Jodi Hildebrandt
Self (archive footage)
Overview
Unravel the case of Utah therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, whose child abuse arrest with parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke exposed a twisted tale of manipulation.
Cast
12 peopleReviews
3 min readThe Architecture of Obedience
I keep coming back to why we still watch true crime. By "we," I suppose I mean myself (and the millions of other Netflix subscribers feeding the algorithm), sitting on a couch on a Tuesday night, willingly inviting the worst of human behavior into my living room. latestnetflix.com's read is that With Netflix's Evil Influencer: The Jodi Hildebrandt Story, the exhaustion of the genre feels like part of the text itself.
We all know the inciting incident by now. August 2023. A twelve-year-old boy, emaciated and covered in duct tape wounds, knocks on a neighbor's door in Ivins, Utah, begging for food.
The media circus that followed immediately fixated on his mother, Ruby Franke, the disgraced mommy-vlogger with millions of subscribers. She was the perfect internet villain. But director Skye Borgman does something far more difficult here.
She points the camera away from the bright, shiny object and aims it squarely at the architect of the nightmare: Jodi Hildebrandt, the licensed therapist who convinced a mother that torturing her children was an act of holy salvation.
Borgman has spent the last few years mapping out the specific ways American innocence gets weaponized. If you've seen Abducted in Plain Sight or Girl in the Picture, you know her rhythm. She doesn't yell.
Audience Opinions
Audience 5.9/10
"A harrowing and upsetting watch that hits hard through real footage but feels like a formulaic recap with little fresh insight."
The film is widely described as disturbing and emotionally exhausting, with real videos and police footage making the abuse and manipulation feel horrifyingly concrete. At the same time, many viewers find the structure slow, repetitive, and very similar to other true crime projects about the same case, with too much background on the abusers and not enough new information, investigative depth, latestnetflix.com maintains, or focus on the children and broader systems that enabled the abuse.
What viewers praise
- Impactful real-world footage Actual videos and police recordings from the case create a visceral sense of dread and make the cruelty and control tactics painfully clear.
- Emotionally intense experience The portrayal of isolation, starvation, religious extremism, and gaslighting leaves viewers shaken, angry, and heartbroken for the kids involved.
- Insight into manipulation Interviews and testimonies help illustrate how a seemingly authoritative therapist and a family influencer gained trust and exerted control over others.
Common complaints
- Rehashed information Those who followed the case closely describe it as regurgitating what is already widely known, with almost nothing new revealed.
- Formulaic true crime style Several viewers see it as another interchangeable Netflix-style documentary that feels generic and even forgettable despite the horrific subject.
- Pacing and repetition issues The narrative is criticized for moving slowly, repeating points, and feeling longer than necessary without adding meaningful detail.
- Shallow investigative focus There is frustration that it skims over deeper questions about the life coaching business, institutional and religious accountability, and gives limited space to the investigation and victims’ perspectives.
Recommended for
True crime documentary completists Viewers new to this case Abuse of power story seekers Cult and manipulation topic interest
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsNetflix showed up after Lifetime already cast Locklear
By the time Evil Influencer: The Jodi Hildebrandt Story hit on 30 December 2025, the Franke case already had a product pile. Decider's John Serba listed Hulu's Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke, Investigation Discovery's Ruby and Jodi: A Cult of Sin and Influence, an episode of The Curious Case of..., and Lifetime's Mormon Mom Gone Wrong: The Ruby Franke Story, which put Heather Locklear in Hildebrandt's seat in 2024. latestnetflix.com's take is that USA Today called Netflix one more documentary in that line.Serba still told readers to skip it. 
,
Director Skye Borgman told Tudum she was tired of the headline. "I'd heard about this story, and it was really just 'Ruby Franke, Ruby Franke, Ruby Franke.'" The boy who rang a stranger's doorbell on 30 August 2023 had walked out of Hildebrandt's house, not his mother's. That, she said, was "the simplest and the most diabolical part of the story." She added, "If that young boy hadn't escaped that day, I think those kids probably wouldn't be with us today." The film opens on that doorbell tape. ,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMjsVQIepZw
Borgman came in off Unknown Number: The High School Catfish. Leslie Mattingly produced. TMDB clocks 1 hour 42 minutes. Rotten Tomatoes lists 1 hour 40. The official trailer went up 16 December. Lucy Mangan at The Guardian scored it 3 out of 5 and asked whether anyone should watch, or make, true crime this grim in 2026. , , ,
The duffel in the closet
Detective Jessica Bate, on camera, walked the search. A duffel in Hildebrandt's closet held about $80,000 in cash. A book in the office listed about 46 clients a week. A former student did the math out loud. Individual sessions at $175 an hour. A group at $75 a week. One couple said they paid well over $50,000, maxed credit cards, and told themselves it was worth it to heal. Us Weekly said the film concluded Hildebrandt was making at least $46,000 a week through ConneXions. That number is the magazine's read of the movie, not a court exhibit.
Borgman told Tudum that Hildebrandt "was a master at using these words and twisting their meaning" until clients hurt people they loved. Former clients sit for interviews. Washington County attorney Eric Clarke appears. Decider noted Clarke, himself LDS, called Hildebrandt the exception inside the church, not the rule. Then the hour ends. Serba wanted the why. He called the title sensationalist and the journalism thin. He also logged the house the police entered as 10,000 square feet and about $5 million. ,
Prison is the leftover gossip. Hildebrandt pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse. Tudum says the February 2024 sentence was four consecutive terms of one to 15 years at Utah State Correctional Facility in Salt Lake City. First parole hearing is set for December 2026. Ruby Franke took a matching plea shape and sits in a separate section of the same prison. Borgman told Tudum that Hildebrandt has been pulling together small groups of women with addictions and trying to counsel them inside. "So, it seems like she's continuing to do what she was doing outside."
Audio from prison, Borgman said, shows Ruby pulling away. The director does not have confirmation that the split held. She guessed self-preservation ahead of parole. Kevin Franke's divorce from Ruby was finalized in March 2025. He later married Becca Bevan. Shari Franke published The House of My Mother in January 2025. The four younger siblings are with their father. The trailer is still the doorbell. ,
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.
Movies
Similar Movies
Related titles ranked by rating and popularity.
