How Accurate Is Zac Efron’s Take on Ted Bundy?

The Big Picture

• Director Joe Berlinger focuses on authenticity in his film about Ted Bundy, ensuring historical accuracy to capture the enigmatic killer’s story.
• Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
  accurately portrays Bundy’s escapes, assistance in his defense, and the media circus surrounding his trial.
• While a few creative liberties were taken, the film effectively portrays Bundy’s charm and charisma and the unsettling feeling of his hidden dark side.

Director Joe Berlinger is well-known for his extensive true-crime projects, including his first, 1992’s Brother’s Keeper, and the highly influential Paradise Lost trilogy. In 2019, Berlinger turned his attention toward serial killer Ted Bundy with not just one, but two Netflix projects on the subject: a documentary series Conversations With a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes and the true crime movie Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile. The Netflix original movie sees former High School Musical star Zac Efron take on the role of Bundy, whose charm and charisma were just as much a part of his story as the horrible crimes he committed. But just how accurate was the film, and, more intriguingly, was Efron able to capture the enigmatic Bundy in his performance?

Netflix’s ‘Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile’ Tries To Be Authentic

According to Berlinger, Efron was his first and only choice to play Bundy in the film, based on the book The Phantom Prince: My Life with Ted Bundy by Elizabeth Kendall. The book, originally released in 1981, had been out-of-print for years before being republished in early 2020. Kendall, also known as Elizabeth Kloepfer, was Bundy’s beau for years, and the story in both the film and the book are told through Kendall’s point of view. The film takes very few artistic liberties with that story, with Berlinger telling USA Today that the authenticity “was important to me. This is not a documentary, obviously. But the historical beats of Ted Bundy are very accurate in the movie.”

That accuracy is present from the very opening minutes of the film, where Bundy, a law student, meets Elizabeth (Lily Collins), a young secretary and divorced mother, in a Seattle bar called the Sandpiper Tavern in October 1969. Although not referenced in the film, Elizabeth details those first moments and the origin of the book’s cryptic title. “The chemistry between us was incredible. I was already planning the wedding and naming the kids,” she writes. “He was telling me that he missed having a kitchen because he loved to cook. Perfect. My Prince.” She began dating Bundy, who had also stepped in as a father figure to her young daughter.

Elizabeth Was Suspicious Far Earlier Than the Netflix Movie Depicts

In Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, Elizabeth believes Bundy when he claims his innocence, right up to the very end. In real life, Elizabeth started connecting dots far, far earlier. Police released a composite sketch of a suspect in relation to a series of unsolved kidnappings in 1974, and noted that the suspect, “Ted,” drove a Volkswagen. Elizabeth saw the resemblance to Bundy, who did drive a Volkswagen, right away. That was just the beginning. Elizabeth recalled seeing crutches in Bundy’s home after hearing the suspect used crutches to knock out a victim. She also noted that he’d taken a crowbar from her house, had a hatchet under the passenger seat of his car, and plaster of Paris she found in Bundy’s desk drawer, which formed an arm cast that the suspect used as a ploy in his abductions. When abductions began happening in Utah around the same time Bundy moved to the area, she called police, but they had already cleared Bundy of any wrongdoing.

It’s one of only two major creative variances between the film and the true story, but the intent behind it makes sense. In a previously cited interview with Esquire, Berlinger says, “I want the audience to invest in the relationship between Zac and Lily, and to believe that relationship so that by the end of the film, when she finally holds him accountable, I wanted the audience to also feel the same level of disgust that she’s feeling because, for the first half of the movie, you were almost lulled into a sense of, well, maybe he’s not such a bad guy.” This would also serve to explain why Bundy’s attempt on Elizabeth’s life wasn’t included in the film (according to Esquire, Elizabeth only found out about the attempt, with Bundy closing the damper on the fireplace to kill her by smoke inhalation, well after the fact).

The Unbelievable Moments of ‘Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile’ are True

What is most interesting about the film is how its most unbelievable moments actually happened. Bundy did escape custody twice, as depicted in the film (right down to the sweater he was wearing). He was allowed access to the second-floor courthouse law library in Pitkin County, Colorado, unshackled, in order to prepare his defense, and he did jump out of the window, evading police for six days. Bundy also did escape through a self-made hole while in a jail cell, although he had intentionally starved himself to get thin enough to make his way out of the hole in real life.

Bundy did assist in his own defense while on trial, was given tremendous latitude to do so, and at times sabotaged his defense, with one example recounted by public defender Mike Minerva. He had a deal worked out to save Bundy’s life by pleading guilty to three Florida slayings, but Bundy backed out, with Minerva saying, “It made him realize he was going to have to stand up in front of the whole world and say he was guilty. He just couldn’t do it.” The scads of women who waited for seats in Bundy’s 1979 murder trial in Florida, to see the “really dreamy” suspect? Also real, as was the insane media circus that surrounded him.

Bundy also did propose to Carol Anne Boone, a former workmate, and although prosecutors called the proposal to Boone (who had moved to Florida to be closer to Bundy) a farce meant to build sympathy with the jury (as cited in USA Today), it was nevertheless legally binding, and she did give birth to a child, Bundy’s only known offspring, the result of a conjugal visit with the killer. Finally, when Judge Edward D. Cowart (John Malkovich) handed down Bundy’s death sentence, he did indeed say the words from whence the film’s title is derived, calling Bundy “extremely wicked, shockingly evil, and vile.”

‘Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile’s Ending Was Made Up

If the end of Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile seems like it’s straight out of a movie, that’s because it is the second major creative liberty taken with real events. In the film, Elizabeth visits Bundy on Death Row in 1979. In her hand she holds a photo of a victim with her head cut off, and shows it to Bundy demanding, “You need to release me, Ted. Tell me what happened to her head.” At first, he claims not to know, but finally Bundy breathes on the glass between them and writes a single, horrifying word: hacksaw. According to Esquire, the reality is far less dramatic, with Elizabeth indicating in the book that Bundy, in a final phone conversation, only hints at his guilt and says, “There is something the matter with me … I just couldn’t contain it. I fought it for a long, long time … it was just too strong.”

The film is strikingly accurate, certainly far more so than some, but it wouldn’t work unless Efron was able to channel Bundy’s charisma and charm. Efron is up for the challenge, succeeding in depicting how such a monster has the power to charm his victims and even his prosecutors into disbelieving his vile actions. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile is arguably where Efron really moves beyond his Disney past and into more serious fare where his skills are on full display. Where Efron and director Berlinger work in tandem to great effect is in keeping a lid on the monstrous side of Bundy. Bundy’s murders are not even shown in the film, so the very real danger behind him is an undercurrent that provides an unsettling feeling throughout, with the monster beneath on display sparingly.

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile is available to watch on Netflix in the U.S.

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