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It was only two days ago I was making a case to my colleague questioning why Zac Efron had gone down the comedy route of late. Baywatch had just released its trailer and underwhelmingly we saw Efron in another Bad Neighbours-esque type role; a beefed up, alpha-male navigating a trivial plotline. It was another That Awkward Moment. It was another Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates. It was another We Are Your Friends. Not since The Lucky One and The Paperboy had I seen Efron in something I really liked, in a role with a bit of grit.
But news just in has come as an unexpected and equally exciting surprise: the actor will be playing his heaviest role yet when he portrays one of the most notorious and terrifying serial killers of all time, Ted Bundy.
Titled Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, the film will be directed by Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger and the plot itself will be told from the perspective of Bundy’s long-time girlfriend Elizabeth Kloepfer.
Bundy raped and murdered numerous young women during the 1970s in America. It was however his grizzly treatment of them after their deaths that was perhaps most disturbing. He reportedly would visit the crime scenes and perform sexual acts on the decomposed bodies until it was physically impossible to do so anymore. He also allegedly beheaded at least 12 of his victims. Attractive and charming, Bundy would groom his victims prior to killing them and even escaped from prison twice and continued his murder spree. He and Kloepfer denied his involvement in the crimes for decades until Bundy came clean just before he was sentenced to death by electric chair in 1989 in Florida.
Producer Nicolas Chartier backed Efron’s ability to play Bundy. “He can play both the depth and the charm that this guy had in equal measures, and which allowed him to manipulate these women in such a terrifying way,” he told Deadline.
