Woman of the Hour (2024)

I recently watched the trailer for this and I thought it looked interesting, so I decided to give it a view. It’s a 2024 Netflix film based on the real life serial killer Rodney Alcala, who appeared as a contestant in 1978 on the television show The Dating Game.

Cheryl Bradshaw (Anna Kendrick, who also directed this) is an aspiring actress going on auditions. She quickly grows weary of constantly working hard at trying to get her career started, only to get nowhere. Her agent gets her a gig as a contestant on the TV show The Dating Game, and Cheryl reluctantly agrees, hoping that the appearance might lead to her big break. Once on set, she begins to ask questions of the three eligible bachelors who are behind a wall, eventually having to choose which one she’ll go out with, based on their answers. What she doesn’t realize is that Bachelor #3, Rodney Alcala, is an active serial killer who’s already murdered several women.

For being Kendrick’s directorial debut, this movie was a fantastic surprise. The entire film had an underlying sense of tension that makes the viewer uncomfortable. Everyone in the cast give great performances; Kendrick brings her usual quirky charm, but also does a convincing job of showing the discomfort her character feels, from having to go on auditions where she feels practically invisible, to having to dumb herself down in order to appeal to the sexist producers on the show, who are afraid that her intelligence might be too intimidating for the male contestants. Daniel Zovatto is equally impressive as Alcala, alternating between sweet and charming, and oozing with a creepy vibe that gets under your skin. The film focuses less on the killer, and more on giving the women characters, including his victims, a voice, painting them as fully dimensional people and not props. While the murders aren’t gratuitous, they still manage to be horrific, with Kendrick utilizing the power of suggestion to startling effect. Another aspect that makes this film so disturbing is the accurate way in which it depicts how women are often dismissed and not believed, when a member of the audience named Laura (an equally impressive Nicolette Robinson) recognizes Alcala as the guy who was last seen with her friend before she was found murdered. When trying to tell others that she feels this guy might be worth investigating, neither the staff at the show, the police nor her boyfriend bother taking her seriously. Ultimately, it’s the women who have to use their intelligence and instincts to save themselves. Woman of the Hour is one of the best Netflix films I’ve seen in a while, and an impressive directorial debut by Anna Kendrick.

Comments

Help Me… I’m Possessed (1974) / #Missingcouple (2024)

I've watched some weird, obscure horror movies throughout my life. I can now add this lurid 1974 schlockfest to that growing list. In a castle in the desert, Dr. Arthur Blackwood runs a sanitarium filled with mentally disturbed patients (as well as staff). He claims to be working on finding a way to cure people of any violent tendencies they have, and brags about his younger sister, innocent, child-like Melanie, as evidence that his treatment works. When she was a child, their parents had to keep her locked up and chained in the basement, to control her violent fits. Now that he's cured her, Arthur has his wife Diane come to the castle to meet Melanie, so that they can be one big, happy family. Diane begins to grow suspicious that something is amiss after a Sheriff shows up investigating the murder of 2 local teens, and sets about on her own investigation, hoping to uncover the sinister secrets that she feels her husband is hiding. Help Me... I'm Possessed is an outrageous,...

Titanic Creations Yongary 1967

This figure was released in late December, and I got it about 2 days before the New Year, so I'm counting it as a 2025 release. It is the Titanic Creations version of the Korean kaiju Yongary, Monster From The Deep. The film was released in 1967 as a Godzilla ripoff, with several ideas copied from the Gamera series, such as his tusks, his ability to fire a stream of flames from his mouth, and even firing a laser beam from his horn, similar to the slicing one used by Gyaos. The film is pretty goofy, but Yongary, like most of those Asian monsters, was pretty cool (to me, at least), so I was psyched that someone finally made a figure of this lesser known kaiju. When Titanic Creations put it up for pre-order, they announced a series of tiers, where they would add accessories when a certain number of orders were met. Enough fans ordered him, so that Yongary ended up with a shit ton of stuff, making him absolutely worth the price. In addition to the kaiju, you get a flame breath effect, ...

RicSan Custom Toys Kyōrū Kaiju (Titanosaurus)

My latest kaiju figure purchase is the Titanosaurus made by Ricsan Custom Toys. I own and love the Varan & Gabara, so of course I had to preorder this one when it was available. He was delivered earlier this week. This kaiju hails from the last Godzilla film of the Showa era, 1975's Terror of Mechagodzilla. The Black Hole aliens are back, rebuilding their robot in another effort to take over the planet. They enlist the help of an ostracized Earth scientist named Mafune and his daughter Katsura, who are able to control an aquatic dinosaur named Titanosaurus. They plan to use both kaiju and mecha to attack Japan. Titano was a cool monster, with his tail that opened into a fish fin, and he would use it to create whirlpools in the sea, and high winds on land. I'm hoping that S.H. Monsterarts makes one for the 50th anniversary of the film, but when I saw this Ricsan Custom version, I couldn't pass it up. Titanosaurus (called the Kyōrū Kaiju), comes in a white box, with its n...

Musings of an Inkd Geek

Search This Blog