Psycho Family is a documentary, released April 3rd of 2017, which covers the story of the YouTube video phenomena known as “The Psycho Series.” I covered the gist of the series in my previous article on the documentary, so we will skip that and go right into the review.
The Documentary is broken up into 11 episodes each about 9 minutes in length, each one covering the gist of a subject or broad idea related to the series. The short episodes are enough that you can watch them in simple snippets, or if you want, binge watch the whole documentary, which is what I did.
Apparently the original film was 3 hours long, and had to be cut down to about an hour and a half, so while the series doesn’t go into too much detail, it does a damn fine job covering the story, and shedding new light that even the creator of the series hasn’t mentioned.
The documentary producer, Brian Spitz, starts off the documentary somewhat ticked about Jesse Ridgway, creator of the Psycho Series, lying to him during its filming about the series being real. Brian goes back to Jesse’s home immediately following the series finale in an attempt to talk with him, only to cause everyone to get mad at him Starting off with heavy animosity, Brian eventually is let in (literally, let into the house) to film and talk with Jesse and the family, to get the story behind the series.
As the videos progress, they cover the early years of the family, and how Jesse got into film making. Naturally, it grows to cover the beginning of the Psycho Series, the stresses of keeping the story “Real” while still trying to live normal lives, the eventual expansion of the series to include more family members and even more in depth plot elements.
The final episodes in the documentary focus more on the tail end of the series, and the controversy surrounding it. While virtually all of the series had it’s drama in real life, the end of the series and its final episodes really were a cause for concern for both the family, and those who witnessed the penultimate series finale episode.
The final two episodes focus on Jesse’s return from the Switzerland trip the family took after the end of the series, and Jesse coming to grips with the fact that the series, arguably his magnum opus, is over, and dealing with the stresses of what to do following its end.
The Cinematography of the documentary is excellent. The interviews are well edited and spliced together, and I feel everyone is represented properly: clearly, they would have to be for the family to give their approval of the documentary for release!
The documentary jumps around somewhat between times in the series, so it helps to have at least a basic understanding of the Psycho Series before watching it. Still, this information is easy to obtain and beyond this, the story of how the series was made and the struggles with such can still be enjoyed even with little knowledge of the series proper.
Final Rating: 5/5
While I wish the doc was longer, I really do think it covers everything it needs to very well. It’s filmed in a somewhat unique variant on the traditional documentary style but still feels proper while also having that “raw” feel that McJuggerNuggets videos have on YouTube. It makes good use of new interview footage with Jesse’s own behind-the-scenes footage, and all in all just feels right.
I genuinely enjoyed it, and plan on watching it again. While I did say I wish it was longer, it still manages to be just what I was hoping for, so, it still gets that top-end rating. 5/5 doesn’t mean perfect, it just means it can be fully enjoyed for what it is, even if you wish something more about it.
To put it simply, I loved it.
Due to the apparent closure of the original video service which hosted the documentary, I’ve chosen to share a full upload of this doc from YouTube. I don’t know how long the original site has been down for, but this solves the issue of watching it from here: