Worst Ex Ever Director Reveals How Netflix's Chilling True Crime Docuseries Is Made

Most of us have a terrible ex, but we'd put money on them not being anywhere near as terrible as the four exes featured on Netflix's latest true crime docuseries, Worst Ex Ever. The doc redefines worst exes with chilling first-hand accounts from survivors and their loved ones, as well as impactful animation and music that make your imagination run wild.

Think exes who frame you for extreme crimes, try to kill you, or lead you to live a life of fear for years and years. These stories are almost too wild to be true, yet they're real — and horrifying. 

If the title and premise sound familiar, that's because the show is part of the Worst Roommate Ever series from the horror experts at Blumhouse Television. TV Guide spoke to the series' director and executive producer, Cynthia Childs, to dig into those horror elements and learn how these stories come together. 

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At what point did you realize Worst Ex Ever was a natural follow-up to Worst Roommate Ever?
Cynthia Childs: That came about very early, as we were working on more Roommate stories. Netflix was interested in exploring this world further. When you look at Roommate, you have this close relationship with someone where you're extremely vulnerable, and then that person betrays your trust and turns out to be something very different. It felt like a lot of those dynamics would be at play with the people who are closest to you, an intimate partner. Married or not, you've let this person into your world, and now they have turned out to be something drastically different than what you thought you let in the door.

Did some of these cases come up during your research for Worst Roommate?
Childs: It was all one team working on this, and we were looking within the world of Ex as we were looking for the Roommate stories too.

What are the ingredients for a really good Ex story?
Childs: As we research, we are looking for twists and turns as the person unmasks this person they're with and discovers who they are. Working with such an incredible company like Blumhouse, and with them being so horror-centric, it is taking into account how horror stories pace and unfold the push-pull of what you know versus what you don't. That's all baked into the stories. We look for peaks and valleys of suspense. Those feelings of dread and impending doom that come up as you're watching horror film. That really applies when someone reveals themselves to be something totally different than who you thought they were; there's just incredible dread there. Figuring out how to appropriately deal with that emotion through the hour helps drive the narrative forward.

What about the people at the center of these stories?
Childs: The most important thing is finding people who want to tell their story. We're not telling these stories without the involvement of those most closely affected. We're also telling adjudicated stories. We did not want to give the perpetrators airtime. They've had a chance to tell their story in the court, and we're very interested in the survivor stories. So first and foremost, it's really having survivors who wanted to share their story and wanted to work with us. Oftentimes they felt like maybe their story wasn't told through the media when the cases were initially reported on. They felt like there were bigger issues that should be addressed, and they should at least have a chance to talk about them.

How often did you come across a compelling story but couldn't get the participation of the victims?
Childs: Oh, all the time, all the time. I really understand. These involve a number of terrible tragedies, and if a person doesn't want to go back there, I get it. I really respect that. That being said, I do think there are a number of things that can be learned and taken away from sharing these stories. So it's really about the survivor and how they feel.

How did you use music to add to the horror and suspense of the episodes?
Childs: I worked with a really talented composer, H. Scott Salinas, whom I've collaborated with on a few projects now. We wanted to have a whiteboard touch, but then to also be able to bring some other influences into it to create this world. I'm a big fan of Ozark and its music and how it uses non-traditional instrumentation to build the dread and doom that's coming. So that was an inspiration. Beyond that, Scott's wildly talented, so we really collaborated and worked together on that sound.

You use animation to recreate and enhance scenes rather than reenactments. What does that add?
Childs: It adds an opportunity to get inside these scenarios in a way that traditional recreations couldn't necessarily. It also adds a little bit of cheekiness at times and explores the scenes in new ways. Frankly, there's a saturated marketplace out there, and finding new ways to explore these stories and to unpack them is really interesting to me.

Was there anything about this specific animation style that appealed to you?
Childs: We wanted to do traditional hand drawing. So what you'll see in this animation is a mix of 2D characters that we extend to 3D environments. We wanted to be able to focus on the representation of the people who were involved in the story. Beyond that, we wanted to explore cinematic looks within animation. So we really thought about how we're entering into the scene. You know, the traditional things you would with recreation, but how does that translate to an animated world?

One of the episodes is about a female ex, how important was that representation?
Childs: Oh, incredibly important. I don't think anyone would be surprised if it was just male exes, but the world is much more vast than that and there have been really bad female exes as well. So we thought it was important to represent. There were more to choose from than you might think, but we were specifically looking to make sure there was at least one female Worst Ex.

Why did you contain the first season to four episodes?
Childs: We felt like we had four amazing stories. And rather than pushing beyond that, we wanted to dive deep into these stories and see how the audience feels about them. You know, if they react the same way to them as they did Roommate. Is there something special just about Roommate, or does our approach translate? I think it does.

Have you changed any habits after living in the worlds of Ex and Roommate for so long?
Childs: Well, certainly I'll never have another roommate again. It certainly makes you think about what people are capable of and the amount of time that some people invest in messing with and hurting other people rather than putting their energy into something good. That's always hard for me to wrap my head around.

Worst Ex Ever and two seasons of Worst Roommate Ever are now streaming on Netflix.