Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019)

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile is most gripping when it refuses the easy route of turning Ted Bundy into a movie monster and instead traps you in the same bewildering spell his loved ones lived under. Joe Berlinger directs with a brisk, almost tabloid-era energy—courtroom spectacle, media frenzy, and private dread colliding—while keeping the focus on the emotional cost to Liz Kendall, whose perspective gives the story its aching, human center. Zac Efron’s performance is the film’s unsettling ace: he’s charming enough to make you understand how doors opened for Bundy, and dangerous enough that every smile feels like a warning. It’s not for everyone—especially if you want procedural details or a more graphic true-crime deep dive—but if you’re drawn to dramas about manipulation, denial, and the terrible price of believing the wrong person, it’s a chillingly watchable film.

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile is trying to show how someone like Ted Bundy could hide in plain sight, filtering the story through his girlfriend’s denial rather than turning it into a standard true-crime bloodbath. The problem is that this approach can feel strangely glossy and emotionally muted, skimming past the full weight of the victims’ suffering and leaving the film caught between critique and inadvertent fascination. Zac Efron is convincingly charming in a way that makes the point, but if you’re hoping for a rigorous, deeply unsettling examination of the crimes, the writing and tone can come off superficial and oddly restrained. Watch it if you want a relationship-and-media-circus perspective; skip it if you want a more victim-centered, hard-hitting, ethically clear true-crime drama.