The first official trailer for Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, shows fans’ first detailed and prolonged look at Zac Efron as Ted Bundy.
Voltage Pictures released the trailer early Friday afternoon ahead of the film’s premiere this weekend at the Sundance Film Festival.
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Based on the footage, the story follows the trial and public perceptions of the convicted serial killer. A few clips of Efron swinging a crowbar are included in the 90-second trailer as well.
The trailer also shows plenty of moments with Lily Collins, who plays Bundy’s lovestruck girlfriend, Liz Kloepfer, who simply cannot resist his charm.
Convicted of 30 murders between 1974 and 1978 across seven states, Bundy was executed by the electric chair in 1989. It wasn’t until years after Bundy was convicted of his dozens of murders that he began talking about them, and when Kloepfer and the rest of the world, enamored with his apparent normalcy, learned the true scope of his heinous crimes.
A sneak peek at Bundy’s sinister charm comes in the line delivered by Efron in the trailer: “I’m more popular than Disney World.”
The official plot synopsis of the film reads:
1969. Ted (Zac Efron) is crazy-handsome, smart, charismatic, affectionate. And cautious single mother Liz Kloepfer (Lily Collins) ultimately cannot resist his charms. For her, Ted is a match made in heaven, and she soon falls head over heels in love with the dashing young man. A picture of domestic bliss, the happy couple seems to have it all figured out … until, out of nowhere, their perfect life is shattered. Ted is arrested and charged with a series of increasingly grisly murders. Concern soon turns to paranoia — and, as evidence piles up, Liz is forced to consider that the man with whom she shares her life could actually be a psychopath. This is the story of Ted Bundy, one of the most notorious serial killers of all time.
Directed by Joe Berlinger (Paradise Lost) and penned by Michael Werwie, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile also stars John Malkovich, Jim Parsons, Haley Joel Osment and Angela Sarafyan (Westworld), Dylan Baker (The Americans), Jeffrey Donovan (Shut Eye), Terry Kinney (Billions), and Metallica frontman James Hetfield, who plays Officer Bob Hayward.
Malkovich plays Judge Edward Cowart, who presided over Bundy’s trial and sentenced him to death; Parsons plays lead prosecutor Larry Simpson.
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile will have its world premiere at Sundance on Saturday.
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