Netflix's 2-Part Unhinged Docuseries Will Actually Give You Nightmares
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Netflix's docuseries, Worst Ex Ever, details the stories of terrifying abuse at the hands of significant others. Significant others who, once professed love, only to flip the script to something far darker and contemptible. And what the brave survivors have to say is the stuff of nightmares. From the same team that brought Worst Roommate Ever to Netflix, Worst Ex Ever shifts the focus from roommates to lovers, "from chilling betrayals to murder plots, this true-crime docuseries dissects the dark side of love through eyewitness testimonies." Each episode interviews survivors, their families, and investigators to provide a thorough account of each horrifying case.
'Worst Ex Ever' Exposes the Failings of the Justice System
In the first episode, "Dating the Devil," the episode focuses on Ben Foster, a man with a violent history who intended to kill Justine Siemens, his girlfriend. The story of Foster, even before Siemens, is reprehensible. He was charged in 2017 for domestic violence against his ex-girlfriend, and then in 2019, holding his girlfriend captive for two weeks, which left her with seven broken ribs, two black eyes, and injuries inflicted by zip ties and duct tape used for restraint. For the latter, he was charged with five felonies but pleaded guilty to reduced charges and was sentenced to 30 months in state prison. But in what proves to be a common theme that runs through Worst Ex Ever, the justice system failed, releasing Foster on the same day he was transferred to state prison after already having served 729 days while awaiting trial.
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes What Is Your Biggest Horror Nightmare? Elm Street · Chucky · Scream · The Conjuring
Four horror franchises. Four completely different ways of scaring you. One waits until you fall asleep. One makes sure nobody believes you. One is already in your group of friends. And one is in the house with your family. Answer eight quick questions about how you actually watch horror, and find out which nightmare was built for you.
😴Elm Street(Freddy Krueger)
🧸Chucky(Child's Play)
📞Scream(Ghostface)
🕯️The Conjuring(The Warren Files)
01
Which horror scene makes you cover your eyes? Four classic images. One of them is worse than the others for you.
02
You are home alone and you hear a noise. First thought? Everybody has one. It arrives before you have decided anything.
03
Which horror movie rule would you break first? Everybody thinks they would survive. Almost nobody actually does.
04
Something genuinely frightening happens. What do you do? Not in a film. In your actual living room, tonight.
05
How do you actually watch a horror film? Be honest about this one. Nobody is checking.
06
Somebody offers you serious money. Which do you still refuse? The amount does not matter. There is one on this list you are not doing.
07
Which feeling stays with you a week after the film? Good horror does not stop when the credits do.
08
Something wakes you at 3am. What is the worst possibility? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your nightmare.
The Lights Just Went Out Your Nightmare Is…
Four franchises, four completely different ways of getting underneath your skin. This is the one built out of your particular fear, why it works so well on you, and what it would leave behind.
Elm Street
Your nightmare does not wait outside the door. It waits for you to close your eyes, which you are going to have to do eventually, because nobody has ever won that particular argument.
- Freddy is horror's cruellest idea: a threat that lives in the one place you cannot guard, cannot lock, and cannot avoid forever.
- You are the one who is fine during the film and wide awake at two in the morning. Your own head is where this does its damage.
- These films understood exhaustion as a horror engine. The kids on Elm Street do not lose because they are weak. They lose because they are tired.
- You can lock every door in the house. You still have to sleep.
Chucky
Your nightmare is not really the doll. It is the face of the person you tell, and the way they decide, very kindly, that you have imagined all of it.
- Chucky works precisely because he is absurd. That is the trap: the more accurately you describe him, the less anybody is going to believe you.
- You are the one shouting at the screen because the characters are not listening. You know that feeling from real life too.
- The franchise is at its best when the adults in the room are the real obstacle, and you have met those adults.
- By the time somebody finally believes you, you will have handled most of it on your own.
Scream
Your nightmare has your number, knows your name, and has almost certainly been inside your house before. The worst part is that you already know them.
- Scream is the only one of these where the killer takes the mask off and turns out to be somebody who was at the party.
- You are the person who calls the twist out loud before it lands. You watch people the same way you watch films.
- The franchise made the rules of horror part of the plot, which means the survivors are the ones paying attention. You would be paying attention.
- Everybody is a suspect, including the person who just offered to walk you home.
The Conjuring
Your nightmare is not really about you. It is about the people asleep down the hall, and the feeling that whatever is here is not interested in leaving.
- The Conjuring films are domestic horror. The house, the family, the perfectly ordinary room that quietly stops feeling ordinary.
- Your instinct is to get everybody into one room. Your fear is protective rather than personal, which is rarer than it sounds.
- This is the one franchise where belief is the weapon. The people who come through it are the ones who are not alone and refuse to be.
- Whatever is here did not come for you. It came for the household, and you are the one standing in the hallway.
Foster moves to Oregon, where he meets Siemens while working as a bartender. All was well in the early stages until she reported Foster to his employer after learning about his criminal history, which led to Foster being fired. That's when Siemens came face-to-face with "the Devil," with Foster stalking her, torturing her, and subjecting her to severe physical abuse. For three days, Foster held Siemens captive, brutally assaulting her, and she was only rescued after managing to call a friend for help. Foster escaped and altered his appearance, kicking off a manhunt. After being cornered by police, Foster chose to kill himself after an hours-long standoff on January 31, 2023, never taking accountability for the lives he destroyed along the way.
In 'Worst Ex Ever,' the Most Horrifying Stories Only Seem To Get Worse
In "Betrayed by the Badge," we follow the story of Seemona Sumasar, a financial adviser and franchise owner with a young daughter. Sumasar's life changed after meeting Jerry Ramrattan, an NYPD officer and detective, and the two began a relationship. All was well until Ramrattan's wife appeared. As it turns out, Ramrattan was little more than a con man who was married and had three children. Despite the inevitable breakup, Sumasar allowed Ramrattan to stay in her basement for a few weeks. Weeks became months, and then Ramrattan turned on Sumasar, raping her and fleeing the police afterward before eventually being caught.
After getting out on bail, Ramrattan relentlessly hounded Sumasar, trying to force her to stop cooperating with the rape investigation. When that didn't work, he tried to frame Sumasar for armed robbery. That, too, didn't work, but a new plan, implemented by Ramrattan with the help of two associates, reported armed robberies that painted Sumasar as the guilty party, did work (as per the previously cited Today). She was arrested in May 2010, and despite her claims of innocence and pointing to Ramrattan as the mastermind behind the ruse, police didn't take her seriously and brushed it off; even a solid alibi wasn't enough to prevent Sumasar from being indicted on multiple counts of robbery and facing 25 years in prison. Although Sumasar eventually found justice, her story shows just how easy it was for Ramrattan to manipulate the system to turn against the victim of his crimes.
The Netflix Docuseries Turns a Custody Battle Into a Crime Scene
As recounted in "Killing for Custody," Eric Hill, a quiet, unassuming man, met Mei Li at work, and she introduced him to her daughter, Rosa. Eric and Rosa hit it off and got married in April 2005. Their daughter was born the next year, but the joy of their first child was undermined by Eric needing to work two jobs, and Rosa threatening divorce after the arguments between them became more frequent. After separating, Rosa refused to allow Eric to see their daughter on her first birthday; Eric then sued for custody. As a result, Rosa began making up lies, first by emailing Eric's work claiming he intended to carry out a shooting there, and another claiming Eric was abusive to their daughter. All the allegations were proven false, and the court gave full custody to Eric.
On January 7, 2009, Rosa and Mei broke into Sally Hill's home, Eric's 91-year-old grandmother, where they attacked and killed her. Shortly after, Eric and his daughter arrived, but while searching for Sally, Eric was attacked by Rosa and Mei. When police arrived, it was too difficult to make heads or tails of what had happened, and everyone was taken into custody. Now out of the way, detectives were able to search the property, finding Sally's body and a backpack that contained rope, crossbows, a hunting knife, a throwing star, and a crowbar, among other things. Rosa's car was found half a block away, along with a samurai sword and leg irons inside. This led to detectives uncovering a sickening plan, which would have pinned Sally's murder on Eric, and he would be forced to write a confession too. Then, Eric would "kill himself" in despair, leaving Rosa Hill as the only legal custodian of their child.
'Worst Ex Ever' Exposes How Cold-Blooded and Vicious Some People Can Be
"Married to a Monster" tells the story of Kevin Lewis, husband to Amanda Canales and father to their two daughters and a son. As their family grew, so too did Lewis's dark side, which at first began with controlling behavior and snide remarks about his wife's body while she was pregnant. Amanda attempted to dismiss his increasingly frequent mood swings, but after Lewis went through her phone, he cornered Amanda in the closet and attacked her. This led to Amanda leaving Lewis, taking the children with her to another home, only for Lewis to follow her and nearly kill her after striking her head repeatedly. The assault pushed Amanda to file for divorce and for a restraining order, which ultimately proved to be useless.
Lewis paid Jerradon Phelps and Alexis Hale $2,400 to kill Amanda, and on September 20, 2017, the assassins entered the home. Amanda would be spared as she was away on a business trip, but her sister, Alisha Canales-McGuire, who was watching her children, was not and was killed. Phelps and Hale were taken in, but attempts to link Lewis, Phelps' cousin, to the crime proved fruitless. At least until detectives received a tip regarding Hale's bragging on social media about having killed someone. Detectives were then able to track Hale's Snapchat videos to show the pair travelled from Spokane to Everett, stopping at Lewis' house, and carrying on to Amanda's home, where neighborhood Ring cameras and a nearby security camera were proof-positive of the trio's guilt.
'Worst Ex Ever' Presents the Survivor's Stories Without Glamorizing the Details
A true-crime documentary is often difficult to pull off without somehow dramatizing the players behind the crimes. One documentary that succeeded in this is another Netflix venture, American Murder: Laci Peterson, only for a competing documentary looking to exonerate the man convicted of the crime, Scott Peterson, to air on Peacock days later. The way Worst Ex Ever steps around this, though, is very clever. There are no live recreations of the events, but key moments in all four stories are dramatized with surprisingly effective animated sequences. This is continued in the show's second season, the method helping to accentuate the details of what happened without involving unnecessary visceral violence. It forces the viewer to understand, to feel the emotion of the events without catering to a gratuitous dramatic visual that is disturbing.
Worst Ex Ever also succeeds at offering an even-handed approach to each story. Guilty parties are just that, guilty parties, and that includes those in the justice system who failed the survivors. It isn't a total damnation of that system, as the series takes its time in hearing from law enforcement individuals who were instrumental in seeing justice served as well. Most importantly, Worst Ex Ever stands as a warning bell for viewers, detailing the signs to look for and the hope of coming out the other side.
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