Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019)

Having seen Zac Efron in the film Scoob! yesterday, I wanted to explore more of his catalog because Zac has impressed me over the years with his film choices. There was quite some buzz in 2019 when it was announced that Zac was going to play real life serial killer Ted Bundy and I am finally getting the chance to see the film Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile on Netflix for today's film and the film was directed by Joe Berlinger (Metallica: Some Kind Of Monster). The film stars Lily Collins (Okja) as Liz Kendall, the longtime girlfriend of Ted Bundy who for a long time was in denial that her man was a serial killer, but the film chronicles everything through her eyes as she has to eventually come to grips. The film also stars Angela Sarafyan (Westworld) as Joanna, James Hetfield as Officer Bob Hayward, Grace Victoria Cox (Twin Peaks) as Carol Daronch, Jeffrey Donovan (Villains) as Utah Defense Attorney John O'Connell, Alan B. Jones (White Boy Rick) as Utah Judge Stewart Hanson, Dylan Baker (Road To Perdition) as Utah Prosecutor David Yocom, Kaya Scodelario (The Maze Runner) as Carole Ann Boone, Haley Joel Osment (Tusk) as Jerry, John Malkovich (In The Line Of Fire) as Judge Edward D. Cowart, and Brian Geraghty (The Hurt Locker) as Florida Public Defender Dan Dowd.

You could definitely tell from watching this film that director Joe Berlinger came from the documentary world because there were lots of those elements as far as how the story was told. I thought he did an amazing job bringing this film to life and I thought he handled most of it well as far as how much was shown. I thought for the most part they did a great job casting with Zac Efron and all the different looks he had all those times, but Zac made Ted Bundy way too good looking then he actually was. I think that was a problem that a lot of people had with the film, but at the same time they did say that Ted was a real charmer and women liked him so maybe the casting choice wasn't wrong at all. He definitely knocked it out of the park with his acting and a lot of credit also goes to some of the other actors that were in this film and there was way too many to mention in this article. They all did their part in bringing this film to life and Lily Collins did an amazing job playing a woman that really struggled with the idea of whether or not Ted was lying to her or not. You could feel the tension that it created in this film in certain scenes for sure and that was what kept me glued. I definitely think this is a film worth checking out from a historical standpoint because this scumbag was real and the crimes he committed were real as well. I am going to give the film an A- for a final grade.