If you get nightmares easily, I would not recommend watching the Anna Kendrick Netflix movie, Woman of the Hour. In the Pitch Perfect star’s directorial debut, she plays Sheryl Bradshaw, a woman who encounters serial killer Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto) on the game show, The Dating Game. But you can’t calm yourself down with the “it’s just a movie” line: These are real people and this actually happened in 1978. Anna told Variety that the film is also “a reflection of my lived experience, and what I imagine many women’s lived experiences are.” I have definitely been creeped out by hundreds (thousands?) of men throughout my life, but I sincerely hope none of them were actual murderers.
Here’s the terrifying true story that inspired Woman of the Hour and some of the differences between the film and real events.
The True Story That Inspired Woman Of The Hour
Woman of the Hour tells the story of Rodney taking a brief break from murdering people to appear on the primetime game show, The Dating Game. By the time he was on the show, he was already a registered sex offender, somehow unbeknownst to the producers. Matt Murphy, a former homicide prosecutor who worked on the Rodney case and a consultant on Woman of the Hour, told The Guardian: “It speaks to the narcissism, the arrogance of psychopaths. He’s in the middle of a murder spree and he went on The Dating Game and he was selected.”
Cheryl Bradshaw was the name of the real woman who appeared on the game show and met Rodney. At the time, she was an aspiring actor and believed the TV program could be her way into the industry. “I am serving you for dinner,” she quipped to Rodney on the show. “What are you called and what do you look like?” Rodney, who was bachelor number one, replied, “I’m called the banana and I look really good … Peel me.” Cheryl and the studio audience laughed. Although she and Rodney were offered tennis lessons and a trip to the Magic Mountain theme park, Cheryl had a gut feeling that something was wrong after meeting him backstage. She called the production office and told contestant coordinator Ellen Metzger that she wanted to cancel. Per Ellen, Cheryl said something along the lines of: “I can’t go out with this guy. There’s weird vibes that are coming off him. He’s very strange. I am not comfortable.” That intuition saved her life.
In the late ’70s, Rodney was sentenced to death for five murders, but it’s estimated that he killed up to 130 people in America. In 2013, he pled guilty to two homicides and got an extra 25 years to life. The serial killer ultimately died of Alzheimer’s disease in 2021.
How Is Woman Of The Hour Different From The True Story?
The film is mostly based on the true events, but there are a few key departures. In the movie, Cheryl and the serial killer win a free trip to Carmel, California instead of tennis lessons and the Magic Mountain theme park trip. They also go to a tiki bar and get mai tais in the film, which did not happen in real life — Cheryl never went on a date with Rodney and never saw him again after the show. In addition, Rodney works for the LA Times photo department in the film, but he was actually a typesetter there rather than a photographer.
