The Watcher is a seven-episode mini-series from Netflix that is based on a true story. Being another collaboration with Ryan Murphy and Netflix (check out Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story), there was no way I was not going to check this one out. I have to say that I think The Watcher is a 10/10 series with a 5/10 ending!
How to Download The Watcher
You can download or stream the film from Netflix. Click on the Download button at the end of this review
The Movie Review
We have to start by talking about the cast. Our main characters are Bobby Cannavale as Dean and Naomi Watts as Nora and they are The Brannocks. However, stellar performances from the likes of Mia Farrow, Margo Martindale, Christopher McDonald, Jennifer Coolidge, and Noma Dumezweni round out a small, but very entertaining cast.
Norma and Dean live in the city, but they want to move to a quieter “safer” kind of town. They find the house of their dreams in Westfield New Jersey and spend over 3 million dollars to make this dream happen. They move into this new dream home with their kids and think it is the start of a fantastic new chapter of their lives.
However, things get weird pretty darn quickly. To start with their neighbors are freeing weird, we have Pearl and Jasper Winslow. Pearl is obsessed with the historical preservation of the house and Jasper has some mental problems and likes to break in and ride in their dumbwaiter!
They also have Mo and Mitch who they share a fence with. Mo and Mitch are very entertaining characters and they have perhaps the darkest twist of the show! Right from the start, you can tell that there is something off about this neighborhood, but the Brannocks just kind of roll with it at first.
Then the letters start! A strange letter that is like a love letter to the house appears from a mysterious person called The Watcher. It is really creepy how they seem to know many intimate details about The Brannock family and as you would expect, Dean and Nora are creeped out big time.
The show takes us on one hell of a thrill ride! Dean starts to become obsessed with finding out who The Watcher is, Nora is a mess, his teenage daughter is acting out and he has weird neighbors to deal with. Dean pretty much suspects everyone could be involved at some point or other in the show! The cops are not of any use so he hires a private detective and even she is suspicious!
The Watcher 100 percent feels like a show that is brought to us by Ryan Murphy and I mean that as a good thing. You are never really sure what exactly is going on and even you will suspect everyone of being involved here. I think that they nailed it with the seven episodes as there is no filler, it just flows very well and we ended up watching it in just a couple of sittings.
Now, as entertaining as The Watcher was, we have to talk about the ending, spoiler free of course. To be fair, this is based on a true story so I guess their hands were kind of tied. However, I wish they just made something up instead of the ending we got which leaves you with no questions answered and it felt very frustrating! Even though I was not impressed with the ending, The Watcher is still worth checking out.
