Extremely Wicked brings us into the life of Ted Bundy (Zac Efron), a serial killer recently brought back into the public eye by director Joe Berlinger (who also created the Netflix series Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes), during the time of his murders. We see Bundy’s life from the perspective of his girlfriend at the time, Elizabeth Kloepfer (Lily Collins), whom much of the film revolves around. More specifically, rather than focusing on the killings committed, Bundy’s life outside of his murders, specifically his romantic life, is the central focus of the film. This spotlight on romance and Bundy’s charm lends the audience to feel somewhat oddly empathetic towards him throughout- exemplary of how many people felt during his time as a serial killer. It isn’t until the end when we realize how terrible of a person he is, similar to the culmination of Liz’s emotional journey, making his crimes that much more impactful.
In the Tribeca Film Festival’s post-screening Q&A, Berlinger said the following in response to being asked why we see Bundy from Liz’s point of view:
“I think people are fascinated with Bundy because he defies all of our expectations with what we’d want to think a serial killer is… we want to think a serial killer is a misfit, weird-looking guy who is just a social outcast because that gives us the comfort that they’re easily identifiable and therefore avoidable… people couldn’t believe that this charming, good-looking, smart guy- white guy- in a patriarchal white world back in the 70s was capable of doing evil… I wanted to make a film about the trail, and deception, and the part of the serial killer’s life when he’s not killing… because that to me is scarier; what’s scarier is that you might not know the person next to you is capable of such terrible evil.”
CUFPe was fortunate to have the opportunity to interview writer and executive producer Michael Werwie on the red carpet before the screening. Here are his responses to our questions:
What were your inspirations, in that were you intending to make [Bundy] a sympathetic character or were you trying to stay more documentarian in portraying Ted Bundy?
“The intention was to tell an emotional story about Ted Bundy, through the eyes of people that knew him intimately in the era. That included his girlfriend Liz, who is played by Lily Collins, who is how we get into the story, and ultimately the American public who’d watched the live broadcast of his Florida trial. To us, it was always a story about seduction, and manipulation, and betrayal, and ultimately the truth- in order for that betrayal to have an emotional impact, we needed to buy into the love story, so that was the framing device that we’d have an emotional way in. It’s in no way a glorification or a glamorization of the man of the crimes, but I think as a testament to the quality of Zac’s performance, that we do fall in love with Zac and Lily, as the romantic couple, and it makes it that more gut-wrenching when we start to remember, ‘oh yes, he actually did these things.’ And that was an intentional design of the script.”
What were your inspirations for this film, or what inspirations did you draw from?
“I had been writing since I was a little kid, literally since I was five, six years old… so my inspirations was a lifetime of watching movies. My all-time favorite movie is Jaws, and I think in some strange way to me, this is Jaws as a love story, and similarly to Jaws you don’t see the shark until the end, and I liked that suspense and that tension. But I just wanted to tell a compelling character story, I wanted to do it as emotionally as possible, and I wanted to write a serial killer movie with no serial killing in it… I thought that would be an interesting writing challenge.”
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile is now streaming on Netflix.
Nadia Jurkovich is the treasurer of CUFP and a sophomore in Columbia Engineering.