A new Netflix film dramatizes the true story of a serial killer who appeared on a TV dating show in the middle of his crimes.

Woman of the Hour, directed by Anna Kendrick, depicts the crimes of Rodney Alcala, who became known as the “Dating Game Killer.”

Alcala appeared as a bachelor on the Blind Date-style show in 1978, two years before he was convicted of murdering a 12-year-old girl.

He was eventually found guilty of a total of eight murders, but it is believed that he murdered many more women and girls. Alcala died in prison in 2021.

Rodney Alcala was a serial killer and sex offender who was found guilty of eight murders in New York, California and Wyoming between 1971 and 1979.

However, he is suspected of murder more than a hundred women and girls.

Alcala posed as a fashion photographer and often targeted women by complimenting them and then asking to take photos of them.

In 1980, Alcala was sentenced to death in California for the murder of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe.

His sentence was later overturned by the California Supreme Court and he was granted a new trial. In the second trial in 1986 he received the same sentence, but that was also overturned in 2003.

In subsequent years, investigators discovered forensic evidence linking Alcala to other murders in California.

At a retrial in 2010, he was found guilty of murdering Samsoe and four other women aged between 18 and 32 in the years between 1977 and 1979.

In 1994, while in custody, Alcala wrote a book entitled You, the Jury, in which he claimed his innocence.

In 2012, Alcala was extradited to New York after being charged with two more murders from 1971 and 1977. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced in New York to 25 years to life.

In 2016, he was charged with the 1977 murder of Christine Ruth Thornton, a woman investigators identified in one of his photos.

Alcala died of natural causes in 2021 at the age of 77 at a hospital near Corcoran State Prison in California.

Alcala retroactively became known as the Dating Game Killer due to his television appearance in the midst of his murders.

In September 1978, Alcala had taken part in The Dating Game, an American TV show similar in format to the British Blind Date.

During the show, a single woman asked questions to three potential partners who could be seen by the audience, but not by her.

The show would end with the woman selecting one of the men so far based on their answers.

It is thought Alcala was selected because he was tall, handsome and charming, and producers didn’t run background checks.

In the episode he appeared in, Alcala was chosen by Cheryl Bradshaw at the end of the show.

But Bradshaw later said she decided not to go through with the date after a conversation with him backstage in which she found him “creepy”. The decision probably saved her life.

The original episode of The Dating Game with Bradshaw and Alcala no longer exists in its entirety – only snippets of it are available online.

Woman of the Hour begins in 1977 with Alcala encouraging a woman named Sarah to reveal details of her personal life while he photographs her in a remote mountain area of ​​Wyoming.

Things take a sinister turn when Alcala suddenly turns vicious and starts attacking her, which sets the tone for how he preys on various women he encounters throughout the rest of the film.

The film’s timeline jumps around as the viewer follows a number of different sections, each focusing on a different woman.

The murders themselves are not shown on screen. Instead, the film focuses on Alcala’s first encounters with the women and the moments leading up to the murders.

A significant portion of the film is taken up on the day the episode of The Dating Game was filmed.

In addition to directing the film, Kendrick plays Bradshaw, the woman who appeared alongside Alcala on the dating show.

Although based on practical examples, the film requires some artistic freedom. For example, Bradshaw goes against the dating show host’s wishes by going off-script and asking the singles her own questions, giving the film a more feminist angle than it actually had.

The date between Bradshaw and Alcala is also an invention. In reality, they never got as far as a date, but the film depicts their trip to a bar and subsequent altercation in the parking lot.

One of Alcala’s victims, Monique Hoyt, was able to escape after being attacked – and hers is one of the stories presented in the film.

At the age of 15, Hoyt was posing for photographs in a remote mountainous area in February 1979 when Alcala knocked her unconscious and sexually assaulted her.

When she came to, Hoyt knew she had been raped, but in an attempt to escape, she convinced Alcala that she was not angry and wanted to continue a relationship with him.

The two returned to his car and continued driving. When Alcala stopped at a gas station to use the restroom, Hoyt fled from his car and raised the alarm.

The film shows the woman, named Amy in the film, taking shelter in a nearby restaurant until the police arrive and arrest him. But although Hoyt escaped, Alcala was actually released shortly afterwards when his mother posted his bail.

Anna Kendrick was initially set to produce and star in the film, but later also signed on as director. In press materials for the film, the 39-year-old says she knows it will be seen as a surprising choice by some.

She is probably best known for her performance in the Pitch Perfect film series and comedy-drama Up in the Air, which earned her an Oscar nomination, plus her performances in the Twilight films.

“I can understand why a movie that starts with an act of violence doesn’t really seem like it’s in my wheelhouse,” she acknowledged.

“But I feel like I’ve had experiences where I can relate to being with someone else and suddenly discovering that you’re with someone who is very unsafe.”

Speaking about the project as a whole, she said: “I think the story itself is so compelling because of the idea that this dangerous and violent man went on a show like The Dating Game, where the goal is to choose a good guy. and won. It’s just comically perverse.”

Asked about her attitude to depicting violence, she said: “Generally my approach has been that things that are beautiful should be beautiful, and the things that are terrible should be terrible.

“Yet the violence in the film is rarely literal or explicit. I wanted to be removed from the violence without sanitizing it.”

Woman of the Hour premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, but Kendrick and the cast were unable to attend or promote the film at the time due to ongoing strikes in Hollywood.

The film has received mostly positive reviews from critics, with some saying that Kendrick shows promise as a director.

“Kendrick’s image as an actor is not necessarily tied to dark, edgy material, but as a director she shows a talent for staging scenes with Hitchcockian tension alongside her signature humor,” said IndieWire’s Katie Rife.

Screen Rant’s Patrice Witherspoon was less enthusiastically, suggesting that the film is “hampered by tonal imbalances and poor editing”.

But said the Guardian’s Benjamin Lee Kendrick “is a compelling debut filmmaker, capturing the feel of a time and a number of places with ease.”

In a genre where “the blood and crunch of serial killers can become overly fetishistic”, he continued, “the deaths are difficult to watch without being explicit, understated without sacrificing the necessary shock value”.

Lovia Gyarkye of The Hollywood Reporter concluded: “Despite Woman of the Hour’s sometimes shaky execution, the story is undeniably powerful.”

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