By: JUSTIN ONEAL
Staff Writer
The watcher was based on an actual unsolved mystery back in 2014. Maria and Derek and their three kids purchased their dream home, 657 Boulevard in Westcliff; one of the safest towns in America. Before they could even move, they started to receive letters from someone that called themselves “The Watcher”. These letters included threats like stalking, violence toward their children, and many more. Broaddus goes to the police with the threatening letters and the police instructed them to not tell anyone about the letters including their neighbors who were all deemed suspects.
Weeks later, The Broaddus family puts a hold on their plans of moving into the house due to the threats of violence toward their children. End of the year, the investigation went to stalled state; meanwhile, The stress took a mental toll on the Broaddus family. Derek claimed he was experiencing depression and Maria was suffering from PTSD and both were afflicted with levels of paranoia. Six months later, they decided to sell the house and sued the sellers for failing to disclose the threatening letters they’d received. Due to the lack of pieces of evidence, Still to this day, the watcher case remains unsolved.
Netflix perfectly captures the eerie and paranoia atmosphere in “The Watcher” (2022) directed/written by Ryan Murphy. While filming the show, The Broaddus requested that Netflix make the fictional family unlike their own. The show overall is really good, the scares caught you off guard and that’s surprisingly due to recent horrors not being scary. The mystery was intriguing and kept you guessing but the ending is the biggest downside about the watcher.
Toward the end of the Netflix series, There were many ideas about who was the watcher supposed to be and plotholes are not explained. Some examples are a cult, one of the neighbors, or even the idea of the house being haunted. None of them not an explanation for the letters. Understandably, the writers intended to tell the real-life unsolve mystery. But it felt like my time was wasted trying to solve this engaging mystery. The first act(episodes 1-5) is amazing and the best part of watching but due to the underwhelming ending, the Watcher(2022) is well-believe, not worth the time. There are way better suspenseful mystery films and series more worth your time; you aren’t missing out.