American Murder: The Family Next Door

This documentary got me hooked within minutes. Stepping into this family's private life with only original police footage and personal homevideo's gave the most realistic image to start a horrific story. The mystery surrounding it made me feel instantly anxious of the outcome. The tension rises to unbearable levels until the climax hits. I wouldn't recommend this to young parents or anyone who likes to sleep right after watching this, because I won't for some hours... that's for sure.

Reviewers below have essentially expressed most of my thoughts and opinions about this documentary. However it would have been really useful to add a second episode interviewing experts to give us an insight as to my these heinous and difficult to understand crimes happen in the first place. What is it that flips the switches in a humans brain to to go against all sane reasoning and embark upon a course of action that is going to wreak havoc on everyone's life, most especially your own, knowing full we you are never going to get away with it .

A better Netflix crime story. Why? Because it's only the real footage or news stories that's used in the film. It's not filled with people being interviewed talking about the event from the past which just pads the runtime. It works better and keeps you invested with body cams and real police interviews. Nothing is staged. It's all real.

Even though I had previously watched crime shows on this tragic story, I felt this was done from a perspective in which focused on highlighting events that I either knew little or nothing about, which made for a sad but informative watch.

A concise documentary covering the disappearance of shannan watts and her two children, and the subsequent investigation. The timeline was well established and well presented. The first hand footage was quite extensive.