A documentary on Netflix that's the literal definition of a documentary: no interviews, no bravado, no sensationalism. Just social media posts, texts, body cam vidoe and police video, interrogation interviews, and brief captioning of events.

It's a gut-wrenching story if you know of it: Chris Watts, Colorado husband-father who murdered his entire family (pregnant wife, two girls) because he wanted to escape the realities of life and shack up with a girl he was having an affair with.

While at first I was a little put off by how much social media life his wife (Shanann) had, as she began to describe her life's past it came clear that she seemed to want to document her life in case something (medically) were to happen to her. She had no fear for her husband or any of that, but she always had the family on display. She came off as very sweet, maybe a bit controlling, but loving and committed.

Watts was an introvert, and probably began feeling "stuck" until he found this bombshell chick working with him, and then started creating a fantasy world.

It is directed by a woman, and does have something to say about domestic violence; but it's also not afraid to illustrate how women can be pretty awful too, mainly in the initial reactions to the murders when he was trying to blame his wife for murdering their daughters and he killed her in a "rage" afterward. Lots of clips of women claiming he was the victim and how much of a monster Shanann was. You know what they say about women attacking women...there's a special place in hell.

Anyhow, it's about 83 minutes, so it's not much of a time commitment. Not some 4-part serial or exploitative piece. Very brisk and definitely very effective.

out of

I watched this a while back, there were some chilling moments in this show, and like you said the lack of interviews or narration added to the "realness" of this story. It was a very emotional show and hard to watch at a couple points when you know he is lying and when you learn what he has done. This show was not the "feel-good story of the year".

I watched this and immediately wished I hadn’t. I knew somewhat about the story before this. Hearing him describe the tanks and the videos of the daughters...I lost it during both those scenes. Truly gut wrenching.

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I watched it a couple weeks ago. I knew nothing about it before starting it. It was quite the emotional rollercoaster ride. I cannot fathom how anyone can do that to their own children.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

The roughest video for me was the one girl (Celeste?) singing “you’re my hero, daddy.”

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Yep. Not ashamed to say that part had me sobbing. I’m an even bigger sap for kids since I became a father.

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I can't watch that stuff. Some of the better podcasts are true crime and can't listen to those either.