{"id":250,"date":"2018-10-10T13:57:39","date_gmt":"2018-10-10T13:57:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/?p=250"},"modified":"2019-02-13T09:46:27","modified_gmt":"2019-02-13T14:46:27","slug":"extremely-wicked-shockingly-evil-and-vile-joe-berlinger-83-film-ted-bundy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/2018\/10\/10\/extremely-wicked-shockingly-evil-and-vile-joe-berlinger-83-film-ted-bundy\/","title":{"rendered":"Evil at Heart? New movie by Joe Berlinger \u201983 examines Ted Bundy"},"content":{"rendered":"

In much of his work, filmmaker Joe Berlinger \u201983 has provided a voice for the wrongfully accused. But in his newest narrative project for the silver screen\u2009\u2014\u2009Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile<\/i>\u2009\u2014\u2009the subject is Ted Bundy, the infamous kidnapper, burglar, necrophile, and rapist convicted of killing more than 30 people. <\/span><\/p>\n

The film pushes the audience to consider Bundy\u2019s complex character separately from his horrific acts. \u201cI think the big mistake in dealing with psychotic people is assuming they\u2019re just evil and two dimensional,\u201d Berlinger says. \u201cPeople have multiple sides to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The audience experiences the story through Bundy\u2019s girlfriend, Elizabeth Kloepfer, who views Bundy not as a sadistic serial killer, but as an attentive boyfriend who\u2019s a surrogate father to her young child.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Bundy] convinces her that he\u2019s a victim of circumstance, and throughout most of the <\/span>movie she believes him, because he\u2019s a good salesman,\u201d says Berlinger, who traveled to meet the real-life Kloepfer and her daughter.<\/p>\n

Much of Berlinger\u2019s documentary work has focused on supporting victims of crime and defending the wrongfully accused, but Kloepfer is different from the people he\u2019s advocated for in the past. “[Manipulative people like Bundy] can disguise themselves and be the person you trust the most,\u201d he says. <\/span>\u201cFor me, this is a film about how one can be seduced by somebody and become a victim.\u201d<\/p>\n

Berlinger takes the audience through Kloepfer\u2019s emotional journey, from believing wholeheartedly in Bundy to realizing his deception.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s a courageous woman,\u201d Berlinger says, \u201cand as you see in the film, in the end, she had a dramatic final reckoning with him.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Bundy denied his heinous actions for decades, especially in the courtroom. This scene in the film, Berlinger says, is the first time the audience realizes just how evil Bundy is. The camera zooms in on the killer, from a wide shot of his body, with the whole courtroom in view, to an extreme close-up of his eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s an award-winning moment from Zac Efron [who plays Bundy],\u201d Berlinger says. \u201cHe\u2019s such a heartthrob; it\u2019s a bold and risky choice to be allowed to be seen as an evil person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Making a movie about someone who was executed nearly 30 years ago leaves lingering questions. For Berlinger, the most pressing one also drives the film: \u201cWas Ted Bundy actually capable of love despite having killed women in the most horrific of ways? That\u2019s what I want people to ponder.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile asks you to find some sympathy for a serial killer. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1221,"featured_media":251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[58],"coauthors":[158,132],"class_list":["post-250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-endeavor","tag-film"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-42","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/10\/endeavor-berlinger-e1539365301994.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":599,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250\/revisions\/599"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}