When documentary director Joe Berlinger was preparing for the Ted Bundy documentary, he accidentally got a script for a feature film featuring Ted Bundy. He had only filmed a sequel to a horror feature film before it was finally released. The idea of this feature film Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile. There was not much hope in the first place, but after Shun Shun Kas came to Zac Efron and Lily Collins to take the lead, the producer gave the green light for the filming of this film. This script is said to look at Ted Bundy from the perspective of Ted Bundy's long-time girlfriend Liz, which is different from the previous slaying of Ted Bundy's crimes as the protagonist. After screening at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, Netflix acquired its North American distribution rights. Since the film was screened in Sundance, it has been controversial. The focus has been on asking Zac Efron, a popular and outstanding actor, to play a serial killer. The ideal evaluation also caused the director Joe Berlinger to spit out bitterness during a media interview. He felt that people had prejudiced his films because he made serial killers, and good works were unfairly given bad reviews. After reading it, I just want to say that the bad reviews are not injustice at all.
At the most basic level, the clues are not clear. The plot introduction, including every interview with the creator, will say: "This story explores Ted's girlfriend Liz from the perspective of him." But is it true... it is not. The perspective is messed up. In the first half, there are indeed some happy lives of Liz and Ted, Liz's doubts and worries about Ted, and some stories between herself and her friends. At this time, we can still see that this is Liz's perspective; but Since the second trial, Liz has never been to the courtroom again, neither answering the phone nor reading the letter. He basically broke off his relationship with Ted. The focus of the entire movie was suddenly shifted to the court scene, which suddenly became " The strange relationship between Ted and Carole Ann", the shots of Liz are just sitting in front of the TV watching fragmentary shots of the court trial, and the focus is not brought back until the last scene. Liz wrote a book called The Phantom Prince, which tells about the days when he and Ted Bundy are together. It is a trivial account, but it provides a lot of filmable material for the film. Liz's suspicion of Ted is not limited to the police station. A little bit of an anonymous call, her struggle and guilt started from the portrait described by the eyewitness by the lake, to a little more relaxed after finding the police, and then to the Ted school near the female life case, she fell into self-blame and guilt again. A whirlpool of fear, contact with the police many times, information exchange at different levels, and she has been maintaining private communications with several police officers; Liz is dissatisfied with Ted's love of petty theft, and quarreled with him many times because of Ted's kind words. Negative Jing pleases the super-catch the horse to compound, these can be filmed, but also can give the actors more room for performance. With these, there is no need to add those court scenes with unclear key points. The director is really obsessed with those, and it distracts the key points without using them. The court video on YouTube is much better to search, and it is better to watch real historical videos than to shoot. It's as impactful as playing. The director said that this film is through Liz's experience of Ted's farce, reminding the audience to pay attention to those who seem harmless around them, because the murderer is not always visible. It feels like he didn't take photos of what he said, and didn't realize it.
Most of the poor filming nowadays is due to the lack of character excavation, lack of vitality and true feelings, and unable to convince the audience. This movie has the same problem. I feel that the director did not give Ted and Liz any depth. All the descriptions of the characters are superficial. The whole movie is like a collection of fragments in the script. There is no connection, no hierarchy, and not enough. The emotions were left blank, and the permutation and combination of several incidents failed to effectively reflect the connotation of the two roles of Ted and Liz, which led to wanting to explore and not knowing where to go. Both of these roles are worth exploring. There is a scene in the script. Ted escaped from prison to Florida, rented an apartment next to the college sisterhood, pretended to be a model citizen when he went out, closed the door, and was drunk in the apartment, allowing the devil to erode his body. The connotation of the scene is present, but in the movie it is actually changed to a simple narrative scene of Ted wearing a fake beard flirting with a sorority girl; and Liz’s fear and anxiety of calling the police many times before, and different police levels Layer-by-layer communication is also very helpful for presenting her position and personality. I don't know why the director chose not to shoot these things. It is really violent and wasteful of good things.
Then this editing was really a disaster. I felt so distressed that the two leading actors and actresses were so hard to perform and were eventually cut into rags by the director and the editor. And don’t pick the unimportant cuts, just pick a long-film actor that makes the most of it, split the actor’s good show into cells, and then insert his beloved slow-motion flashback that is too vulgar, with a special Lyrical virgin music. The last shot is particularly obvious. Originally, Liz’s release and relief was a bit like the last shot of Mindhunter's first season. Lily also played very well, but the flashback inserted by the director and the editor constantly interrupted the rhythm and ruined it. The audience felt relieved with Liz. This clip not only affected the performance of the actors, but also affected the rhythm of the entire movie. Each scene is about to reach the most exciting point of fusion, and immediately cut the incomprehensible and logically connected section. I don’t know what it is. The drama, really served.
The performance of the two actors is still very hard work. Lily Collins should have more room to play, and the performance is also very good. Her role is also a victim. She was deceived by Ted Bundy and hurt by psychological abuse. In the end, dare to decide and face, she is an ordinary, simple and courageous woman. But the overly monotonous scenes and the strange scissors hands shattered her role and ruined her hard work. Zac Efron's performance is also very good. He received overwhelming acclaim in Sundance. There are even rescue videos, male protagonist seeds and other excessive rainbow fart remarks: ) Actually, it's okay. Sometimes it feels that the masses of the media have too low expectations for him, so if he can show his true level, he can still be praised by the media and happy. But to be honest, as a fan, I don't think it is as good as the media said, and it is not as good as the best level in his career as an actor in "Me and Orson Wells" and "Newsboy". The acting like this is commendable, although the fault of the acting has not been corrected, but there is a lot of naturalness in this movie. There are two places where the performance is particularly good. One is the part of the prison interview, "I am innocent", which really looks like Ted Bundy himself; and the other is the last Hacksaw, which is when you wipe your forehead and nose after writing. At that moment, I felt that the acting was really good. It really showed the nature of Ted Bundy. He should be like that when he killed someone, with cold-blooded and cruel light shining in his eyes. But one thing I am not satisfied with is that his restoration of Ted Bundy is actually very bad, not enough to imitate. Some shots just look like they look like they wear clothes, but Ted Bundy's low-key and quiet voice, and pretending to be calm and basically not excited and not catching a horse, are still far away. The following court scenes basically have contrasting historical video materials, especially when reading the indictment. Ted Bundy saw that the scene immediately changed from a grumpy prisoner to a predatory beast ready to go. He put on the disguise of his actor's true color. He provoked Katsaris with a joking tone and looked at a camera with sharp eyes. It seemed that the gears of his brain could be seen in the lens. The voice was full of control and deliberate anger, and the whole process seemed to be alone on the stage. The monologue under the chasing light, the unusual anger and contempt between the completely normal gestures, the change of expression is very subtle, and he has never lost his calmness. In this scene of the film, Ted should only see Ted grinning and having a temper, but the level of acting is not enough. Actually the whole movie is very strange, no one has an accent? Both Ted and Liz have a very heavy northern accent, and there are no two actors in the movie. After I arrived in Florida, the documentary was full of southern accents, but the actors also had no accents... Shouldn't it be natural to restore such real details as a biopic? I don't know why this is not required, eh?
Finally, let me talk about the controversy about beautifying Ted Bundy... What is not beautified is actually based on the public's psychological presupposition. Many people think that murderers are ugly from the heart to the face, and must be as ugly as a ghost. It's right for people and gods to be angry, but ignore the facts, which is often not the case. Aesthetics is a very subjective thing, but for most people, Ted Bundy is indeed handsome and personable. This is a fact of sight. And Zac Efron's handsome appearance meets the conditions of this fact. If the biopic can't even restore the facts, then what is the significance of this biopic? As he himself said, playing this role didn't think about beautification or anything, but only wanted to show the truth.
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