Zac Efron Appropriately Unsettling in ‘Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile’ Trailer
Written by SOURCE on April 2, 2019
We have another look at Zac Efron playing Ted Bundy and it seems like the former Disney star captured the unsettling aura of serial killer Ted Bundy perfectly. The new trailer for Netflix’s Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile shows Efron squaring up with Lily Collins, who plays Bundy’s long-term girlfriend Elizabeth Kloepfer.
Collins confronts Efron as Bundy to ask whether or not he committed the murders he was eventually found guilty of carrying out. Personifying the chilling ease with which Bundy was known to lie, Efron lies to Collins’ face.
The new Bundy feature follows Netflix’s Bundy doc Confessions of a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes and focuses on the relationship between Bundy and Kloepfer. The film appears to hinge on the discomfort of unwittingly living with a historically evil person. Shots of Bundy in prison orange are cut through with scenes of Kloepfer and Bundy’s courtship to drive home the disjointed feeling of Kloepfer’s realization that she lived with a killer.
Netflix believed in Efron’s performance enough to scoop the film’s rights after Sundance. They dropped $9 million to purchase the movie after critics praised Efron’s performance (while taking shots at the quality of the film as a whole).
“The most shocking thing about the film is Efron’s remarkably accomplished, fiercely committed performance,” read one representative review. “As Bundy, he ruthlessly weaponises the boyish charm that’s propelled much of his career, slyly convincing us of the spell he cast, not only on Liz but the many other women who were fighting his corner, sure of his innocence.
Take a look at the trailer up top. Wicked drops on May 3.
