Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Watcher’ On Netflix, A Series About A Family Being Scared Out Of Their Suburban Dream Home

In 2014, the Broaddus family received a series of letters at their new Westfield, NJ home, revealing details about their family that no one knew. They all talked about the history of the house and that the letter writer was watching them at all times; they were signed “The Watcher”. Netflix and Ryan Murphy have adapted that story, first written in 2018 in New York magazine, and created an all-star limited series from it.

THE WATCHER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A family drives along a tree-lined suburban street full of big, well-maintained homes.

The Gist: The Braddock family, who are looking to move from New York City into a suburban home, are looking at a house on 657 Boulevard in Westfield, NJ. Dean (Bobby Cannavale) and Nora (Naomi Watts) see the massive house, on a lake, and both love it. They envision it as their dream home, where their kids Carter (Luke David Blumm) and Ellie (Isabel Gravitt) can play and hang out.

Nora finds out that the listing agent, Karen Calhoun (Jennifer Coolidge), is an old friend who went with her to RISD. Dean also encounters neighbors Pearl Winslow (Mia Farrow) and her special needs brother Jasper (Terry Kinney), who are both fascinated with the home’s dumbwaiter; she’s part of the town’s historical society. Another set of neighbors, Mitch (Richard Kind) and Mo (Margot Martindale) grumpily watch the open house on lawn chairs on their yard.

Dean decides that he’ll use all of the family’s savings, including retirement funds, to make a huge down payment. Shortly after they move in, though, a letter shows up at their house. It’s meticulously worded, talking about the house and that whoever wrote it has been watching it for 20 years, and that the person will continue to watch it. It’s signed “The Watcher.” The Braddocks take the letter to the police, where Detective Rourke Chamberland (Christopher McDonald) tells them that there’s not much they can do; they’ll test the DNA on the envelope but that’s it.

The Braddocks aren’t exactly ingratiating themselves to the neighbors; Mitch and Mo cut arugula on the Braddock’s side of their fence, then threaten him when he objects. Carter finds Jasper in the dumbwaiter, and Pearl crazily claims that previous owners let her brother use it. The Braddocks hire Dakota (Henry Hunter Hall), a young security company owner, to install a security system, but Dean is appalled when he notices his not-yet-16-year-old daughter Ellie taking a liking to him. Before the entire system goes online, someone comes in and kills Carter’s pet ferret. Det. Chamberland can’t do much, though, because there are no signs of forced entry.

Then another letter, one that specifically names them and their “young blood”, comes in the mail.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? In tone and content, The Watcher is reminiscent of The Amityville Horror. Because Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan are the show’s executive producers (Murphy directed the first episode), there are elements of their American Horror Story franchise in the mix as well.

Our Take: The story of The Watcher is based on a real-life case in Westfield, documented by New York Magazine in 2018. In the real-life case, the Broaddus family kept getting creepy letters from The Watcher and never ended up moving in; they sold the house for a loss and moved to a smaller house in the wealthy Union County town, and the case to this point has never been solved.

That alone would have made for an good film, a one-off psychological thriller that could have taken a little dramatic license by adding in some of the people in town who are annoyed that this new money is moving in and making changes to a 100-year-old house. But because this is a 7-episode limited series, and Murphy and Brennan just can’t help themselves, the story is larded down with kooky characters and threatening neighbors.

Yes, the show is brimming with amazing actors; we haven’t even mentioned Michael Nouri as a weird looky-loo asking odd questions during the open house. But under Murphy’s direction they turn what could have been a tense thriller into something ridiculous. Everyone involved with the Braddocks, from listing agent Karen to the neighbors to Dakota the young security expert, are watching something, and now we have to spend the next six episodes sorting out who’s watching who and why.

And yes, Murphy and Brennan are likely giving us their version of the themes in Big Little Lies, where the Braddocks strain to keep up appearances in a town like Westfield, because their very presence there means they have to be a “certain way.” We know Westfield relatively well, and that aspect isn’t that far off the mark of reality. But we wonder if those themes are going to be buried under the weight of Murphy and Brennan leaning on the odd neighbors and the threatening letters and scenes like a dead and bleeding ferret.

Sex and Skin: We see Dean and Nora having some day sex in their bedroom. Yes, they’ve been married a long time, but they seem to be attracted to each other… until the pressure of having the house, the odd neighbors and the threatening letters make Dean a paranoid mess.

Parting Shot: As we hear the words of The Watcher in the second letter, Dean runs around in his robe to see who might be lurking; he ends up in the middle of the road in front of their house.

Sleeper Star: How can we hate the presence of Martindale and Kind as the grumpy, nosy neighbors? They’re not the reason why the show doesn’t work.

Most Pilot-y Line: “They didn’t even use the wood to make baby cradles,” says Pearl to Dean after she talks about a 90-year-old tree the previous owners cut down. Yeesh. Weird.

Our Call: SKIP IT. In another producers hands, The Watcher could have been a taut, tense thriller. But with Murphy and Brennan at the helm, it becomes more campy than tense, and even a stellar cast can’t save the show from itself.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.