Movie Review: Is the killer bachelor No. 1 or No. 2? Anna Kendrick's chilling 'Woman of the Hour'

In Anna Kendrick’s “Woman of the Hour,” a chilling, based-on-a-true-story drama about when a 1970s serial killer appeared on an episode of “The Dating Game,” one of the most telling images isn’t a grisly murder scene (though there are those). It’s Pete Holmes’ face.

Kendrick, making her directorial debut, stars as an aspiring actor named Cheryl Bradshaw who ultimately winds up a contestant on that particular “Dating Game” episode. Early in the film, she’s venting about her audition frustrations with a neighbor (Holmes) over drinks. After he makes an awkward pass, she recoils and he sits heavily, staring forward in disappointment.

The tension of those encounters, and how women are forced to handle, and suffer, the bruised egos of men, fuels “Woman of the Hour,” a sometimes awkwardly plotted but consistently insightful thriller about the anxiety of the female experience and the grim game of constantly weighing the threat of potential danger in men. The film begins streaming Friday on Netflix.

Kendrick, working from a script by Ian McDonald, opens “Woman of the Hour” with a scene in the remote foothills of Wyoming. There, Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto) is playfully photographing a young woman (Kelley Jakle) but soon has his hands around her throat.

Though the film then shifts primarily to Cheryl taping “The Dating Game,” “Woman of the Hour” is interspersed with similarly gruesome encounters between Alcala and women. They follow a similar pattern. He’s charming and even sensitive, but turns violent at the first sign of rejection.

“Woman of the Hour” isn’t your standard true crime dramatization. The perspective of Alcala, who was convicted in 1980 of killing seven women and girls and died on death row in 2021, isn’t the one that matters here. It’s the women he targeted.

Kendrick’s movie might have been a better, more suspenseful film if it could have stayed in one timeline and teased all of the drama out of the “Dating Game” taping. But in unmasking Alcala from the start, “Woman of the Hour” becomes more about the horror of a killer who thrived out in the open, even on national television. We watch in dread at just how easily he blends in next to bachelor one and bachelor two — and even seems like the most appealing of the bunch.

When Cheryl is thrust into the showbiz swirl of “The Dating Game,” all of the sexist remarks and misogynistic underpinnings of the show appear only more sinister given Alcala's presence. The host, a fictionalized Jim Lange named Ed Burke, is played with expert, flippant sleaze by Tony Hale. Kendrick keeps the camera on Cheryl’s face in the makeup chair while Ed, just before showtime, tells her not to act too smart. “I just need you to laugh and smile over and over,” he says.

Plenty more sexism is baked into the show. (One of Cheryl’s cue cards reads: “My favorite hobby is kissing.”) The juxtaposition of a serial killer of women with Hollywood misogyny adds a potent layer. (Kendrick has said an audition exchange early in the film about doing on-camera nudity is taken verbatim from her own experience as a young actor.) That’s particularly true when an audience member, Laura (Nicolette Robinson), recognizes Alcala as the man who killed her friend. Her attempts to warn producers are met predictably.

Though Zovatto’s performance is compellingly unsettling without being over-the-top, the dark, disturbed nature of Alcala is too much for “Woman of the Hour” to reckon with. This was a killer whose path of heinous violence included the rape and near-murder of an 8-year-old girl and the killing of a 12-year-old biking home from ballet class. The years of police and judicial failure that allowed Alcala to avoid imprisonment for so long are only hinted at here.

“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.

“Woman of the Hour,” a Netflix release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for language, violent content, some drug use and a sexual reference. Running time: 94 minutes. Three stars out of four.

This image released by Netflix shows Daniel Zovatto in a scene from "Woman of the Hour." (Leah Gallo/Netflix via AP)

This image released by Netflix shows, Tony Hale, from left, Anna Kendrick, and Daniel Zovatto in a scene from "Woman of the Hour." (Leah Gallo/Netflix via AP)

This image released by Netflix shows, from left, Anna Kendrick, Matt Visser, Jedidiah Goodacre and Daniel Zovatto in a scene from "Woman of the Hour." (Leah Gallo/Netflix via AP)

This image released by Netflix shows Tony Hale, left, and Anna Kendrick in a scene from "Woman of the Hour." (Leah Gallo/Netflix via AP)

This image released by Netflix shows Anna Kendrick, left, and Daniel Zovatto in a scene from "Woman of the Hour." (Leah Gallo/Netflix via AP)

This image released by Netflix shows Tony Hale, left, and Anna Kendrick in a scene from "Woman of the Hour." (Leah Gallo/Netflix via AP)

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho prison officials will attempt to execute the state’s longest-serving death row inmate next month using new protocols after botching the first attempt several months ago.

A judge issued a death warrant for Thomas Eugene Creech Wednesday morning, one day after the Idaho Department of Correction announced it had renovated its execution chamber to allow the execution team to insert catheters deep into the neck, groin, chest or arms of inmates if they are unable to establish a standard peripheral intravenous line.

The change came after the state tried and failed to execute Creech in February. Execution team members tried eight locations in Creech’s arms and legs but could not find a viable vein to deliver the lethal drug. The new death warrant says Creech will be executed at 10 a.m. on Nov. 13.

Robin M. Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said that as far as is known, Idaho would be the first state to try to execute someone a second time using the same method tried during an earlier botched attempt. She noted that two Alabama inmates — Kenneth Smith and Alan Miller — were executed this year after prior failed attempts, but in both cases, the second try used a different method: nitrogen gas.

“Any time there is a botched execution and the public are not given a full and meaningful understanding of what went wrong, it prompts additional concerns,” she said. “We know Mr. Creech’s execution failed because the execution team could not access a vein, but we have not received any complete information from the Department of Correction about why that happened or what steps have been taken to prevent a similar mistake from happening in the future. Instead, we see them pivoting to a new method of accessing a vein.”

Creech’s attorneys with the Federal Defender Services of Idaho said the state was “sacrificing common decency and humanity” in its haste to try again to kill him.

“We are heartbroken and angered that Idaho would try again to execute Thomas Creech using virtually the same process and team and executioners, and before conducting any official review of what led to the botched attempt to take his life earlier this year,” the defense team wrote in a press release. “The level of recklessness puts Idaho in a class by itself, as other states that botched executions took significant steps to examine what went wrong before trying again.”

Creech, 74, has been in prison half a century, convicted of five murders in three states and suspected of several more. He was already serving a life term when he beat a fellow inmate, 22-year-old David Dale Jensen, to death in 1981 — the crime for which he was to be executed.

In the decades since, Creech has become known inside the walls of the Idaho Maximum Security Institution as just “Tom,” a man who occasionally writes poetry and is generally considered well-behaved. His bid for clemency before the last execution attempt found support from a former warden at the penitentiary, prison staffers who recounted how he wrote them poems of support or condolence and the judge who sentenced Creech to death.

The Idaho Department of Correction announced Tuesday it had renovated the execution chamber facility to allow execution team members to insert central venous lines in condemned inmates if a peripheral IV can't be established. Establishing a central line is a more complex procedure that requires more training, and is typically completed by an anesthesiologist, doctor or other medical professional with special training.

In a central line procedure, a physician typically decides whether to use the jugular vein in the neck, the femoral vein in the groin, or other large veins near the collarbone or in the upper arm. They numb the area using a local anesthetic before using a needle to insert a guidewire into the large vein. The soft tissue surrounding the puncture site is then widened using a scalpel and dilation tool before the catheter is threaded over the guidewire. Once the catheter is inside the vein, it is guided to a location just outside the heart with the help of an ultrasound machine.

Signs that a central line is improperly inserted could include bright red bleeding from the puncture site or a change in the patient's vital signs.

If the scheduled execution moves forward, it will be Idaho’s fifth such effort since capital punishment resumed in 1976. Keith Eugene Wells was executed by lethal injection in 1994 after giving up his appeals and asking to be put to death. Paul Ezra Rhoades was executed in 2011, and Richard Albert Leavitt was executed in 2012.

Idaho issues execution warrant for inmate who survived a botched attempt

Idaho issues execution warrant for inmate who survived a botched attempt

FILE - This image provided by the Idaho Department of Correction shows Thomas Eugene Creech, Jan. 9, 2009. (Idaho Department of Correction via AP, File)