Spoiler alert: Do not read if you are planning on watching this show!
We all have seen examples of Hollywood’s oldest and most used horror trope: a wealthy family moves from the busy city to the safety and comfortability of suburban life. These horror films usually begin with a casually happy family moving into some kind of absurd classic Victorian mansion that the average viewer can only dream of affording. Upon settling into their new house the nightmare reality of their situation begins to unfold. They always seem to discover some kind of gruesome haunting having to do with the horrific history of the house, something they never seem to know about before purchasing, or upset neighbors giving them a strange amount of trouble due to their new arrival to their neighborhood. Despite the route these horror films take, it almost always ends with murder or the family nearly escaping their paranormal situation.
Netflix’s new series, The Watcher, is just the most recent example of this classic horror trope. The latest of Ryan Murphy’s true crime releases, The Watcher, has been posed as roughly based on true events, but how accurate is the title of true crime for this series? The eeriness of this new series is overtly apparent but is nicely complimented by a sprinkle of humor and wholesome family moments. In the film the Brannock family moves from New York City to the small town of Westfield, New Jersey looking for a fresh start despite their impending financial situation. Shortly after their arrival they start receiving threatening letters from someone calling themselves the watcher. The letters escalate in descriptive violence as the show progresses and strange events start occurring within their home including some slightly disturbing paranormal activity. By the end of the series it still isn’t very clear who the watcher is and what the exact motive for the letters were.
Unlike Ryan Murphy’s last series release Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, Murphy and his co-directors asked for permission from the family the series is based off of to tell their story. The real events in which The Watcher is based on involved the Broaddus family which consisted of a husband, wife and their three young children. Much like in the series the Broaddus family began receiving threatening and gruesome letters after purchasing their new home in Westfield, New Jersey. The production team even used some texts straight from the real watchers’ letters in the making of the series. But unlike in the series, the Broaddus family never actually ended up moving into the house. Meaning that the escalating events such as the unexplainable break-ins and creepy phone calls the fictional family deals with never happened in real life. Additionally, the real family only ever received one letter from the watcher.
Later in the series, fictional husband Dean Brannock learns of the harrowing story of the house’s former owner John Graff. In the series Graff receives threatening letter from the watcher much like the Brannocks, which is seemingly unrelated to the mass murder Graff commits on his family within the walls of the beautiful and historic victorian mansion. The motive for this family annihilation was financial instability and the shame that can come from not being able to provide for the ones you love. The John Graff aspect of this series is based on an entirely different true crime story than that of the real life watcher family. The show pulled gruesome inspiration from the real life 1971 family massacre committed by father John List. The Watcher’s John Graff story closely follows the story of John List’s family annihilation. The Watcher accurately depicts the way in which List commits the murders; pausing in between killings to make himself a sandwich and picking up his son from a soccer game before bringing him home to murder him.
So, true story or Hollywood’s oldest trope? To me it seems like a little bit of both. After watching the series and learning the history of these cases it seems obvious that The Watcher pulled aspects from two pieces of true crime history, added a bit of cinematic dramatization and shipped it off as another remediation of this classic horror trope. Although we can appreciate the true crime details of this show, it is interesting to see how two completely unrelated true crime stories were used in the making of this series. It feels as though the directors were able to pick and choose the facts from these cases that best fit within the confines of their trope. After all, who doesn’t love a little haunted family tormenting? Overall the series is a must watch and highly recommended for this Halloween season.