It’s one of them the stranger footnotes in the annals of American true crime: In 1978, ten years after the start of the reign of terror across the country and still a year away from final arrest, serial killer Rodney Alcala was a participant in The dating game. “Bachelor No. 3” managed to impress the episode’s bachelorette, Chery Bradshaw, enough to win an all-expenses-paid trip to Carmel, California with her. A post-show conversation convinced Bradshaw that perhaps she should pass on the opportunity to spend more time with someone who, TV-friendly charm or not, was a walking, talking red flag. May we be so bold as to say: a wise move.

A serial killer thriller, a 1970s kitsch fest, a catalog of vintage sexism drenched in irony, Anna Kendrick’s impressive directorial debut and the latest Netflix film to challenge your ‘because you watched Monster: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story’ algorithm adorn — Woman of the Hour are a lot of things. But what this disturbing, undeniably compelling look back at a strange collision of psychopathy and pop culture achieves beneath its paisley-patterned decor goes beyond just one mass murderer and a bunch of skeezy game show allusions. Alcala was no anomaly in terms of the decade’s predators who moved from city to city, hiding behind artistic pursuits (he often used photography to lure victims to where he would sexually assault and kill them) and a superficially sympathetic personality to surrender to a pathology. Yet he was also no anomaly in terms of men whose egos were easily bruised and who could go from engaged to enraged if a woman said the “wrong” thing. The movie isn’t really about the sociopath who did these things. It’s about the society that allowed him to keep doing them. But first a word from our sponsor!

Working from a script by Ian Macdonald, Kendrick establishes Alcala (Daniel Zovatto) as a free-floating threat from the start, with clips of various crime scenes from the period between 1971 and 1979. In Wyoming, a pregnant woman named Sarah (Kelly Jakle) is strangled while Alcala photographs her in a remote part of the countryside. He then revives her with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and rapes her. In New York, a flight attendant named Charlie (Kathryn Gallagher) asks Alcala to help her move some furniture into her apartment, and it comes to a grisly end; she is based on Cornelia Crilley, who authorities say was one of his first victims. In Los Angeles, a young runaway named Amy (Autumn Best) accepts an offer out of desperation to be the subject of a shoot in the desert, and manages to survive the encounter by feigning shame and acting as if they are a couple. Like her real-life counterpart Monique Hoyt, she gets lucky at a rural gas station.

In between these disturbing interludes, Kendrick plays Bradshaw and shows us what a woman from the 1970s had to endure on a daily basis. She is a struggling actor trying to break into the world and has become accustomed to men discussing other women’s traits during her auditions. She’s hesitant to do nude scenes, but she can be assured that “I’m fine” when one of the interviewers gestures to her chest. An overly friendly, boundless neighbor (Pete Holmes) keeps offering unsolicited advice; when he gets hurt and pouting after Bradshaw is surprised by him brushing her cheek, she sleeps with him out of politeness. The Oscar-nominated actor has always been the kind of cinematic artist who seems to work especially well in close-ups, where the camera can capture how the subtlest eye movements or slightest recalibrations of expressions can indicate that she’s reading the room and reacting accordingly. You can see that Bradshaw has to constantly adapt to ensure that men don’t get hurt and are never made to feel inadequate in some way. Otherwise, they may become moody. Or worse.

Bradshaw is less than happy when her agent tells her that she got her client a TV spot and it turns out to be a game show. Still, a performance is a performance, and a lady doesn’t want to ruffle feathers. All she has to do, according to the buttery slap of an announcer (Tony Hale, having the time of his life), is not be smart on stage. Intelligence – that’s it So threatening to boys! He also says: change your dress. Show off that figure of yours, honey.

After setting up the parallel paths of the woman of the hour and the killer on the road, the film now pairs them up for their mutual date with fate. And like Bradshaw – who is encouraged by the women The dating gameis ready to ignore that taming-of-the-sly nonsense – Woman of the Hour isn’t afraid to play it smart. There isn’t a moment where we don’t register Alcala as both devious and terrifying, with every eloquent response and seemingly innocent exchange making you feel like the noose is being slyly tightened by millimeters. As Bradshaw begins to go off-script, much to the chagrin of the dim-witted Bachelor No. 1 and the sleazy Bachelor No. 2, you can feel the undercurrent of menace that playfully rumbles back and forth beneath each one. All of this pays off in two sequences that take place after the broadcast ends: a casual post-show conversation at a tiki bar in which Bradshaw slowly realizes who is lurking beneath that nice guy mask; and a walk back to her car that turns into a minimalist exercise in chase. The latter is also a good example of how well Kendrick has worked behind the camera, as she uses space, camera movement, the full length of the frame and expert cutting and pacing to ramp up the tension. Welcome to the stage Anne Kendrick, Genre Author!

Yet Alcala is simply the most toxic example of something else, something that somehow seems invisible and yet inevitable, seeping through even the most innocent moments. Just before the show starts, Woman of the Hour introduces a peripheral character played by Nicolette Robinson, who attends the filming with her boyfriend. She immediately recognizes Bachelor No. 3 and panics. After regaining her composure, she asks to talk to her The dating game‘s producer and soon becomes the butt of a cruel joke. Further investigation by the police leads to nothing. Do your damn job she yells at the hapless officer. It’s the second time in the film that we see the futility of living in a man, man, man, man, man’s world turn into unbridled female rage. The film makes us feel sick and squeamish about the murder scenes, and makes us superior to the outrageous examples of 1970s chauvinism on display here. But the more mundane scenes of women being marginalized, rejected, patronized, objectified, and completely ignored feel far more insidious. Sexism wasn’t part of the culture when this prolific serial killer evaded authorities for nearly 12 years. Sexism was the culture. And we’re not so sure if we should use the past tense here.