True crime thriller Woman of the Hour explores the charismatic lure of the serial killer and the misogyny that befell a generation of women targeted and slain by smiling monsters.
Decades on from their heinous crimes, the serial killers of the 1970s are perhaps more popular now than ever. Despite the blood soaked carnage left in their wake, the likes of Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy have endured as celebrity boogeymen with true-crime content of all facets in high demand.
Woman of the Hour presents another one of these macabre monsters in a story that can only be described as stranger than fiction. Set in 1978 Los Angeles, Woman of the Hour stars Anna Kendrick as Sheryl Bradshaw, a struggling actress unable to break into an industry in which cretin casting agents openly criticise her physical “attributes” rather than her talent.
An unlikely opportunity arises in the form of a dating gameshow named The Dating Game, in which Sheryl must choose between three vying bachelors. Unbeknownst to everyone, however, it that one of these men is a prolific serial killer of women named Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto).
Kendrick makes here directorial debut with Woman of the Hour, and it is indeed an impressive effort if not a little rough around the edges when it comes to the films’ use of flashbacks, which results in a clunky and at times complicated structure.
Where Kendrick overwhelmingly succeeds is the presentation of an environment in which women are not only preyed upon by charming strangers with evil intent but are also too accommodating in allowing these serpents to slither into striking distance.
There are many various factors and theories as to why the 1970s became a haven for mass-murdering men. What remains the most curious is whether the remnants of the “peace and love” era of the 1960s resulted in too much trust and too little scepticism against the smooth-talking advances of monsters among men.
Daniel Zovatto portrays the monster that was Rodney Alcala with chilling intensity, switching from charming gent to sadistic brute in the blink of an eye. For Woman of the Hour to work we must believe that the charms of Alcala could disarm his soon-to-be victims, and Zovatto has that swoon factor down pat.
Kendrick’s representation of the violence in Woman of the Hour is effective yet not exploitive. Serial killer movies can tend to focus too much on the violence delivered by its antagonists, yet Woman of the Hour is more interested in the ripple effects these acts of violence create and the deafening attitudes towards a generation of women whose voices fell silent in an inhospitable and cruel world.
