In August 2018, Frederick's Chris Watts killed his pregnant wife, Shanann, before taking the lives of Celeste and Bella, their two young daughters. The shocking acts quickly resulted in wall-to-wall cable-news coverage, and in the years since, multiple documentarians and filmmakers have explored the subject.
Arguably the worst of these projects was
American Murder: The Family Next Door, which launched on Netflix last September. The documentary is assembled almost entirely of video or images shared online by Shanann or footage from the investigation into her disappearance, including body-camera clips that seem to capture every inch of the living space the couple shared. The house is practically another character in a film that chillingly transforms the roomy, tastefully appointed suburban spread into a backdrop for evil at its purest.