July 26, 2024

Unraveling the Worst Roommate Ever true crime universe

the true crime that's worth your time

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Until this week, I had no idea that Worst Roommate Ever, a Netflix true crime docuseries that we briefly wrote about back in 2022, was based on a New York mag longread. I don't recall that detail coming up when the show's second season dropped on the streamer exactly a month ago, either. It wasn't until news broke that director Paul Feig (Spy, Bridesmaids, that oh so contentious and female-led Ghostbusters reboot) would direct an adaptation of the property that its origins as a print report hit my desktop. Maybe that's true for you, too?

It certainly didn't come up when the docuseries launched on March 1, 2022, with a five-ep set of stories on often fatal disputes between co-tenants. The press materials then promised "harrowing tales of seemingly harmless roommates turning into real-life nightmares for their unsuspecting victims when their malevolent and sometimes violent intentions are revealed. These unsettling true stories chronicle the masked menace that can be lurking right down the hall."

That's not a bad premise! As I recall when we published that years-ago piece on the series launch, a lot of folks brought roommate stories up in the comments. The idea of a roommate who crosses a line can certainly feel relatable; look at the enduring popularity of fictional bad roommate drama Single White Female.

I recall the first season, directed by Domini Hofmann, to be an engaging enough trifle, but one that I forgot soon after I watched. The cases were:

• 1980s Sacramento serial killer/boarding house owner/Social Security fraudster Dorothea Puente, aka "the Death House Landlady." (A weird case to start out with, given that it's not really a roommate sitch, but whatever.)

• Kwang Chol Joy's 2013 slaying of Maribel Ramos in Orange, CA. (An ep which apparently left enough about Joy to call for this report.)

• Danish fraudster Youssef Khater, who is unique in that he remains at large

And the final episode is about the case that started it all: so-called "Philly squatter" Jamison Bachman, whose behavior after renting Alex Miller's spare room made for the 2018 NY mag piece by William Brennan that so intrigued the folks at horror-and-beyond production studio Blumhouse that they optioned it, sought out other co-habitation-related cases, and built out this series.

The series was a hit, its creators later said. Gretchen Palek, Blumhouse TV's Head of Alternative (anyone else smell clove cigarettes and hear The Smiths at that title?) said via press release, that the first season "reached the Top 10 list in over 60 countries," which is about as close to ratings as we ever seem to get from Netflix.

It apparently did well enough — or was cheap enough to make (maybe both?) that a second season was announced in May, and appeared on the platform in June. This time, the cases were:

• Janie Lynn Ridd's attempted dark web VERSA poisoning of roommate Rachel )name witheld)

• Anita Mimie Cowen, a Cathedral City, CA woman who was beaten to death by co-habitating tenant Scott Pettigrew in 2016

• Convicted murder-for-hire plotter Tammy Lyn Fritz, who attempted to kill roommate James Bowden for his life insurance benefits and later arranged an abortive attack on him.

• Seattle-area man Michael Dudley, who killed and dismembered tenants Jessica Lewis and Austin Wenner, motive unknown.

This second season's three episodes felt grimmer and darker than the first season — and that's saying something, given the first episode's case of exploitation and murder of those with mental illness. The second season leaned heavily into the death of pets (skip eps two and four if that triggers you) at the hands of the bad roommates, which is arguably one of the greatest roommate nightmares there is.

Watched all in a chunk, as I did over the last few days in preparation for this piece, I felt glad that I am privileged enough to live alone, even as I had dreams every night of my less enjoyable roommate experiences in the past. The woman (found on Craigslist, like some of these cases) who evicted me after I refused to co-sign the financing for her boob job. The constantly-smoking guy with the 24/7-screaming parrot who rented one room to me, and another to a crack-smoking couple who worked the night shift at a nearby Safeway and had loud (so loud I suspect a bit of faking) sex when they returned home from work at 3 AM. The longtime friend who I discovered was charging me more than she paid for rent for the entire rent-controlled apartment. (Illegal in our city, by the way.)

Sarah talks sometimes about how certain properties take her back to a "girl world" that, as a longtime girls' school student, she'd rather not revisit. Watching these episodes, I suddenly understood what she meant. It's been 25 years since I rented a room from a guy who'd go into my space to adjust my blinds to his preference. That's not being shot up with potentially fatal doses of insulin, or being almost set on fire (both things that happen in the second season). But it's that same incursion into a space we assume to be ours, that realization that we're vulnerable and at the mercy of the people with whom we share space.

Those dark thoughts hardly lend themselves to the kind of romp expected from the man who brought us Last Christmas and The Heat. Sure, he made 2018's A Simple Favor — which, I'll note, did true crime meta-satire before everyone else jumped on the bandwagon, and might have done it better. But even that film, with its unsettling themes of homicide, incest, and self-harm still feels light and airy, not sobering and sad the way the docuseries does.

Based on this Variety report, Feig's film might be more "inspired by" than strictly based on the NY mag story about Miller and Bachman. From the piece:

Feig’s film will follow a newly single woman who finds a “seemingly perfect gentleman” to sublet a spare room in her home. However, she quickly discovers that his lies extend beyond providing a fake name and falsified application. She has unwittingly invited a serial squatter into her home and he’s not going to leave without a fight. 

It's one of those premises that could go anywhere from Lifetime to A24, depending on whose hands its in. With Blumhouse as seemingly involved as it is, it'll probably land somewhere in the middle, with a vibe somewhere between FX and Starz. The good news, I guess, is that this project won't attempt to manufacture humor from the homicides we see in the docuseries. Worst case scenario, we end up with something along the lines of The Watcher, another Netflix fictionalization of another East Coast residential dread story that also appeared in New York magazine.

Did you watch Worst Roommate Ever (season one, two or both), and if so, what did you think? Is there room to build this into a charming Feig-style feature? Let us know what you think.