Worst Neighbor Ever Review – This shocking look at real-life deaths feels like exploitation | TV and radio

IIn Adventures in the Screen Trade, William Goldman’s account of his film writing career in Hollywood, Goldman recalls hearing a true story about a firefighter who returned to rescue a baby he heard crying as he was about to leave a burning building, and who escaped with the infant when everything began to collapse behind him. It was, Goldman says, an unbeatable story of real-life heroism, and of course someone told him he should make a movie about it. The problem, as Goldman points out, is that what this man did, in its astonishing totality, is what a film’s hero would be expected to do before the opening credits roll.

The same principle applies to the small screen. What is a huge, dramatic, deeply traumatic event that defines the lives of the people involved can easily be flattened into almost nothingness by the demands of the medium. This is the fatal flaw of second-rate true-crime documentaries like Worst Neighbor Ever. This four-part, US-based addition to the genre tells four stories about ordinary people who had the terrible luck of finding themselves living alongside… well, the clue is in the title. And in a country with questionable attitudes regarding gun control, it often ends in tragedy.

The first episode follows the story of Shauna and David Scott, who endured years of persecution at the hands of Frances Zaer, a woman the family first knew when she was young, and who later moved in with Shauna as an adult after divorce. When her behavior became too unreasonable for any houseguest (asking Shauna not to clean up so early, yelling at Scotts’ beloved grandson, proudly showing videos of herself participating in anti-Islam protests etc.), they asked her to leave. Frances bought the house across the street and began an escalating campaign of harassment against the couple. Despite Shauna being taken to court on trumped-up assault charges and having the police present every time she called them—almost daily—Frances remained convinced that the Scotts would never be punished for the crimes she imagined (one must say) they had committed against her because David worked at the local prison. Eventually, she approached the house with a gun, shot Shauna in the face and killed David. We hear a 911 call from another neighbor – “It’s this crazy bastard they’ve been dealing with for years.” Francis was sentenced to 35 years in prison for murder, second-degree assault and wanton endangerment, and is eligible for parole in 2038.

A similar story is told in the third instalment, and this time drug addiction plays a prominent role in the killer’s actions. Jamal Thomas was squatting on the property next to Miles and Melina Armstead’s home when they moved in. After five months of smashed windows and other threats from Thomas, the Armsteads left. Miles was tidying up the garden in preparation for putting the house on the market when Thomas shot him.

Another episode deals with an explosion deliberately caused by Mark Leonard and his girlfriend Monserrat Shirley (three others were also convicted of involvement) to collect insurance money on a property, ultimately killing Shirley’s neighbors Dionne and Jennifer Longworth. Another looks at a woman who dismembered and disposed of the body of a man named Charles Wilding (who died of natural causes) to pull off an elaborate scam.

These are all terrible stories, some of them with unfathomable sadness. A line from one of the letters that Miles’s beautiful and revered mother still writes to him every Tuesday – “My son, my only son… I miss you and I always will” is sure to devastate any conscious viewer. But in the absence of anything else — except for the suggestion in the Armisteads episode that the police should have done more to protect the family and that race may have played a role in their lack of interest in the case — it seems exploitative. This is filler television, doing nothing more than reminding us that bad people exist and that they can cross our path at any time. He does not interrogate the possible roles played by external factors, but merely invites us to stare, point, and whisper, “There but for the grace of God…” The best true crime documentaries look at weaknesses in institutions and systems, ask questions about motives and childhood trauma, and ask what we can do to protect victims and prevent perpetrators from becoming perpetrators. At their best, they investigate the question of whether anyone is born evil or whether we are all capable of becoming one. The worst neighbor ever is far from the best at anything.