American film audiences have entered the next cycle of piqued fascination with documentaries and dramatizations of big-name historical figures; specifically those about serial killers and sexual deviants. What this says about human nature, none can say with certainty. What is certain, however, is how frequent the movies have become. Just this year we've had Leaving Neverland, Abducted in Plain Sight, and now Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, with assuredly more to come. Arguably the biggest reason the latter has become so prominent in mainstream Utah culture is because of its source material: the infamous Utah man himself, Ted Bundy.
While reading about the film's splash at Sundance, I began to anticipate seeing it pop up again during award season. Yet, upon its release to Netflix, many--to their grave disappointment--are lukewarm toward it at best. But why? The premise itself isn't without issue; Zac Efron is a popular and surprisingly competent actor; even the director is familiar with filming documentaries. Yes, aside from its title, Extremely Wicked, Shocking Evil and Vile is, in many regards, a competent and technically sound film. The issue lies in what is essentially a single, detrimental word: vision. Or, rather, a lack thereof. Indeed, a lack of artistic vision turned what could have been an emotionally powerful film into one which is extremely bland, shockingly directionless and underwhelming.
On a purely technical level, Extremely Wicked is only mildly offensive. The film begins with sequences of cross-cutting, crossed-timeline scenes that should have been shown sequentially. Cross-cutting works best in scenes like the baptism sequence in The Godfather where multiple events are happening at the same time, tones are being juxtaposed, or both. This is neither.
Additionally, the cinematography and music choices which were applied during certain emotional moments toward the end of the film were unsubtle in all the wrong ways. Instead of letting the writing and acting invoke a response naturally, the music and slow zoom-ins were the film-making equivalents of, "This is where you're supposed to FEEL! Are you FEELING yet?! FEEL how emotional this scene is!" Other minor missteps aside, however, most performances were above-average, the writing was passable, and the camerawork was competent.
So why hasn't Extremely Wicked been received very well? In a sentence, it doesn't know what it wants to be. It essentially had two focal options and chose to focus on both, effectively emphasizing neither. The film's first act is about Liz and her relationship with Ted, indicating that the entire film will be primarily about her. The second act shifts focus toward Ted escaping the law and lying to Liz, spotlighting his manipulative nature, while inexplicably cutting out his evil acts themselves. Lastly, the third act devolved into a mediocre courtroom drama with Liz being all but forgotten. Let's analyze the two directional choices the movie could have made to improve the pacing and ultimately make the movie itself more effective.
Option one: the film could have centralized Liz's story and the impact Ted Bundy had on his loved ones. If the movie chose to grow a film from the roots of the first act, we could have essentially lived Liz's life and experienced first-hand the emotional and personal detriments that sociopaths invoke upon those who love them. An interesting, negative emotional arc for Liz could have ensued. She could have begun the film in-love and with hope, while slowly losing her grasp on reality and what she knows to be true. She would have been torn between two worlds: the reality Ted falsely created for her, and the reality of who he really is and what she got herself into. She would have become emotionally crippled and broken, barely able to continue to live her life. By the film's end, she would have had to learn how to reconcile with the decisions she made and recover from the trauma that derived from her romance with Ted.
Now, some readers who have seen the film may argue that this is, in fact, her emotional journey. And they'd be half-right. This is the arc which the film intended to have the audience see Liz experience--which is why it began as such--but the fact that the two latter acts of the film focused nearly entirely on Ted cheated her out of her emotional payoff. It may have been quasi-apparent, but it was not the film's focal point. Thus, her arc became emotionally ineffective.
Option two (the better one): show us the true, unadulterated evil and wickedness that is Ted Bundy. Begin the film with him, and him alone, clearly communicating to the audience that he is the film's focal point. Show him begin his relationship with Liz, and demonstrate how charming and seemingly loving he can be. Later, after he gains Liz's trust and they're living apart, show him using this charm to lure other young women into his grasp, later performing gruesome, abominable acts; including rape, murder dismemberment, and even cannibalism. Justify the film's title by personifying wicked-evil-and-vileness to the utmost degree. Allow the audience to witness first-hand, in real time, how truly wicked Ted Bundy was. Then, seamlessly, show him playing innocent and kind toward Liz once more, leaving us in awe as to how someone can be so evil, yet appear so innocent.
We could have seen how effective he was at luring in his victims because, in a very intimate way, we would have been lured as well. The film could have used dramatic irony to allow the audience to know just how evil and manipulative Ted Bundy was, and why he is still relevant today. What's more, we could have been treaded to a truly astonishing and career-defining performance from Zac Efron, should he possess the necessary veracity.
Yet, instead, we were treated to another lackluster, disappointing, sometimes bloated attempt at depicting one of the most deplorable human beings in recent history. We're left with something that appears as if it was produced with the creative strains of network television. How disappointing that a dramatization about Ted Bundy shamefully featured explicitly nothing wicked, evil, nor vile.
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