A picture-perfect family with a picture perfect life meets the neighbors of their nightmares in A Friend of the Family, the upcoming drama series based on the true story of a young girl who was abducted twice by the same man, a family friend who used a web of manipulation, blackmail and out of this world lies to warp her mind and drive her family apart. Steamy secrets, drugging  aliens, and underage marriage  it is hard to believe that this actually happened, but in a time before the internet, cell phones, and Chris Hansen, the unthinkable was possible, and a charismatic man used his charm to get away with whatever he could in 1972.




Fifty years later Universal Content Productions is telling the mind-bending story that you will have to see to believe. Series creator Nick Antosca, who is known for the true crime film The Act and the 2021 Netflix original Brand New Cherry Flavor, mixes soft colors and dreamy nostalgia with shocking dark undertones, managing to depict the odd sensation that everything is perfectly fine and very not okay simultaneously. This sick and bewildering story, with its strange balance of tense emotions, will surely have audiences on the edge of their seats as they watch each layer of lies and manipulation unfold. If you’re looking to learn more about this unbelievable true crime series, we have tapped the lines and tracked down all the information you need to know leading up to the premiere of A Friend of the Family.


A slow and eerie rendition of The Turtles So Happy Together plays as the trailer for A Friend of the Family sets the tone for a tense and twisted true-crime series. The ninety-second-long preview released on Peacock’s official YouTube channel gives audiences a glimpse into the surreal, not quite right feeling of the dramatic show. Set in the sun-washed 70s and drenched in creepy connotations, viewers can see the young girls riding bullhorn bicycles down quaint streets. Quiet parents share charged glances in deafening silences, and the naive smile of a child who doesn’t know any better glows bright against the troubling gaze of a master manipulator in disguise. The soft colors used in the trailers' cinematography paint a picture of the naivety and innocence of the young main character. Meanwhile, the rising tensions and warped emotions of knowing adults grow in flashes of dark scenes, detailing the duality and peculiar balance of the two families’ high stakes reality.