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Our cultural obsession with serial killers is proving hard to kill.
From “Silence of the Lambs” to “Psycho,” and from Netflix’s “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” to “Mindhunter,” movies and TV shows continue to plumb the dark depths of the demented minds that hunt and haunt fellow humans.
Well, Anna Kendrick has had enough of that, thank you very much. That’s why her “Woman of the Hour” (streaming Friday on Netflix), which also marks her directorial debut, is focused not on Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto), a disturbingly prolific serial killer caught in 1979, but on some of the 100 or more women whose lives he cut short.
“When I look at the totality of this story, it makes me enraged,” Kendrick tells USA TODAY. “This movie is about how all these women (Alcala killed) just tried to live their lives and stay safe, but couldn’t because the culture was not set up to support them.”
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Although “Woman of the Hour” is based on Alcala’s story, many of the characters are composites or stand-ins for the real women on which he preyed. In each case, they were failed by the men in their lives, whether they be boyfriends or security guards.
The end result: Alcala not only escaped justice for a decade, he also managed − incredibly − to become a winning bachelor on the popular 1970s TV show “The Dating Game.”
For Kendrick, a culture that not only failed women but enabled a predator to stalk his victim on national television was the perfect film project after making a name for herself “for being in musical romps” (that would be “Pitch Perfect”).
“My position obviously is not that all men are horrible,” she says, noting that no man in her movie steps up to help the women Alcala stalked. “But certainly in the 1970s, these men were representatives of who held the power.”
‘Veep’ star Tony Hale plays a sexist game show host in ‘Woman of the Hour’
One of them is Ed, the fictional version of the “Dating Game” host played by Tony Hale (“Veep,” “Arrested Development”). Ed is sexist and dismissive of Sheryl (Kendrick), an aspiring actress and “bachelorette” who poses a series of inane questions to three hidden bachelors before selecting one for an all-expenses-paid date.
“I decided to play him as very detached,” says Hale. “Obviously, the way this guy is treating women offstage was awful, but then it bled into his stage persona in a way that just made me very sad. I so appreciate how Anna approached this. You don’t see a glorification of a serial killer. To me, Rodney is the B-storyline.”
Each woman in the film possesses an innate beauty, intelligence and resilience when confronted with Alcala’s seductive if deadly charm.
“True crime is a genre many of us are fascinated by, including me, but what jumped out at me about this movie was its focus on the lives that were robbed,” says Kathryn Gallagher, who plays Charlie, a New York flight attendant who falls victim to his faux-photographer rap (“You’re really beautiful,” he repeats).
Gallagher said she was sent the script while renting a house alone in a rural part of Ireland. “I had true crime on the mind out there,” she says. “When I saw Anna was directing this, I couldn’t say yes fast enough.”
Autumn Best was equally quick to sign on as Amy, a young victim who is particularly vulnerable as a runaway. When the killer takes her to the desert for a promised photo shoot, the ensuing assault leads to one of the film’s most powerful scenes.
Best says that while her scenes were dark, Kendrick kept the mood light by playing upbeat music between shots. “Anna would just start singing and dancing, and we would join in, which really helped,” she says.
The young actress says Kendrick also insisted she not be shy about her disability: Best was born with only a thumb on her left hand. Some viewers may notice it, while others will stay focused on Best’s intense performance.
“I was so grateful to her, because it’s so much more uncomfortable for me when people pretend like it’s not there,” says Best. “To me, it’s just a fact in my life.”
Anna Kendrick says the movie spotlights dangers women face every day
Kendrick demurs when told that “Woman of the Hour” feels like her salute to all kinds of women: teen runaways, working professionals, backstage crew and best friends. They’re there for each other, but often are failed by the inherent power imbalance of the sexes (you don’t often hear about women serial killers overpowering male victims).
“I suppose that is true,” she says. “For me, it was about … how did we go from having a really pleasant interaction between a woman and man to me wondering suddenly if I’m even safe? And I think people experience that to varying degrees and in different ways, potentially every day of their lives.”
Kendrick, who just finished shooting a sequel to 2018’s “A Simple Favor,” is eager to find another project to direct. But it has to check a lot of boxes. “I have to feel passionate about it,” she says.
She might even act in the movie as well. That comes with a big built-in plus, one she experienced on “Woman of the Hour.”
“I would have had a lot more anxiety if someone else other than me had been playing Sheryl, and having to cajole or convince them to do potentially odd things,” she says. “So yeah, having the lead actress on the same page as the director, that was great.”
