Tony Hale plays a game show host based on Jim Lange and Anna Kendrick is an aspiring actress/contestant in “Woman of the Hour.” Leah Gallo/Netflix Did you hear the one about the serial killer who went on a game show? ‘WOMAN OF THE HOUR’ 3.5 stars RATED: R.
Contains language, violent content, some drug use and a sexual reference. RUNNING TIME: 95 minutes AVAILABLE: On Netflix True story. In 1978, Rodney Alcala appeared as a contestant on “The Dating Game” during a decade-long career of rape and murder.
He won, but the bachelorette who chose him backed out of the date, creeped out by his “weird vibes.” Alcala was arrested in 1979 and eventually found guilty of killing seven women; he may have slain as many as 130. He died in prison in 2021.
How do you make a movie about this story? Do you spin it as a thriller, a true-crime drama, a horror film, a sick pop-culture joke? Actress Anna Kendrick, making her debut as a director, does something fascinating. She juggles all four and then adds a fifth layer undergirding the others: the unceasing dread that comes from being a woman who knows men like Rodney Alcala are out there. Lately, that notion has been argued over in the form of the “bear or man” meme (i.
e., which would you, a woman walking alone in the woods, feel more comfortable seeing coming your way?). “Woman of the Hour” reminds us that the dread goes back a lot longer than that.
In fact, Kendrick, working with screenwriter Ian McDonald, invites us to .
