Over the past two weeks, Netflix has set out to reshape the documentary, blending the classic format with fictional narrative techniques—much like it did with true crime—to give the storytelling a new, less realistic sense than the genre usually offers. The platform is preparing to launch a project that aims to stand out not just for the stories it tells, but fundamentally for how it tells them.
The docuseries involves one of the most influential figures in contemporary horror: James Wan. The project is a fusion of the raw authenticity of documentary testimony and the sophisticated staging of big-budget horror cinema. This approach seeks to capture both mystery enthusiasts and genre film purists alike.
The series’s core premise is to recount paranormal encounters from the perspective of those who lived them, using a combination of current interviews with the subjects and “immersive recreations” that dramatize their traumatic experiences. While this formula is familiar to the genre, it receives a distinctive treatment under Wan’s production.
Netflix’s strategy with True Haunting seems to go beyond simply adding another title to its catalog. By associating the series with a filmmaker of Wan’s caliber—known for franchises like The Conjuring and Insidious—the platform aims to attract a more discerning horror audience. This is a viewership accustomed to cinematic quality that may be tired of the low-budget aesthetic often found in these types of shows. The promise is not just to hear a ghost story, but to feel it with the same intensity and visual quality as a Hollywood production, setting a new standard for fact-based horror.
The Stamp of a Horror Master: James Wan’s Vision
Although James Wan does not direct any of the episodes of True Haunting, his influence as an executive producer is the creative pillar that defines the series’s aesthetic identity. His production company, Atomic Monster, in collaboration with RAW, is responsible for bringing to life a vision that transcends the traditional documentary format. The series is described as an exploration of real supernatural stories with the “cinematic touch of James Wan,” and those who have analyzed the project state that his “fingerprints are all over it.”
This translates into an execution that prioritizes atmosphere and psychological tension over cheap jump scares, a hallmark of Wan’s filmmaking. This signature style is directly observable in the dramatized recreations. Instead of being mere illustrations of testimony, these sequences are designed to evoke dread using arthouse cinema techniques. They employ “lingering shadows, sudden silences, and camera movements that make the viewer feel something is always just out of sight.” This approach moves away from shaky-cam tricks or rudimentary visual effects, instead investing in a methodical construction of fear. Atomic Monster’s productions infuse these accounts with a “cinematic style” that manifests in flickering lights, unsettling shadows, and a “slow-burn tension” that culminates in shocking revelations.
This approach inverts the formula Wan popularized with The Conjuring universe. While his films adapted real case files into a fictional cinematic narrative, in True Haunting, he injects his fictional style directly into the telling of a real event. The result is a hybrid format that pairs the emotional credibility of a documentary—the certainty that “this really happened”—with the visceral, carefully orchestrated fear of a horror movie. This creative symbiosis not only elevates the production value of the testimonies but also lends Wan’s aesthetic a new layer of authenticity, intentionally blurring the line between documentary and horror drama. Wan himself has described the project as a “fresh canvas for real supernatural nightmares,” underscoring his interest in exploring the genre from this new and ambitious perspective.
The Anatomy of a Hybrid: Format, Structure, and Narrative
True Haunting is structured as a narrative hybrid that combines two key elements: direct testimony and cinematic dramatization. The format is described as a mix of “interviews in the style of Paranormal Witness with high-production recreations.” The series features the individuals who lived through the traumatic experiences sharing their stories firsthand, providing the emotional and factual anchor for each account. To reinforce this authenticity, the production also incorporates “real footage and home video recordings,” elements that aim to connect the viewer directly to the veracity of the narrated events.
This combination of documentary and fiction is not entirely new; in fact, the series has a direct lineage to one of the genre’s best-known programs. The producers of True Haunting are the same people behind Paranormal Witness, the popular Syfy channel series that perfected this very formula over five seasons. This connection suggests that True Haunting is not an experiment but an evolution of a proven model, now enhanced with Netflix’s resources and the cinematic vision of Atomic Monster. The goal is clear: to take a narrative structure that has proven effective and elevate it to a level of production and sophistication unprecedented on television.
Where the series significantly innovates is in its release structure. Instead of following an anthological “one case per episode” format, True Haunting is a five-episode limited series that is divided to tell two completely different stories. This structural choice allows each case to be explored in greater depth over multiple installments, avoiding the superficiality of a rushed narrative and the risk of “filler” from an artificially extended story. By adopting a serialized model, similar to the platform’s successful true-crime docuseries, the creators can build tension gradually, develop the complex emotional layers of the protagonists, and foster greater investment from the audience, who are invited to follow a drama that unfolds over several chapters. This choice transforms what could be a simple collection of ghost stories into a cohesive, binge-worthy television event.
The Case Files of True Haunting: An Analysis of the Two Central Stories
The five-episode series is divided into two thematically distinct narrative arcs, each with its own director and pacing, but unified under the same stylistic vision. This curation of content allows the series to explore different subgenres of paranormal horror.
Eerie Hall
The first story, titled “Eerie Hall,” unfolds over three episodes and is directed by Neil Rawles. This story is characterized by a “slow-burn” approach, where the narrative “builds suspense slowly, piling on small, strange details until the tension reaches its peak.” This method suggests a more psychological and atmospheric horror, focused on the gradual decay of normalcy.
The protagonist of this story is a college student named Chris, who begins to be affected by a series of paranormal phenomena in his surroundings. A particularly interesting detail of this arc is the appearance of “the famous Warrens,” who are reported to give a lecture at Chris’s university. This inclusion, though it may be tangential to the main plot, creates a subtle but deliberate link to The Conjuring cinematic universe, serving as a nod to fans of James Wan’s work and placing the story within a broader context of recognized paranormal investigation.
This House Murdered Me
The second narrative arc, “This House Murdered Me,” is presented in two episodes directed by Luke Watson. This story adopts a decidedly “darker” tone, focusing on a classic haunted house trope: “the way a home’s violent history seeps into the present.” The premise explores the idea that certain places become imbued with tragedy, and that this latent energy can be awakened by new inhabitants.
Previews of the series show fragments of this story, including the testimony of a man who is pushed to the brink by “unsettling voices and objects that move on their own.” In a key moment, the protagonist states, “Something happened in that room, and we were the ones who triggered it.” This line suggests a narrative where the residents are not merely passive victims but unwitting catalysts for a malevolent force that already resided on the property. This focus on a location’s violent history and its impact on the present aligns it with more visceral and aggressive horror narratives, offering a thematic counterpoint to the psychological suspense of “Eerie Hall.”
From Televised Exorcism to the Streaming Era
The public’s fascination with ghost stories based on real events is not a new phenomenon, and True Haunting belongs to a long tradition of paranormal narratives that have captured the popular imagination. One of the milestones that laid the groundwork for this genre was the case of the Becker family in Chicago, whose experience culminated in the first televised exorcism in history, broadcast by NBC in 1971. This media event, which showed ministers Joseph DeLouise and William Derl-Davis attempting to cleanse the family’s home, occurred two years before the premiere of the film The Exorcist, presenting the ritual to a mass audience as a news event rather than fiction.
A few years later, the Amityville case solidified the “American haunted house” trope. In 1975, the Lutz family moved into a house on Long Island where, one year earlier, Ronald DeFeo Jr. had murdered his entire family. The Lutzes fled 28 days later, claiming intense paranormal activity that included apparitions, strange substances, and levitations. Their story became a bestselling book and a successful film in 1979, although its veracity has been the subject of intense debate, with accusations that it was a hoax fabricated for financial gain.
These cases attracted the attention of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, who investigated Amityville and became central figures in the genre. Their work on cases like that of the Perron family in Rhode Island (the basis for The Conjuring) and the Enfield poltergeist in England cemented their reputation and proved the public’s enormous appetite for these stories. True Haunting inherits this legacy, using the production tools of the streaming era to continue the tradition of documenting the inexplicable, but now with the cinematic pulse of James Wan—the same filmmaker who brought the Warrens’ stories to a new generation.
The Creative Alliance of RAW and Atomic Monster
The innovative nature of True Haunting is the direct result of a calculated strategic alliance between two production companies with complementary specialties: RAW and Atomic Monster. This collaboration is not merely a co-production but a fusion of two worlds—documentary rigor and cinematic horror mastery—to create a product that stands on the expertise of both.
On one hand, Atomic Monster, the production company founded by James Wan, brings its unparalleled experience in creating some of the most successful and recognizable horror franchises of the last two decades, such as Saw, Insidious, and The Conjuring. Its involvement ensures that the “horror” component of the series is executed with the highest level of cinematic quality, applying directing, sound design, and editing techniques that are proven to effectively generate fear and suspense in a global audience.
On the other hand, RAW, a production company owned by All3Media, provides credibility and expertise in the documentary field. With a track record of producing acclaimed documentaries and, crucially, being the creators of Paranormal Witness, RAW has mastered the art of structuring narratives based on real testimony. Their team knows how to interview witnesses to obtain compelling accounts and how to build a factual story that is both respectful and captivating. RAW ensures that the “real” part of True Haunting is grounded in a solid documentary foundation.
This synergy allows the project to overcome the limitations inherent to each genre individually. A traditional horror production company might treat real testimonies in a sensationalized or inauthentic way, while a conventional documentary company might lack the tools to create truly effective cinematic fear sequences. The collaboration between RAW and Atomic Monster solves this dilemma, creating a balance where RAW’s documentary integrity validates Atomic Monster’s cinematic terror, and vice versa. The result is a product designed to simultaneously attract fans of documentaries and true crime, as well as horror film aficionados, thereby significantly broadening its potential reach. The cohesion of this vision is reflected in a unified list of executive producers for both stories, which includes James Wan, Simon Allen, Mark Lewis, Lindsay Shapero, Scott Stewart, Michael Clear, and Rob Hackett.
A New Dimension for Paranormal Stories
True Haunting is shaping up to be an ambitious and stylistically defined project that seeks to elevate the conventions of its genre. Through the strategic fusion of documentary credibility, courtesy of RAW, and the sophistication of cinematic horror, under the unmistakable brand of James Wan and Atomic Monster, the series aims to establish a new standard of quality.
By abandoning the self-contained episodic format in favor of serialized narrative arcs, and by investing in a carefully constructed atmosphere of dread rather than relying on easy scares, the production aligns itself with the expectations of a modern audience accustomed to complex and visually stunning narratives. The series promises to deliver “real stories, dark secrets, and pure fear” through an approach described as “elegant, chilling, and disturbingly real.”
By blurring the boundaries between reality and cinematic representation, True Haunting not only documents fear but designs it, inviting viewers to experience these unsettling stories with unprecedented intensity. This new project, aiming to redefine fact-based horror, premieres on Netflix on October 7th.
