Netflix released its new mystery series The Watcher last week, injecting a bit more variety into the true crime genre by focusing on a real incident of stalking.
Based on a 2018 article published on The Cut, The Watcher follows the Brannock family — couple Nora (Naomi Watts) and Dean (Bobby Cannavale) and their adolescent children Ellie (Isabel Gravitt) and Carter (Luke David Blumm) — after they purchase their dream home in Westfield, New Jersey. Unfortunately, the family’s excitement soon turns to fear when they begin receiving disturbing letters from a stalker known only as « The Watcher. »
While the seven-episode thriller is based on a real case, it does take some liberties with the facts in order to dramatise events, a practice that is not uncommon in true crime entertainment media. However, in the case of The Watcher, only two of these changes were specifically requested by the family that actually lived through it.
The real family from ‘The Watcher’
The real stalking matter upon which The Watcher is based began in 2014, and involved Derek and Maria Broaddus and their three young children, all of whom were under 10 at the time.
The Netflix series does adhere to some facts, focusing on a grand home located at 657 Boulevard in Westfield, New Jersey (though the house used for filming is in New York). The production’s menacing correspondence also lifted text straight from the real Watcher’s letters.
But unlike their fictional counterparts, the Broaddus family never moved into their new home, and weren’t subject to escalating hostilities such as break-ins and harassing phone calls. The former owners also only received one letter from The Watcher, which they hadn’t considered ominous.
Mercifully, the Broadduses only had to deal with threatening letters and disbelieving neighbours, if that can be called a mercy. Even so, it was still a highly upsetting and traumatising incident in the family’s lives, and one they aren’t eager to relive.
As reported by The Cut, the Broaddus family did not want to be involved in The Watcher‘s production despite selling Netflix the rights to their story. Like many other subjects of true crime entertainment, it’s highly probable they’d prefer the series wasn’t made at all.
Rather, their decision to sell the rights was so they’d have at least some say in how it was told. This was after Lifetime released a 2016 film also called The Watcher, which was similarly based on the Broadduses’ story but which they couldn’t stop and had no control over.
The two changes the real ‘Watcher’ family asked for
In keeping with their hands-off approach, the Broadduses had just two requests for the Netflix production. These were that the series would not use their real names, and that The Watcher‘s fictional family did not look like theirs.
As such, the production gave the series’ family members different names, and changed their family name from Broaddus to Brannock. The Watcher also changed the family’s configuration to have two older children rather than three kids in elementary school.
While more of a suggestion than a request, the real Broadduses also further that they wouldn’t be opposed if the show’s rendition of the house was burnt to ashes. From the sounds of it, they probably wouldn’t mind if the real house was razed to the ground either.
I don’t think anyone could blame them.
