American Nightmare, directed by Bernadette Higgins and Felicity Morris (The Tinder Swindler), is a 3-part docuseries that examines the abduction of Denise Huskins in 2015, taken after a home invasion in Vallejo, California. Her boyfriend Aaron Quinn, who was tied up, blindfolded and sedated by who he thought was multiple kidnappers wearing wetsuits, was accused by both Vallejo police and the FBI of concocting the story, which means that something happened to Huskins that he was covering up. But when Huskins was dropped off at her childhood home in Huntington Beach, 400 miles away, two days later, she was accused of staging her own Gone Girl-style disappearance.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? American Nightmare certainly has the same feel as Higgins and Morris’ previous work, The Tinder Swindler.

Our Take: If you followed the Huskins case, colloquially known as the “Gone Girl kidnapping,” then you know that Matthew Muller, who was the actual kidnapper in the case, has gotten up to 40 years in prison for the crime, which the former attorney planned meticulously. Huskins was sexually assaulted while being held by Muller, but she was reluctant to report it due to the direction law enforcement’s questioning was going. Muller and Quinn are now married with two children, using the money they won after successfully suing the Vallejo PD for their false accusations to make the public aware of their ordeal.

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‘American Nightmare’: Where is Denise Huskins’ Kidnapper Matthew Muller Now?

Muller was sentenced to 40 years in prison. By Raven Brunner @raventbrunner

Higgins and Morris are going to eventually get there, of course, but their goal with American Nightmare is to point out how confirmation bias permeated most aspects of this investigation. The cops assumed a lot about both Quinn and Huskins, and they made the evidence they found fit the narrative they had created, even when there was either an absence of any hard evidence in some cases and outright contrarian evidence in others.

So what the filmmakers are doing is teasing things out. Most of the first episode is spent with Quinn, both with him talking to the filmmakers today and the video of the extensive questioning by Detective Mustard and other law enforcement officers conducted with him. That footage is the most remarkable part of the first episode, with Mustard saying he’s a “puzzle maker” who puts together the pieces of the puzzle on a case. Granted, Quinn’s story was elaborate, but the mental road Mustard went down and the conclusions he came to were breathtaking in their extremes.

In the second episode, the filmmakers talk to Huskins, as the Gone Girl accusations against here were more or less the second phase of this case. Knowing what we know about the case, we’re a bit wary that the filmmakers are stretching things out like this, giving the impression that Huskins and Quinn aren’t together anymore or that the two of them didn’t have a happy ending. But because the purpose of the show is to show just how extreme that aforementioned confirmation bias was, it’s ultimately the right choice to have each member of the couple tell their stories separately.