Woman of the Hour – Review

In the middle of the desert, a photographer (Zovatto) asks his subject about herself. He gets her talking and snaps pictures in the scenic landscape, and she gives him a personal tale about her life. As she closes her tale, he stops taking pictures gets physically close, and she gets uncomfortable. This is the end for her unfortunately, yet another of his victims.

While the movie is not necessarily graphic, it is shot to let your imagination do the work, which makes for a frightening time. Examining a serial killer of the 1970s and his targeting of single women, it is unflinching in delivering discomfort and unhappiness from the female perspective.

The movie’s core focus however is on a few women characters which played important roles in bringing a killer to justice. One woman is a young runaway named Amy (Best); another is a game show contestant named Sheryl Bradshaw (Kendrick). She is an actress who reluctantly decides accept an offer from a game show after failing to hit the parts she is looking for in Hollywood. Her agent sent in a tape without asking.

The Dating Game is a successful studio audience show where a woman is wooed by three mysterious suitors, only to pick a winner and go on a date with her favorite respondent. Unfortunately for Sheryl, this serial killer was picked as one of the mystery suiters for her episode and it leads to serious consequences. The last important woman in the film is Laura, one of the audience members of the game show, who may recognize the killer from her own brush with him in the past.

Woman of the Hour is an extremely chilling true story about a heinous killer named Rodney Alcala. He did horrific things to unknown amounts of women, but was eventually caught thanks a strong woman and some brave actions.

It is well shot by first time director and star Kendrick, who is always sound as an actress and spins a cohesive tale here. The creep factor is high in this one, and the runtime is short so it moves right along.