Plot: After the Brannock family moves into what was supposed to be their suburban dream home, it quickly becomes a living hell. Ominous letters from someone calling themself “The Watcher” are just the beginning as the neighborhood’s sinister secrets come spilling out. Inspired by the true story of the infamous “Watcher” house in New Jersey.
Review: Ryan Murphy’s Netflix megadeal has churned out some interesting projects over the years with a focus on adapting well-known true-crime and biographical stories. Most recently, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story became a massive hit for the streaming service despite the controversial approach to adapting the serial killer’s infamous story. Now, Murphy and longtime collaborator Ian Brennan are back with another adaptation of a true-crime story, this time one that is somewhat scarier than Monster but in a much different way. The Watcher, inspired by a New York Magazine article by Reeves Wiedeman, features a solid ensemble cast led by Naomi Watts and Bobby Cannavale in a tale that is part-psychological thriller, part-pulpy mystery, and an overall great deal of fun.
The Watcher follows the Brannock family: father Dean (Cannavale), mother Nora (Watts), and teens Ellie (Isabel Gravitt) and Carter (Luke David Blumm) as they relocate from New York City to suburban New Jersey. Investing all of their savings and assets into a beautiful Victorian home, the Brannocks are poised to live an idyllic life when they receive a disturbing letter in the mail. Full of bizarre imagery and veiled threats that contain information only someone intimately close to them could know, the Brannocks are immediately alarmed and fear for their safety. Alerting local Detective Chamberland (Christopher McDonald) and hiring a private investigator (Noma Dumezweni), the Dean begins to spiral as he fears that the letters could be coming from any of his strange neighbors in a move to get them to move out of the neighborhood.
What works so well in The Watcher is the solid cast that surrounds the family. There are married neighbors Mo (Margo Martindale) and Mitch (Richard Kind), brother and sister Pearl (Mia Farrow) and Jasper Winslow (Terry Kinney) as well as Roger Kaplan (Michael Nouri) and realtor Karen Calhoun (Jennifer Coolidge). Right from the start, Dean puts up red flags as his quick temper isolates Pearl and Mo from the Brannocks. While Nora, a struggling artist, is often cautioned to sell as the letters get more frightening, she is equally worried about Dean’s mental state as he becomes hyper-focused on not only the clothing of their teen daughter but also her relationship with security installer Dakota (Henry Hunter Hall). As the episodes progress, we are given more and more suspects, each increasingly more strange than the last as Dean and Nora uncover a history of letters from The Watcher going back years.
Of the entire cast, The Watcher is clearly a showcase for Bobby Cannavale. A veteran of countless roles on the small and big screen ranging from heroes to villains, Cannavale manages to evoke the perfect balance needed to carry a Ryan Murphy production. Being rooted in a true story, The Watcher manages to feel darkly comedic with characters that feel like they could have come from American Horror Story. Because they are based on real people, The Watcher feels even scarier than Murphy’s long-running horror anthology. Watts is very underused in this series and serves as the more serious anchor opposite Cannavale’s unhinged paranoid performance. Equally good are Margo Martindale and Mia Farrow, both of whom excel at playing off-kilter characters like this. Jennifer Coolidge, who was phenomenal in The White Lotus, manages to play her role here as seriously as possible and still has a ton of fun with her approach.
Featuring many directors who he has partnered with before, Ryan Murphy helmed two episodes of the seven-episode series with Paris Barclay and Jennifer Lynch each helming a pair and Max Winkler taking the final chapter. Murphy also co-wrote six of the seven episodes while partner Ian Brennan has a credit on every chapter. Murphy’s more direct involvement with this series as compared to Monster is obvious as The Watcher carries a lighter tone than the Dahmer story while still echoing his vast catalog of horror stories. It is also interesting to note that Murphy and Brennan had to take significant liberties with the true story that inspired The Watcher which leads to a finale that may take those familiar with the source material by surprise. While the changes work in the context of this series, they pull the tale farther from the true element of this true crime story.
After seeing Monster, I had no desire to watch it again. The darkly disturbing look at Jeffrey Dahmer from the perspective of his victims was a hard watch that was well-acted even if it was a bit misguided in how it was written. In stark contrast, The Watcher veers a bit further from the truth but manages to have a lot more fun with a story that does not feature as much evil or death. In fact, the victims in The Watcher are of a very different caliber than those of a serial killer which makes this series easier to watch but no less creepy. Ryan Murphy’s deal with Netflix may be coming to an end but I am confident that The Watcher is going to be another big hit for the super-producer. I hesitate to compare this show to Monster, but I think this may be a bit better of an overall production in terms of story, tone, style, and execution.
The Watcher is now streaming on Netflix.