‘‘Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke” directed by Olly Lambert and produced by Passion Pictures, was released on Feb. 27. The documentary featured a Latter-day Saints family YouTube channel, known as the “8 Passengers,” describing the six children and two parents, which had more than 2 million subscribers. The channel, which started in Jan. 2015, filmed daily family vlogs to spread the happiness of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. However, things quickly started to change as their fame grew and new people began to enter their lives, such as her business partner, Jodi Hildebrandt.
In August 2023, Ruby’s youngest son escaped from Hildebrandt’s house and went to a neighbor’s house to call for help. The 12-year-old boy and his sister had been abused because Ruby said she believed her children were demonically possessed and that it was her job to get the demons out of her children through pain.
In this three-part documentary series, it is clear that viewers were being deceived by the Ruby they saw online, as Hulu was given a thousand hours of unedited footage by the Franke family. Ruby pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse towards her two youngest children in December of 2023 and was sentenced to four consecutive, one-to-15 years in jail, along with Hildebrandt.
There was a wide range of interviews throughout the documentary, which allowed listeners to understand the whole story as there were multiple points of view. The documentary interviewed three family members: Ruby’s husband, Kevin Franke, their eldest daughter, Shari and their eldest son, Chad. Some of Ruby’s neighbors were also interviewed, along with people who had worked for Hildebrandt’s business, ConneXions, which gave therapy sessions about relationships and parenting through the church’s teachings.
The first episode, titled “Abundance,” focused on the beginning years of Ruby’s family vlogging. In the documentary, Kevin said that in the Latter-day Saint faith, one of the highest callings is becoming a parent. He also said Ruby wanted to be the “perfect mother,” so she thought that by recording daily vlogs of her happy family, she could express the Latter-day Saint faith, making others join. Their fame peaked in 2017, and the family started to make over $100,000 a month with the videos they were creating. However, as the children grew up, Shari and Chad said they started to lose their passion for creating content. That did not stop Ruby from forcing her children to be in the YouTube videos, as shown through the unedited video clips.
After publishing a video about Chad sleeping on a bean bag for seven months after losing his bed and room privileges, “8 Passengers” was canceled online. Around the same time, Ruby was introduced to Hildebrandt’s teachings and soon became the face of ConneXions. In 2022, Ruby discontinued “8 Passengers” and changed it to “Moms of Truth,” where she taught strict and sometimes outrageous lessons about parenting with Hildebrandt.
The documentary did an amazing job of explaining the complex story of Ruby Franke; however, there were a few holes that were never filled, such as where the two middle children are and their stories. The series mainly focuses on the other family members and only gives a few minutes to mention the middle children.
Aside from that, the editing was very engaging. Former followers of “8 Passengers” can expect to appreciate the documentary’s insight.
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