Frighteningly wrong
Heeding weird vibes can do more than save you from a bad date

Netflix’s new thriller “Woman of the Hour,” by Ian McDonald, goes beyond horror movies’ jump-scare, visceral thrills and goofy Halloween antics. The movie, about serial torturer-rapist-killer Rodney Alcala, who won an episode of “The Dating Game” in 1978, makes the scary all too real. As in horrible dates gone life-threatening. 

An internet search of aired episodes from “The Dating Game” makes clear why. The show’s ’70s-style banter, saucy and sexually suggestive, along with kisses planted on lips and arms tight around those newly introduced, may have been acceptable at the time. Or tolerated. Now it looks wildly inappropriate. Most of all, the touching, the too-familiar behavior, the jokes laden with carnal puns, create expectations for that winning date. 

The fact is, a new date – even if not romantic – means we’re eventually going to be alone with someone we don’t know well. Whether it’s in a car en route to a restaurant or on a hiking trail. At some point, we’re trusting this stranger with the most precious thing we have. Our life. 

That’s frightening. A bad date isn’t even the worst of it. Women are too often assaulted.

The episode of “The Dating Game” with Alcala as a contestant was filmed during one of his murderous sprees. He was convicted of killing seven women and girls. But the actual number is unknown and may be closer to 130. Hearing the show’s canned, icky questions and answers gives a chill that’s tough to shake. 

Here’s one exchange:

Cheryl Bradshaw, the bachelorette played by Anna Kendrick, asked Alcala: “I’m serving you for dinner. What are you called and what do you look like?”

Alcala responded, “I’m called the banana, and I look good.”

Bradshaw then said, “Can you be a little more descriptive?” 

“Peel me,” Alcala said.

After Alcala wins the date, he gives Bradshaw a celebratory kiss on the lips, and the two stand together, arms around each other as the prize date is announced – tennis lessons, tennis outfits and a day at an amusement park.

Thankfully, Bradshaw passed on the date as she must have picked up on something. It’s notable that her instincts weren’t drowned out by the applause, bright lights and competitiveness of getting on a game show. In a move that might have saved her life, she told the contestant coordinator: “I can’t go out with this guy. There’s weird vibes that are coming off of him. He’s very strange.”

The movie version is modernized, giving agency to the bachelorette character, played by Kendrick who also directed. She asked, “What are girls for?” A question that could be answered in ways that show depth. 

I watched ABC’s daytime version of “The Dating Game” as a young girl, when I was home sick from school with my grandma. She set up a pile of my dad’s shirts and the ironing board in front of the TV to better size up each male contestant and pronounce their characteristics. Too polyester, too hippie, too something, she said. Too … (insert your least favorite political party here).

My grandma, using the back of her hand to push away her white locks, more curly from the steam, often yelled “Idiot!” to the TV when the bachelorette clearly selected the wrong guy. Her enthusiasm, along with the show’s flower power décor and confusing adult humor, filled out my fever dreams.

Sadly, too many date stories resemble horror-movie scenes. By the time I was a young woman venturing out on dates, my parents told me to bring change for a pay phone to call home, if things went sour. 

On one occasion, I was sure glad I had shoved some coins into my pocket before going out. During a night of bar-hopping and dancing, I made the mistake of being alone with a guy who I thought coworkers knew better than they actually did. Having seen them chat with him, I assumed a level of screening that hadn’t happened. The guy was polite, educated and polished. 

While crisscrossing New Orleans, we stopped at his house for a jacket. While I looked at his art collection – not even kidding – he knocked me down hard from behind. I couldn’t breathe, and he was suddenly on top of me. 

Sparing the details, he momentarily loosened his grip, and I kneed the guy, then ran down a hallway for the door. With each stride I took, the hallway seemed to lengthen, the door farther out of reach. I heard him groan and curse my name as he began to get up. My legs were heavy, wouldn’t move fast enough. The door still far, far away.

I made it to the door with two deadbolts to pull and slide. But they wouldn’t give. The guy then limped his way into the hallway and called me a bitch.

I pulled the doorknob, yanked the deadbolts each way possible, before they released. From the second floor, I took multiple marble steps at a time, down this grand staircase that led away from a monster. 

I kept running down quiet streets canopied by limbs of live oaks that didn’t let moonlight through. Eventually, I saw the glow of a pay-phone booth. I leaned into the collapsible door, pushed it opened and once inside, looked back into the dark, scanning for the monster.

Pressing one foot against the door, I secured it shut as best I could. With sweaty, shaking hands, I dug for quarters, then pushed them into the coin slot, one by one. Listening for them to drop, a quarter got stuck, and I smacked the side of the pay phone.

Finally, I heard the dial tone and pressed in my phone numbers, saying, “Pick up, pick up, pick up,” until I heard the voice of my dad. 

Ann Marie Swan is a former opinion editor at The Durango Herald and The Journal in Cortez. She’s worked in newsrooms at the Rocky Mountain News, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and Pacific Stars and Stripes in Tokyo. ?