Blumhouse TV’s serial-squatter documentary Worst Roommate Ever was a big hit for Netflix, and now there’s a spin-off: Worst Ex Ever. Like its predecessor, the show relies heavily on witness statements to tell the story, and it covers multiple stories: there’s four in this first season.
We know this because the trailer (see below) uses a combination of animation, still images, police body cam footage and talking head interviews in a fast-cut style – and while the trailer feels a little voyeuristic to me, it’s undoubtedly effective and has the potential to be one of the best true crime shows on Netflix.
Blumhouse is best known for its horror movies, such as Insidious, Five Nights at Freddy’s and M3GAN, but this new true crime show is based on real events and real people. This is Blumhouse TV’s first franchise and there will be four hour-long episodes.
What is Worst Ex Ever about?
According to Netflix, the new show is “built around the universal feeling of wondering how much you really know about your partner” and delivers “shocking tales of betrayal, violence, and deceit. Composed of compelling testimonials, body cam footage and animated reenactments, Worst Ex Ever reveals the disturbing stories of monstrous past relationships”.
Speaking to Variety, Gretchen Palek, head of alternative TV programming at Blumhouse TV, said that after Worst Roommate Ever was released in 2022, the logical next topic was exes: “What could be more relatable than exes?” she asked. However, while she enjoyed online trends such as the viral “Who TF Did I Marry” story, they weren’t the inspiration for the show. “I love mining social media for those types of trends, but we really did feel like ‘Roommate’ resonated because of the universal relatability,” she said. “And we do feel like most people feel their ex is bad – but in our series, our exes really are the absolute worst.”
Worst Roommate Ever was a huge hit for Netflix and had good online word of mouth, but it attracted a few scathing reviews: The Guardian said that “this might officially be the worst true crime show ever” and called it “a cookie-cutter, assembly-line, true-crime documentary so blindingly impersonal that it feels as if it was conceived by robots”. Even your very own TechRadar said to avoid Netflix’s true crime saga because it let down its victims. Can a new spin-off right these wrongs and become one of the best Netflix documentaries?
You’ll be able to find out on August 14, 2024 when Worst Ex Ever is streaming on Netflix.
