The chilling true story of Netflix crime thriller “Woman of the Hour.”

Content Warning: This article discusses topics and topics that some readers may find triggering, including sexual assault.

Anna Kendrick will make her directorial debut with the Netflix original film Woman of the Hour – and it’s based on a truly spooky true crime story.

If you didn’t know the story behind “Woman of the Hour,” Kendrick and her screenwriter Ian McDonald were inspired by Rodney Alcala, a sex offender and serial killer who murdered several women in California in the late 1970s. (Although Alcala was only convicted of five murders, the number is actually The number of murders he committed could be as high as 130. If you didn’t find Alcala’s crimes disturbing enough, he was Also in possession of thousands of explicit photos depicting underage people, one of which led to a cold case from 1977 being reopened years later in 2016.

Okay, wait – what does this have to do with Kendrick? Well, the Oscar-nominated actress will star and direct “Woman of the Hour”, which retells the true story of Alcala’s appearance on the game show “The Dating Game” (Alcala is actually sometimes referred to as “The Dating Game Killer”). It’s truly unbelievable (in the worst sense) that Alcala appeared on this show as an eligible bachelor despite knowing what a terror he was active So it’s understandable that Kendrick found the story completely fascinating, and understandable that she wanted to play Cheryl Bradshaw, the single woman who interviews the contestants on stage (including Alcala). So why is she the director and star of the film?

Ahead of the film’s streaming release, Anna Kendrick did an interview with Netflix-exclusive channel Tudum and revealed that she was initially only supposed to play the role of Cheryl Bradshaw, but realized she wanted to direct as she looked at the script made familiar. (Kendrick is joined by The Pope’s Exorcist’s Daniel Zovatto as Rodney Alcala and Veep star Tony Hale as game show host Ed Burke, a reimagined version of real-life host Jim Lange.)

“When I decided to direct the film, I realized that I love the character, but I love the film as a whole much more than the character,” Kendrick told Tudum. “I think I paid particular attention to the script and parts of it [my character is] not in a way that I normally wouldn’t.

Kendrick also told the outlet that she thinks Cheryl’s story in “Woman of the Hour” is wonderfully complex, telling a story that is all too familiar to women around the world. “I really like the complicated journey of a woman who shrinks herself and is very compliant and then manages to rebel and take back some power,” Kendrick said. “I love the fact that it’s not as simple as, ‘Oh, she stands her ground and everything works out great.’ Because that’s the trade we make every day: How much do I live authentically and how great is the danger that I’m actually exposed to as a result?”

An important part of “Woman of the Hour,” according to Anna Kendrick and Ian McDonald, is that the story doesn’t glorify Rodney Alcala – but instead focuses on the women he pursued and ensures that their stories reflect Rodney’s Alcala surpass the man who cut their lives short. (With creators like Ryan Murphy coming under fire for glorifying characters like Jeffrey Dahmer, this certainly feels refreshing.) While researching Alcala’s “Dating Game” episode — which Kendrick says was pretty hard to find, which led her to rely on websites like Newspapers.com – Kendrick recalled discovering an article with the address of one of Alcala’s victims, which led to a startling realization as Kendrick realized she knew exactly where the woman had lived…and that the woman may have heard the sounds of the Pacific Ocean as she died. So Kendrick and McDonald incorporated this concept into the film in hopes of giving a voice to the voiceless.

As for McDonald, who wrote the script before Kendrick even signed on, he found Alcala particularly intriguing as a subject because, unlike other famous serial killers, he seemed to exude a very creepy vibe that probably should have aroused suspicion. “In real crime circles you sometimes hear people say, ‘Oh yeah, he’s a bit like Ted Bundy,'” McDonald told Tudum. “But the truth is that he is exactly the opposite. Ted Bundy was a chameleon. He was really good at pretending to be something he wasn’t. And Rodney Alcala really seems to have ignored a lot of his worst tendencies. “It wasn’t that he was being sneaky, it was that other people were actively looking the other way.”

“There are so many heroes in this story, but the heroes were outnumbered and outnumbered because they were fundamentally incompetent, negligent, and a culture that didn’t prioritize victims,” ​​Kendrick said of the people around Alcala, who never reported anything. “Woman of the Hour” will be released on Netflix on October 18th.

If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the National Network Rape, Abuse and Incest website or contact RAINN’s national helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).