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Movies & TV

18th Oct 2024

New Netflix film tells true story of ‘Dating Game Killer’ suspected of murdering over 100 women

Stephen Porzio

Streaming on Netflix right now, the movie has a very impressive 92% Rotten Tomatoes score.

Netflix has just added Woman of the Hour, an acclaimed new crime thriller movie based on the life of serial killer Rodney Alcala.

Focusing on almost unbelievable true events, the film tells the story of how Alcala (played by Daniel Zovatto, The Pope’s Exorcist) went on the TV show The Dating Game in 1978 in the midst of his murder spree.

The movie also centres around an aspiring actress (played by the thriller’s director Anna Kendrick, Pitch Perfect) who appears on the dating show alongside the serial killer.

Nicknamed the ‘Dating Game Killer’, Alcala was ultimately convicted of seven murders but was suspected of killing up to 130 people.

Kendrick made her directorial debut with Woman of the Hour, which is based on a screenplay by Ian McDonald that landed on the Black List of the best unproduced scripts in 2017.

And following its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last month, the thriller has earned rave reviews – scoring a 92% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.

In particular, the film’s focus on Alcala’s victims, its social themes and its touches of dark comedy have been singled out for praise.

You can read some of these glowing reviews below:

Associated Press: “Woman of the Hour will surely send many looking up this stranger-than-fiction story. But Kendrick’s achievement is in capturing, from a woman’s point of view, just how hard it can be to pick a serial killer out of an all-male line-up.”

Bloody Disgusting: “Kendrick’s incisive vision, blending horror and humour with nonlinear storytelling, makes for an unshakable debut.”

IndieWire: “Kendrick’s image as an actor isn’t necessarily tied to dark, edgy material, but as a director she shows a talent for staging scenes of Hitchcockian suspense alongside her signature wit.”

The Messenger: “[An] effective see-saw between satire and terror.”

The Playlist: “The debut feature of an intelligent, intuitive, film-literate actor-turned-director who has clearly spent their career working, watching, and taking notes.”

San Francisco Chronicle: “Woman of the Hour, Anna Kendrick’s tense, insightful directing debut, re-centers the narrative on Alcala’s victims and the rampant misogyny that suffused the 1970s.”

Woman is the Hour is streaming on Netflix right now.

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Topics:

Netflix