Netflix Release New Trailer for Anna Kendrick’s Serial Killer Thriller

Anna Kendrick has a new job title: film director. The Pitch Perfect actress makes her directorial debut with Woman of the Hour, an upcoming thriller based on the real-life story of Dating Game Killer Rodney Alcala. Along with directing, Kendrick stars as Cheryl Bradshaw, the game show contestant who picks Alcala, “bachelor number one,” as her “winner,” during an appearance on The Dating Game in 1978. Kendrick calls the experience of stepping behind the camera to helm the film “terrifying.”

Kendrick wasn’t always meant to direct Woman of the Hour, as she was initially only involved as the film’s lead and a producer. She tells EW that the process “was just taking forever, and the pieces weren’t coming together.” After the crew searched for an experienced director with no success, Kendrick had a “terrifying thought:”

“I just found myself having this absolutely terrifying thought — it was physically bubbling up, and I kept trying to shove it back down — which was like, ‘Well, what if I pitched myself to direct the movie?’”

Ultimately, Kendrick found the role too “compelling” to pass up. She adds:

“I think there was something about the movie overall that I found compelling. I was aware that while I liked the character, I was way more interested in the movie as a whole. And of course, the whole two years, I’m sitting there going, ‘Well, if it were
my
movie, this is how I’d do it. But it’s not, so it’s not my call.’ I just got so excited about the idea of taking this script that I loved so much and shaping it in the way that I saw it.”

A New Trailer & Images From Woman of the Hour Have Now Been Released

After a pitch, Kendrick found herself in the director’s chair “feeling as terrified” as she’d ever been about anything. But that effort has paid off. Woman of the Hour premiered at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, quickly acquired by Netflix and becoming the festival’s first major sale. Woman of the Hour currently holds an impressive 90% on Rotten Tomatoes (from 51 reviews), with critics praising Kendrick’s directorial vision and Daniel Zovatto’s “chilling” portrayal of Alcala. A new trailer has now been released (which you can check out above), with EW also releasing several new images from the film, which you can see for yourself below.

Alcala, who appeared on The Dating Game despite being a convicted sex offender, was later sentenced to death for multiple murder convictions. Despite picking Alcala as her potential date, Bradshaw never went out with him, as she found him “too creepy.” Evidently, her instincts were right on. While Alcala was connected to eight murders, the exact number of his victims remains unknown, and could go as high as 130. The film’s focus is not on Alcala’s The Dating Game appearance – in fact, that’s the aspect of the story that Kendrick calls “the least interesting.”

The actor and director says that in the film, the show is used to explore the question of how to identify safe and unsafe people. And while the film takes place in the late 1970s (Alcala was apprehended in 1979), it’s a theme that will still resonate with women.

“I was thinking about how even very subtle victim blaming is baked into our culture. Even the most well-meaning people will say things like, ‘Yeah, you really just got to pay attention to those early red flags,’ which is not a nightmare of a thing to say, but man, woof.’”