Woman of The Hour: Let’s start off with showing y’all the trailers shall we?

So before we start I should give some context to what this is. So this film is based on a true story, it’s also directed by Anna Kendrick, this is her directorial debut. (Yes that Anna Kendrick from Pitch Perfect).

And what is this film about? Well, it’s about that infamous episode on this dating show back in the 1970s called “The Dating Game” For those of u who are wondering what’s The Dating Game? Well, the show was about these 3 bachelor’s taking a seat and answering a few questions from a woman who’s behind a wall. And depending on which man answers the questions correctly.

That woman and man would go on a date with each other after the show, in this particular episode one of the contestants was this guy named Rodney Alcala, and why is this episode so infamous?

Well glad y’all asked, for u see Rodney Alcala was a serial killer. Ohhhhh no no no, yikes. So yeah a serial killer was live on a dating show, watching that video is just unnerving….I’ll attach the footage of that episode so y’all can see.

But now I also bet you are wondering, where did I find out about this killer? Well, it was thanks to this YouTuber named Lazy Masquerade, this guy always talks about real-life monsters/horrific things that have happened. Because let’s face it, reality is often more terrifying than fiction. Also here’s the video where he talks about Rodney Alcala.

If u skip to 9 minutes and 22 seconds into the video, that’s when that segment starts, because in this video he’s talking about 5 video clips with disturbing backstories. It was thanks to this video I ever heard about Rodney Alcala, btw What I found out about him is horrifying.

Warning ⚠️ what I’m about to talk about might be triggering to some people, just thought I’d give y’all a warning.

The guy was a serial killer, he pretended to be a photographer to lure women to be in his pictures, and then he’d kill them.

But he didn’t just kill them one and done, oh no for u see he would choke his victims then resuscitate them, then do the whole process over and over again. Just so he could show dominance. Yeah uhh sorry, the fuck?

Oh, and he’d molest them before killing them, again what a monster.

Anyways, the woman in the dating episode (Cheryl Bradshaw) survived because it was thanks to her intuitions, that she felt that something was off about Rodney Alcala.

So after that episode, they ended up not going on a date, that decision severally saved her life. Remember to always listen to what ur gut tells u (unless ur gut is telling u to do something bad then don’t listen to it).

Also seriously did no one on that dating show do any background checking on Rodney Alcala? None really? That’s ignorance at its finest.

Keep in mind folks, before he appeared on this show he was in prison 2wice in his life due to molesting girls. Again no background checking on this guy was done, before allowing him to be on live TV. The hell was going on here?

The info I found out about him after I did some research was, that he was arrested and convicted through 1977 and 1979. He was sentenced to death, but he got a new trial eventually where he was also sentenced to death. Then another trial and still sentenced to death, over and over again for about 4 trials. He pleaded guilty so he could get 25 to life in prison.

However, he ended up being sentenced to death multiple times at all the trials he had been to. The reason for that is because DNA testing caught up to him, it came to light that his DNA was found at even more crime scenes. Tying him back to who knows how many other people he’s killed.

He killed way more than 5 or 7 people, heck the numbers might be even higher than what we already know. It’s believed he might have killed about 130 women, yeah the fact this man was able to slip through the cracks for so long is so baffling to me.

Also 130 women? This guy is a true monster.

Too bad we’ll never know the amount of people he killed, because in 2021 he died of natural causes in a hospital at the age of 77. If u ask me he got off way too easily. Nature should not have taken his life, he should have rotted way longer.

It sickens me though because it’s thanks to how back then no one took women seriously, that the system itself allowed Rodney Alcala to tip-toe away while under the radar, which allowed him to continue his crime spree. All because no one including the cops listened to these eyewitnesses.

If they listened to them before, maybe Alcala wouldn’t have gotten away with murdering as many people as he did.

Now going back to watch that clip of the episode is haunting, he seems to be the most charismatic guy in the episode. But turns out he is a killer, also the final words said from the announcer in the video makes me shiver.

He says to the woman “Rodney Alcala, he’s a fine photographer” Yeah yikes I wonder how that guy felt when he found out Rodney Alcala was a serial killer, also oh yes fine photographer….hmmmmmmmm, overstatement of the year. It is really haunting to go back and watch that clip, I’d still check it out for yourself and I’d recommend doing research into this guy.

Also a bit of a back story to his younger days, Rodney Alcala was sent to the military, came back, and was tested because he said he had a mental breakdown. They diagnosed him and said he should go to a hospital, did he do that? Absolutely not. No, instead he ran away and went on to learn photography. Ummmmmm.

One day he lured an 8-year-old girl into an apartment, luckily someone witnessed this happen and called the cops. Unfortunately, they got there too late she was assaulted and he fled away, she survived luckily but fell into a coma.

On his run, he became a camp counselor, ummmm what? Fortunately, a kid recognized him from a wanted picture since he was on the FBIs most wanted. He called the cops on Rodney and he was arrested.

Although he didn’t last in prison that long because his doctors diagnosed him and said and I quote “He’s no longer a danger to girls” Oh sure buddy absolutely. There’s the issue right there he should have never been released.

But now this brings us to today’s review, so does Anna Kendrick capture the story perfectly and accurately? Well yes and no, the first change they made was they picked someone who looks nothing like the real Rodney Alcala.

For u see the real Rodney Alcala was charming and handsome, that was the point that’s kinda of how he also lured women. With his charms, here in this film, he looks like he gives off incel vibes. Also for some reason, they don’t give him the Poofy hairstyle he had back then, nor do they do the same with Anna Kendrick’s character.

Yes, she directs this film and stars in it, she plays that woman from The Dating Show who just so happened to end up being picked for Rodney Alcala to date. This show doesn’t give them their ’70s poofy hairstyles. Instead, they got some modern-day combed-down straight hair.

So Rodney Alcala in this film looks like an incel with greasy straight hair, well guess that matches his persona accurately.

This is not a hairstyle in the 70s, so that was slightly weird. But get this almost everyone else in this film had a ’70s hairstyle, I guess u can say this is a creative liberty. I’ll share images of both real-world characters from the films version so y’all can see the differences.

Also, I guess the reason they deliberately made Rodney Alcala look like an Incel is because Anna Kendrick said she wanted this film (which is only 1 hour and 35 min long if u ask me that’s the perfect length) to have the film focus on the victims instead of the killer. So I can see the angle she was approaching with this film.

This feels like the right direction because what this does is put a spotlight on how no one listened to people’s warnings about Rodney Alcala when they tried to tell the police.

Granted this film doesn’t use any of the real-life victim’s names, except for our main character Cheryl Bradshaw. Even though I’d say she’s not even portraying the character accurately. She’s basically playing a version of her that’s loosely based on the real person.

So with that historical lesson, let’s get the rating out of the way so we can get into the review. Overall I actually enjoyed this film, granted this film does take tons of liberties from the real-world incident, but I still found myself enjoying this film. I will be keeping an eye open for Anna Kendrick as a director because I want to see where else she goes with her directing skills.

Also even though the guy who plays Rodney Alcala looks nothing like him, he however still plays him as a horrifying person. Which is perfect, every scene he’s in I was on the edge of my seat all tensed up.

So I’ll give this film a solid 8/10, warning spoilers ahead y’all been warned.

So in this film, we do open up to Rodney Alcala taking photos of a woman on a hill all the while she exposition dumping to him about her husband left her as soon as she became pregnant. He then strangles her, and then revives her then does the process over again, we cut to Anna Kendrick as Cheryl Bradshaw, she’s trying to get accepted into an acting role. But thanks to the sexist patriarchy she’s having a hard time getting a gig….even though she’s great at acting.

But her agent gets her in on The Dating Game Show. Also for some reason in this film Cheryl isn’t spelled with a C but with an S. Even though the real-life version of her name is spelled with an C.

In real-life around this time, Cheryl Bradshaw wasn’t an actress. She was a drama teacher.

Anyways, once we get to the actual The Dating Game Show, we get what we expected…..Rodney is one of the bachelor’s, he and 2 other men are behind a wall answering questions that Cheryl Bradshaw is asking.

Although I will say the dialog is different in this film compared to the real-life episode this film is based on, the closest to accuracy we get is in one scene in this film on the episode Cheryl Bradshaw asks what does Rodney Alcala look like. He describes himself as a banana, and that he looks good.

Ummmmm ok then, she then asks can u be more specific? Which his response is “Peel me” (barf) I think I gagged a bit just saying that. Peel me? Seriously? Did we really need to do cringy dialog? Is cringe dialog ever necessary?

Also, a woman in the crowd recognizes Rodney Alcala, she tries to warn her boyfriend and the guards but they won’t listen to her, how does she recognize him? Because she witnessed him murdering a friend of hers.

Btw this didn’t happen in real-life, no one recognized him on stage as a murderer, and no one stopped and interrupted the show. They just thought he was a normal guy.

I will say this though that woman is supposed to be a stand-in for the audience, a representation of how there were people who tried getting the cops attention about Alcala but they didn’t listen because they refused to connect the dots together.

Which just frustrates me.

Anyway so the show ends exactly as the actual episode, and he gets picked as her date. He hugs her and they never see each other again after that night. Whoops my bad sorry, the film decides to go into full-blown fiction after this…for u see the film shows us that Rodney Alcala bumps into Cheryl Bradshaw while she’s out, and then they meet each other at a secondary location (a bar).

BTW none of that actually happened in the real story, they didn’t meet after the show. As I stated she felt ill because she sensed something was off about him, in her words he was a creep. She asked the showrunners if this would be a problem, and they said u don’t have to go on a date with him afterward.

Again that decision saved her life, but I think they were trying to pad out time because movie I guess, so we get a pointless subplot of Cheryl trying to become an actress, and we get made-up fan fic that Rodney and Cheryl met up afterward at a bar and still chat it out together.

That’s when she realizes the true monster he is, yes don’t worry this film never humanizes Rodney Alcala unlike the show Dahmer, or Monsters did for its killers. Anyways he tries to follow her to her car but thanks to some men coming out of a building this gives her the opportunity to escape. O

On a side note, this film doesn’t show things linearly, sometimes the film jumps back and forth to different time periods between 1977, 1978, and 1979. I think that was done on purpose to show us how wild Rodney Alcala mind really is.

Oh btw did I forget to mention that in this film for some reason during the show he gets emotions and shows an image of one of his victims to the second bachelor behind stage….the hell would he do that for? He wasn’t dumb.

I guess the film wants to show us even smart criminals can and will eventually Crack and slip up from either pressure or a mistake. But all I see is they made him look stupid.

Actually, why does it matter? It doesn’t, in fact, let him look stupid. He deserved it for what he’s done. Anyway, this film ends with him continuing his murderous spree, but another woman who did survive him. All because at that moment he was choking this woman outside, he just stops and breaks out and starts crying.

The 15-year-old woman fakes sympathy and he asked was that too hard? She said no I like it that way. Ahhhhhhh she’s a survivor, she’s trying to not piss him off, anyways he drives her to a gas station where he stops to get gas in the car, guess he decided not to kill her.

Now that actually happened, according to the real-life version of the woman, that is what happened. I guess it’s the only moment Rodney Alcala showed any form of emotion or empathy, a little too late buddy. Anyway, the film ends with him getting arrested because she called the cops I guess.

But what is for certain is it was due to her testimony that helped get him convinced.

The end, but in reality, it didn’t stop there, he bailed out of prison and continued his crime spree for a bit longer (a heinous guy he was), eventually another of his victims who survived described what the guy looked like to some cops.

They drew out a sketch of him, Rodney’s Parole officer instantly recognized him, wait that’s Rodney Alcala. He was then swiftly arrested, this time he wasn’t allowed bail.

Because by now he’s killed about 5 different women, who know he might have killed more, because as stated before he’s been on the loose multiple times in his life. Plus he used the I’m a photographer angle to lure women to him.

Anyway DNA testing luckily caught up to him, because back then DNA testing didn’t exist. He was denied bail. He was sentenced to death, but in 2021 (yes I know I already mentioned this before but I’m wrapping this story up), he died of natural causes.

Which marks the end of Rodney Alcala and his atrocious crimes. So if y’all can’t tell the film does take some liberties, but I still enjoyed myself. Because I really like Anna Kendrick as an actress. She did a great job acting in this role, also in this film she plays the character of Cheryl as some kinda strong independent woman, I mean good on her. U go girl, but the real version of Cheryl had a bubbly personality.

Look It may sound like I’m complaining, but I am not. I fully believe that adaptations don’t need to fully stick to the original story, as long as they keep the original heart and soul intact. That’s all that matters.

So anyways I hope y’all enjoyed this review, I highly recommend checking this film out. If u have Netflix that is, anyways here’s a teaser for the next review I’m working on

Until next time.