They didn’t discover gunpowder at Netflix when they signed Ryan Murphy in 2018. They just put a lot of money on the table to get the most versatile and original television creator of the moment. Far from being mediocre, the father of Pose or Glee, the fantastic analyst of the sins of contemporary America with American Crime Story, the person responsible for updating terror and the fantastic on television with American Horror Story, has taken on new challenges and their expanded production. The bet brought him success, but it also had its risks. The best proof of this is Vigilante, the psychological thriller that, along with another of its productions, Dahmer, holds the honorary positions of most-watched on Netflix today.
Vigilante is the story of a family fleeing New York in search of a quieter life and buying their dream home in a sprawling traditional New Jersey neighborhood. We soon discover that the house that Nora and Dean Brannock (a solid Naomi Watts and Bobbi Cannavale) have mortgaged their future on has a grim history and an extremely disturbing group of neighbors surrounding it. Paranoia begins to spread between them when they receive the first letter, signed by a sinister guardian who claims proprietorship over this house. The story is loosely inspired by a family who faced similar harassment at the infamous 657 Boulevard in Westfield, New Jersey in 2014. Articles about the house, speculation and visits to the area have multiplied with the series. However, there is no point in looking at the real case and comparing it there or looking for solutions: this is a fiction and must find coherence in its own internal logic.
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Everything works impeccably for the first few bars, the production design is perfect again, the crumbs that every good crime novel must leave along the way are conveniently scattered, the clutch between one chapter and the next works, but then the mess begins The psychological The uneasiness of the afflicted, the misunderstanding of their teenage children, the tunnel the marriage descends into, some disturbing Murphy-style scenes, the description of the group of freaks that surround them, the envy and misery of this small town, and other ingredients are not sufficient to compensate for the losses.
Mia Farrow and Terry Kinney play two very disturbing neighbors.
The story falters as it progresses. Various theories put on display, either to be discarded below or to mislead the viewer, do not have the minimum support required. The subplot of John Graff, a supposed resident of the house years ago and possible stalker, has no head or tail and is told from an impossible perspective (providing data only he could know, who for obvious reasons is not the narrator). Towards the end he focuses on these mistakes, leaves essential aspects unexplained – and the mystical aura that surrounds unsolved cases does not count as a solution – and creates a joke situation. The feeling just before reaching the end of the seventh chapter is one of disappointment. There’s no ghost or paranormal perspective here to fix the mess. The viewer can always take comfort in returning to Ryan Murphy’s immense creative catalogue. It is impossible not to find anything good there.
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