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  • Niaya Thomas

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile


“Efron’s casting in the real-life story of serial killer Ted Bundy is startling, but the film shies away from awkward questions,” said Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian.

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile is a new Netflix original movie starring Zac Efron and Lily Collins. This movie is about serial killer, Ted Bundy, but it’s completely different from any other Bundy movie released. This movie focuses on Bundy’s love life and him fighting for his “innocence” whilst trying to keep his girlfriend from believing in the news. Although Elizabeth (Bundy’s girlfriend), doesn’t believe the news reports for years, the whole time she’s the one who suggests his name to the police when the suspect sketch is released which starts the whole case against him.

The movie is interesting and it doesn’t focus necessarily on his killings, which is respectable because we didn’t have to see any gruesome murders. This also didn’t make the families of the victims feel uncomfortable watching people play out how their loved ones were murdered.

The director actually took a very different approach to who Ted Bundy was while also including reenacted news videos. Now for people who already knew about Ted Bundy and what he did the movie plot would probably be really weird, but for people who don’t know about him they’d probably think he was really innocent and a nice guy because that’s what’s mostly depicted in the movie. Although back then girls still loved him and supported him, even went as far as showing up to court for him hoping for a good turn out.

Even if you did decide to support him throughout the film you’d be sadly disappointed at the end because SPOILER ALERT, he admits to it when Elizabeth comes to visit him to get a confession for the police. The way the created the scene of his confession was very well acted out. Elizabeth comes in pressuring him to confess through the glass and she asks him how did he dismember one of the girls’ bodies and he starts crying and writes on the glass “HACKSAW” and that was all they needed to convict him. So much for being innocent!

This is most definitely a movie to watch, especially if you’re a crime and mystery lover. This also showed the viewers the state of mind he was in and how he saw things.

Photo: www.imdb.com/title/tt2481498/

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