If 2019 has offered us anything concrete in the pop culture universe, it's an ongoing parade of real-life horror stories turned into fiction. There was only a matter of time before the trailer for Netflix's Ted Bundy biopic dropped, and to be honest, it's hard to put into words just how charmingly chilling the first look of Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile is. If the story of America's most handsome serial killer didn't sound messed up enough, Zac Efron's depiction of the '70s murderer is as unsettling as they come.
The film is told through the eyes of Elizabeth Kloepfer (Lily Collins) as she struggles to reconcile the man she's dating with the one responsible for a string of grisly murders and rapes throughout the late '70s. Clips in the trailer show Bundy in and out of prison, but most alarmingly, it calls back to the era that the crimes happened and the sentiments of many who watched the trial. Even with his then-alleged murder charges, Bundy was called everything from charming to "dreamy." The whole thing is bizarre.
The film itself got mixed reviews after its initial screening at the Sundance Film Festival, but Efron's performance as Bundy has started quite the conversation. The Netflix-acquired film isn't the streaming service's first venture into all-things Bundy, either. Earlier this year, Netflix released Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes—a docuseries that works through recordings where Bundy "half-confesses" to the crimes he committed.
The Netflix-acquired film will be available on the streaming service on 3 May, joining the growing list of true-crime films and series that seem to be haunting Hollywood this year. Let's just hope that once we all have a minute to digest the messed up stuff humanity has done in the past, we can move on from talking about how "dreamy" a serial killer is.
Justin Kirkland is a Brooklyn-based writer who covers culture, food, and the South. Along with Esquire, his work has appeared in NYLON, Vulture, and USA Today.
