Netflix released in January and the “Extremely Wicked” film studded with a cast of Zac Efron and Lily Collins.
As the Ted Bundy Tapes features real footage and audio of Bundy himself, in “Extremely Wicked” he is played by the well-known heartthrob, Zac Efron and co-starred by Lily Collins who plays the protagonist and the long-time girlfriend of Bundy, Elizabeth Kendall.
When trailers for this movie first aired, critics had certain drawbacks about Efron playing a serial killer, stating that Bundy shouldn’t be romanticized.
People failed to realize that Efron is the perfect match. The classic “High School Musical” star that generations have fallen in love with is exactly who needed to portray the infamous serial killer.
It’s easy to think someone like Troy Bolton would never commit these crimes and that’s exactly how the media and the slain women perceived Bundy.
The movie is told through a new perspective than the previous Bundy Netflix series, a woman who is madly in love with a killer while facing the deepest pits of denial and alcoholism.
The film opens up with two scenes, first showing Kendall visiting Bundy in prison, both of them looking broken down and distressed, giving viewers a foreshadow on how this relationship turns out, then we are flashed back to Kendall sitting in a Washington bar where she met Bundy and brought him home.
From the beginning, it’s clear to see Bundy has something too “perfect” about him, as he wakes up after a one night stand with Kendall, and cooks her and her daughter, Molly, breakfast.
You can see the look of wariness and caution on Kendall’s face, but she quickly brushes it off as this is the first male to not run off due to her being a single mother and from here it all goes downhill.
As the couple falls deeply in love and raises Molly together, women are mysteriously disappearing and found gruesomely butchered across several states.
When a police sketch is drawn up and resembles Bundy, citizens are automatically skeptical, everyone except his “true” love, Kendall.
Throughout the film and several trials later, Bundy is now on the top 10 FBI’s wanted list, a media sensation and Kendall becomes more and more comfortable with her ignorance as she watches the love of her life become her worst nightmare.
“Extremely Wicked,” tells Bundy’s story without all of the gruesome visuals, but through the eyes of the person who saw the absolute best in him, that reflects the details inspired by Kendall’s memoir “The Phantom Prince: My Life With Ted Bundy.”
The drama and anticipation lead until the final seconds of the movie when Bundy finally releases Kendall of her guilt with an exaggerated scene of him revealing what he did with one of the victims’ heads.
From that moment, Kendall completely sees him for the person he truly is, and lets go of the monster she has spent the last decade protecting. This isn’t a story fully about Ted, but how Elizabeth Kendall suffered in the shadows.
