'The Watcher' Cast on Recreating the Real-Life Stalker Story With a Ryan Murphy Twist (Exclusive)

etonline.com:

is a chilling limited series based on the twisted real-life events surrounding an idyllic family home in Westfield, New Jersey, and a mysterious stalker known only as “The Watcher.” Adapted by creators Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan and starring Naomi Watts, Bobby Cannavale, Jennifer Coolidge and others, the end result is a sinister and terrifying story that gives the true-crime genre a spooky and psychological twist. “It’s definitely a psychological trip,” says Cannavale, who plays one-half of the couple at the center of the story. “And it’s got a scary, haunted house vibe about it.”“It’s pretty scary.

It’s pretty dark. It’s pretty suspenseful,” says Henry Hunter Hall, who plays a technician named Dakota hired to install extra security on the house, while Terry Kinney, who plays one of several creepy neighbors named Jasper Winslow, adds that the series takes the real-life source material and “steps it up a little.” That source is the wildly fascinating and unsettling events first reported by , which recounted what happened to Derek and Maria Broaddus and their kids after they bought the $1.3 million, six-bedroom house at 657 Boulevard.

Not long after they slowly started moving in as they began much-needed renovations on the home, the family received the first of many letters from “The Watcher,” who proclaimed that he, his father and his grandfather had all been tasked with keeping an eye on the 110-year-old property.