Woman of the Hour: Riveting and chilling

Woman of the Hour (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Not rated, but akin to R for violence, dramatic intensity, leering sexuality and profanity

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.27.24

Screenwriter Ian McDonald’s savvy script for this true crime thriller made the 2017 Top 10 Hollywood “Black List” of as-yet unproduced motion picture screenplays. I’m amazed it took this long to get turned into a film, and impressed by the skill with which Anna Kendrick did so: definitely one of the best, most assured directorial debuts in recent memory.

 

Dating Game host Ed Burke (Tony Hale) and contestant Sheryl Bradshaw (Anna Kendrick)
have no idea that one of her three potential suitors is a serial killer.

The hook that powers this story is a shocking eyebrow lift: On September 13, 1978, on a seemingly average episode of the titillating daytime TV series The Dating Game, nobody had any idea that one of the three male contestants, who fielded bachelorette Cheryl Bradshaw’s deliberately silly (and scripted) questions, was a serial killer and convicted sex offender who already had served a stretch in prison.

It was a simpler time. No background checks were conducted; contestants — of both sexes — were chosen solely on the basis of appearance and personality. (The mind doth boggle ... and a 5-minute clip from that episode is viewable via YouTube.)

 

Kendrick and McDonald structure their film cleverly, opening with a 1977 prologue that takes place in the wide open spaces of Wyoming. A sweetly bashful young woman named Sarah (Kelley Jakle) has allowed herself to be driven to this remote spot, in order to be photographed by Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto).

 

He frames her, lovingly, for several shots ... and everything feels wrong. His smile and words of encouragement are too smarmy; his posture is coiled, like a snake waiting to strike. Poor Sarah is oblivious.

 

The inevitable is awful, and although Kendrick and cinematographer Zach Kuperstein don’t dwell on it exploitatively, the sequence continues long enough to reveal the horrible way that the actual Alcala cruelly toyed with some of his victims, like a cat torturing a mouse.

 

We then leap to 1978 Hollywood, where aspiring actress Sheryl Bradshaw (Kendrick) is auditioning for a bargain-basement role offered by a pair of slimy casting directors (Matty Finochio and Geoff Gustafson). The encounter is embarrassing and dehumanizing; Kendrick’s frozen smile and wounded gaze speak volumes.

 

As becomes clear, when Sheryl later commiserates with neighbor and best (only?) friend Terry (Pete Holmes), she has been struggling with this goal for awhile, with no success. She even has an agent, who eventually gets Sheryl booked onto The Dating Game: a great way to get noticed, she’s promised.

 

Sheryl’s prep and participation in this sexist excuse for daytime entertainment becomes this film’s narrative center: a single-day experience periodically interrupted as the film jumps back and forth in time, to track a few of Rodney’s other ... um ... activities.

It Follows: A smart, scary little shocker

It Follows (2014) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for disturbing violent and sexual content, graphic nudity and profanity
By Derrick Bang

Young indie filmmaker David Robert Mitchell acknowledges a debt to horror auteurs John Carpenter and George Romero, and it’s easy to see why: Mitchell’s little chiller, It Follows, is suffused with the original Halloween vibe.

And I mean that in the best possible way.

As the full implications of her terrifying dilemma are explained to Jay (Maika Monroe,
center), her sister Kelly (Lili Sepe) and former boyfriend Greg (Daniel Zovatto) react with
varying degrees of skepticism. Their doubts won't last long...

Mitchell’s film is unsettling and nervous-making, in the manner of 1968’s Night of the Living Dead and 1978’s Halloween, both of which emphasized atmosphere over the gratuitous gore they were (somewhat unfairly) accused of spawning in subsequent rip-offs. Mitchell understands the distinction; rather than gross out the audience, he’s far more interested in sending us home with a desire to leave the lights on all night.

Not to mention regarding the next sidewalk-strolling stranger with a worried eye.

For the most part, Mitchell plays this card skillfully: This is a seriously disturbing suburban nightmare, and editor Julio Perez IV knows precisely how to pace cinematographer Mike Gioulakis’ often disconcerting camera set-ups: a slightly wonky angle here, a worrying overhead shot there, a tense tracking shot taking us to the next scene.

Nor does Mitchell cheat, with cats bursting from darkened closets, or potential victims playing nasty tricks on each other. This narrative is scary not because of in-our-face surprises or frenzied assaults, but because of inexorable, slow-moving doom: the horror of ghastly inevitability.

The setting is a dilapidated neighborhood in suburban Detroit, with homes just distressed enough to suggest residents trying their best to maintain appearances, despite rampant unemployment and fractured families. The occasional empty house signifies a battle lost, just as nearby streets leading toward the city pass entire blocks of shattered structures that look more like the aftermath of the London blitz, than any portion of a modern American metropolis.

The actual time, though, feels ambiguous (and deliberately so, I’m sure). Technology exists, but smart phones aren’t ubiquitous; neither are we far enough back to glimpse LPs and turntables. It’s as if time, like suburban renewal, has skipped this particular enclave, which exists in something of a dreamlike haze.

Which is appropriate, given what’s about to happen.

College-age Jay (Maika Monroe) and her sister Kelly (Lili Sepe) lead a casual lifestyle with their mother, the latter an alcoholic who barely charts her daughters’ comings and goings. Despite this, Jay and Kelly seem to be reasonably well-adjusted, spending most of their time watching old fright flicks with best buds Yara (Olivia Luccardi) and Paul (Keir Gilchrist), who has had an obvious crush on Jay for many years.