Released in 2023 (but recently finding new popularity this fall), Anna Kendrick and Ian McDonald’s Woman of the Hour is a chilling horror movie masquerading as a true crime retelling. While the story is based in truth and is technically a “crime thriller,” that term does not accurately describe the movie’s tone. Combining the horrifying true facts and the movie’s use of lighting, dialogue, and power dynamics, Woman of the Hour is both an excellent depiction of violence under patriarchy and the most chilling horror movie I have ever seen.
The movie follows the real-life killing spree of Rodney Alcala, whose first victim was an 8-year-old girl. His crimes only increased through the years despite being caught multiple times. His true number of victims could be as high as 130, and a postscript mentions that he was only charged for five of those murders. His so-called “claim to fame,” however, was his appearance on The Dating Show in 1978 and the fact that the woman interviewing the contestants chose him above the other two, a shocking choice when the true story was revealed. The woman who picked him, Sheryl Bradshaw, later called producers and let them know that she did not want to go on the promised vacation with Alcala as he had been acting strangely. This decision saved her life. Alcala would go on to kill for another year after, before being imprisoned in 1979.
Woman of the Hour follows multiple plot lines, with Anna Kendrick playing Sheryl Bradshaw in the central storyline. Sheryl, a struggling actress, appears on The Dating Show for exposure, where she questions the three contestants and finds that Rodney’s answers make him seem like the safest choice of the three–a belief that could not be more wrong. A few other victims are featured in interspersed scenes: Charlie, Amy, Alison, and an unnamed woman. All but Amy are murdered by Alcala after he earns their trust. Following the events on The Dating Show, Rodney and Sheryl go out to a bar where Rodney behaves strangely and Sheryl gives him a fake phone number, fearing that he is dangerous. Afterwards, Rodney walks her to the darkened parking lot and confronts her about the fake number. What follows is the most frightening part of the movie, and one of the most unsettling scenes I’ve ever watched. Rodney pursues Sheryl in a scene that uses lighting, sound design, and the two leading actors’ incredible talent to create a tense, heart-stopping atmosphere. The weight of Sheryl’s fear and desperation to escape combined with Daniel Zovatto’s chilling depiction of Alcala help make this scene so impactful.
The movie has a somewhat happy ending, with Amy, his teenage victim, reporting him to the police after using her intelligence to escape him. A postscript states that he was released after this, and killed again before being arrested for good. He died in jail in 2021, only two years before the movie was released.
A commentary on a misogynistic society both during Alcala’s killing spree and today, the movie’s main theme is how sexism skews individual power towards masculine individuals. Even when the character of Rodney is speaking to another man, he is presented as more masculine and thus has more power. Anna Kendrick mentioned that a common technique she used was to frame female characters in the light, and Rodney in the dark to represent how they are vulnerable and he is powerful as he went unnoticed and unpunished for years. This idea is used in the release poster as well, which features Kendrick in the spotlight as Zovatto stands menacingly behind her, a shadow with no discernable features.
As a directing debut, this is an excellent movie. It was well-paced and had relevant themes. In addition, Kendrick and others who worked on the project were careful to characterize Alcala in a way that does not romanticize his crimes or dehumanize his victims, which is something that most true crime movies struggle with.
Anna Kendrick donated her entire paycheck to organizations who help victims of sexual assault and violence. When mentioning the female characters in the movie, she told ELLE magazine that, “They are certainly so much bigger than this very, very pathetic, violent man that they were unfortunate enough to encounter.”
