Entertainment

UK True Crime Fans Could Be Waiting Some Time To See Zac Efron As Ted Bundy

by Alice Broster
Voltage Pictures/YouTube

A stellar cast is about to bring one of history's best-known stories of a prolific serial killer to the big screen. If you are obsessed with true crime, you need to watch Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, And Vile, which tells the horrific tale of Ted Bundy's life, predominantly through the eyes of his long-standing girlfriend. Trust me — just watching the trailer will send shivers down your spine. But when is Extremely Wicked Shockingly Evil And Vile out in the UK?

Update: On April 3, it was confirmed that Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile will be in theatres and on Sky Cinema from May 3. While the film is being distributed by Netflix in the U.S., it will not be available to stream on the UK version of the site, the Evening Standard reports.

Earlier: The new biopic recently premiered on 27 Jan. 2019 at the Sundance Film Festival in the U.S., Variety reports, and, if the first reviews are anything to go by, the hype surrounding this film was totally justified. Sadly, however, the Mirror has reported that there is currently no confirmed UK release date for Extremely Wicked. The film has not only achieved critical acclaim for the all-star cast, but also the unique way it tells the Bundy story. Most of Extremely Wicked is told from the perspective of Bundy's girlfriend Elizabeth (Liz) Kloepfer (played by Lily Collins), the Guardian reports.

This story is fascinating for any true-crime nerd. Handsome and charismatic, Bundy didn’t look or act like the stereotypical image of a serial killer, and he used this to fool a lot of people for a long time. Bundy "stalked victims in the Pacific Northwest in the mid-1970's [and] terrorized several university communities, selecting coeds for abduction from campuses at night or crowded parks in daytime when their defenses were lowered in familiar settings," the New York Times reported after his execution in January 1989. At the time of Bundy's death, investigators suspected that he had murdered "30 or more young women across the nation," according to the newspaper. Gripped yet? I know I am.

Three decades after his death, it is Zac Efron that will be playing the role of Bundy in Extremely Wicked. This is a pretty big leap from High School Musical and Baywatch, and Efron told Variety that it was the complex character of Bundy that attracted him to the film. The actor said:

"This movie was really about a human being, somebody that perhaps I would have been friends with. And a love story from a very unique perspective. I’ve never seen that before. It’s intriguing to me. I think it’s more psychological and even more kind of a mindf**k.”

Director Joe Berlinger spoke to the LA Times about the role Bundy played in making true crime the entertainment medium that it is today. In an on-screen interview, Berlinger said:

"Bundy was the 'big bang,' in my opinion, of our current obsession with true-crime programming ... Bung made serial murder live entertainment for people ... You can trace a line right from the Bundy trial (which was the first time that cameras were allowed into a court room), you can trace that line to the OJ Simpson trial in '95, when the 24-hour news cycle kicked, [there were] lots of cable stations. And, boom, today we can’t seem to get enough true crime.”

I can’t wait to see how Berlinger, Efron, and Collins bring the Bundy murder trial to the big screen. While there is no news when Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, And Vile will be released in the cinemas in the UK, you can do a little bit of research in the meantime. As NYLON reports, Berlinger was the director and executive producer of Conversations With A Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, a documentary series currently available on Netflix. Conversations With A Killer uses "audio snippets of Bundy himself," as well as "interviews with a Greek chorus of people who had interactions with him in one way or another" to piece together his story, NYLON reports. Incredibly interesting, but also spine tinglingly spooky, I wouldn’t recommend you watch the documentary alone.