Extremely Wicked Review
Zac Efron. That’s it. That’s the whole article. Thanks for reading.
No, but seriously. Here is my review on the new Netflix Original, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile.
Before watching this, I already knew there were SOME complaints about how it wasn’t, well, “gory” enough. Hey, I’m like all you other weirdos out there who like to get REAL deep into
the crime, but I get why the movie was portrayed like it was.
One, the movie was all in perspective of Ted’s girlfriend of 7 years, Liz Kendall, whose real name is Elizabeth Kloepfer. The movie was based on her own written biography about her time with Bundy. Which, one of the questions that first popped into my head was, why in the HELL didn’t kill her? It couldn’t be because he ACTUALLY loved her. I think that is important to note that manipulative serial killers are not capable of real love. It was an interesting question though which, during my research, Bundy did admit he tried to kill her once in the Ted Bundy Tapes documentary on Netflix. It was important though that the audience did believe he loved her just as she did. It’s honestly scary how we, women, ignore the red flags and think “this isn’t the real him”, because what we feel in love with was the REAL him. That’s why Zac Efron was perfect for this role cause I’d believe ANYTHING that dude said to me.
Either way, it was a good movie from her perspective, but I’ll probably never watch it again. Really, the ending was my favorite part. I liked how they used real footage from the media. All of us crime nerds know about Bundy, but I learned a few interesting things I didn’t know.
1. HE HAS A FREAKIN DAUGHTER?
Yes, Carol Boone, the love-sick girl from the movie was real and got pregnant by Bundy. Her name is Rose Bundy and there is VERY little known about her (for obvious reasons). Carol was married to Ted and visited Bundy, with Rose, until she FINALLY realized he was a CRAZY person and divorced him three years before he was executed.
2. Honestly, how brutal the murders really were.
Bundy finally confessed to over 30 killings and it is suspected there were a lot more. He was definitely sick. I won’t go into detail, but if you want to find out more just watch his last public interview he ever did before he was executed. Side note, when Liz (Lily Collins) goes to visit Ted before he was executed did actually happen.
3. I did not know that fool escaped from jail TWICE
I was like….did he just….did he just jump out that window? And did he just saw open the ceiling and dip? This was obviously unfortunate since he committed those awful murders in Florida afterwards. Let me just say, if he would’ve gone to trial in our time he MIGHT have gotten away with since, you know, it’s Florida and, ya know, OJ did and so did Casey Anthony.
4. Also, his childhood was a little messed up as well. His real father was never known and his step dad adopted him, giving him the last name Bundy.
5. Maybe the only good thing he did was help police capture THE deadliest serial killer in America, with 71 known victims, Gary Ridgeway.
Shout out to Sheldon for playing the prosecutor, I was like, oh Bundy is SCREWED. It was a little disturbing how the judge was kind of low-key complimenting him at his sentence. That courtroom was a joke, if I was one of the family members I would’ve been extremely pissed.
Especially, at all those girls flocking to him like he was a GOD. The dude wasn’t even attractive.
ANYWAYS:
I’ll wrap this up by saying it was hard to find a lot of information on the victims. I’m sure it’s frustrating for families to have the murderer be more known than their daughter’s name. Then again, that's why murder is so fascinating to us, because actual GOOD human beings can not fathom every doing that to another human being. It's against out nature. So, for that, here are the list of the victims in memory of them so that their names will never be forgotten:
Joni Lenz - 18 years old
Lynda Ann Healy - 21 years old
Donna Gail Manson - 19 years old
Susan Rancourt - 18 years old
Roberta Parks – 20 years old
Brenda Carol Ball – 22 years old
Georgeann Hawkins – 18 years old
Denise Naslund – 18 years old
Janice Ott – 23 years old
Nancy Wilcox – 16 years old
Melissa Smith – 17 years old
Laura Aime – 17 years old
Carol DaRonch – 18 years old
Debra Kent – 17 years old
Caryn Campbell – 23 years old
Julie Cunningham – 26 years old
Denise Oliverson – 24 years old
Melanie Cooley – 18 years old
Lynette Culver – 12 years old
Susan Curtis – 15 years old
Margaret Bowman – 21 years old
Lisa Levy – 20 years old
Kathy Kleiner – 20 years old
Karen Chandler – 22 years old
Cheryl Thomas – 21 years old
Kimberly Leach – 12 years old
References:
Gabe Paoletti, “The Very Definition of Heartless Evil”: The Story of Ted Bundy, December 21, 2017: https://allthatsinteresting.com/ted-bundy
Kate Storey, "True Story Behind 'Extremely Wick', the Ted Bundy Movie on Netflix", Esquire. May 1, 2019. https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a27305704/extremely-wicked-ted-bundy-movie-netflix-true-story/