User reviews

The story is very fascinating, but the storytelling is weak confusing. The interviewer was not asking the obvious good questions.

The repetition of info was maddening. I swear they say the same thing like 5-6 times sometimes. The editing could have saved a lot of time for viewers. But I guess they stretch it out to make more money or something.

The attempt at drama, with showing each son's picture breaking was tacky. Not a lot more to say other than if you can ignore the general production, you'll be OK, which is why I didn give it a lower rating.

Not sure if the director is the editor and the producer or what, but it seems amateurish. It shows that almost anyone can do this work now, since the audience no longer seems to care. AI would do it about this good.

The information you're exposed to from this story is fantastic. It's a great story of awareness on the topic of mental health. However, the production seemed poorly organized. I felt it was very choppy, moving from one topic to the next, and then right back to a previous topic. If unorganized story is a pet-peeve for you, maybe skip this. If not, feel free to watch as it's a wonderful insight into the world of mental health. This family's story is so sad and to be able to hear first account from them is very eye-opening.

I really appreciate movies like this that bring awareness to mental health!

I'm not sure why there were so many negative reviews. I had no expectations going into it and that's probably why I really enjoyed the documentary and found the story engrossing and intriguing. If you go into it thinking there will be answers and it will be neatly tied up at the end, you won't get that. This documentary reflects real life... Messy and frequently you're left with more questions than answers.

The story of the family is paced well and gives a well rounded understanding from the start as it takes you through the heartbreaking decline and breaking apart of a beautiful and idyllic family life. The trauma this family experienced is horrendous and I found the story telling from those both with and without schizophrenia to be particularly interesting. Very well put together.

I found myself furious at some of the siblings, but in a family where trauma, emotional distancing and mental illness has been an issue, it really makes sense how divided and distant the siblings are and the various perspectives based on how they coped with all the madness. I found the ending particularly interesting with Mary's kids.

If you are interested in mental illness and the way it deeply effects and damages families, and are not thinking you will receive answers, than I think you will truly enjoy this documentary. Only negative was the editing that was poorly done with each episode cutting off with the streaming. You miss the the last minute of every episode.

It's a shame that mental health is still such a stigma and society. It is one of the reasons that our jails are completely full because this country has not learned how to deal with mental health. I think these documentaries are important, and should continue as it relates to how it affects a family. I cannot believe a reviewer that blames the parents, when six of their children out of 12 have schizophrenia. This is a very serious disease of the mind. We also know that it is hereditary. My father was schizophrenic and luckily I'm not, but I continue to advocate for mental health while keeping a close eye on my daughter.

This is not a bad documentary. And one must remember that this is the late 60s in early 70s when a ton of mental institutions were being closed because medication was supposed to be the savior. Unless you have dealt with someone in your family, let alone six in your immediate family deal with this horrible disease. You should not comment on here and point fingers. It's heartbreaking, but these stories need to be told!

As anyone who was born before about 1975 and/or studied in the mental health field will find this all too familiar and heartbreaking to view- unfortunately our family has both aspects; born in '66 and a practicing psychologist for over three decades with a specialization in childhood trauma this series is terrifying.

We so easily forget how far we've come where mental health is concerned- the familiar rallying cry I hear these days is 'we need to bring back asylums!', but anyone younger than around 35 has no idea how horrific these facilities were. The conditions were absolutely horrific- often employed people who could have easily been patients, filth and grime covered everything, the permeating smell of urine/feces, overcrowding, people with things like Down Syndrome housed with schizophrenics, etc., and it's just impossible to describe how awful these places were. And as deplorable as it sounds, this was just the thinking and long-held belief that this was the best place for those with abnormal conditions or birth defects. But with the rampant conditions of abuse and/or neglect, in the 80s Reagan said 'nope, the federal government should not and cannot oversee this. Each state needs to handle its own population and care for those who are incapable of self care', and most states subsequently began closing them down with little to no alternative for parents/families. Eventually communities began creating somewhat viable alternatives for people with disabilities like Downs, Autism, CF (typically didn't survive childhood) etc., and those with things classified as dementia, melancholia, hysteria, could be held indefinitely. So it's no wonder that the family stood on business (so to speak) and refused permanent residency in an insane asylum.

What we now know are genetic traits and you are predisposed to being a schizophrenic, and in being one, you are incredibly likely to pass on to any offspring you may parent, is leaps and bounds ahead of even fifty years ago. When things like electroshock therapies, lobotomies (through the orbital into the brain) and awful medications like lithium (largely over-prescribed), metrazol (they honestly believed seizures would cure the 'insane'), blood letting, etc were finally done away with and useful medications began to come online, we began to see society become more comfortable caring for and living with those who suffer things like schizophrenia. But there's still so much we don't know/understand. Like how a patient who is progressing well with their current medication can suddenly begin relapsing, or medications that work very well can become ineffective and the psychosis can slowly seep back in. And even when their caregivers see it start to slip away, it's often increasingly difficult to convince the patient of the regression and get them in to their doctor for analysis.

I'm quite sure there's immeasurable damage done to these siblings by the behavior of their siblings (my heart absolutely breaks for Mary) and more that would be done today so mom wasn't shouldered with the complete care of her sons, but she did what she did because that's literally all that existed. She did a mostly good job of trying to care for them, and housing them in asylums may have been better for the family as a whole, but what's done is done and I sincerely hope these remaining children have solid resources that are employed regularly to help them cope with the residual trauma they're likely suffering.

A very well done documentary that shows us how far we've come and how far we have yet to go- if you or someone you love shows even the slightest symptoms, please seek help. Most often, the symptoms begin slowly and in adolescence, and exacerbate in the teens, spiraling from there. The key is to catch on before spiraling begins, and helping each other rather than ostracizing families.

Overall, the documentary is great! It's sad and eye opening to see how the family lived with SIX family members developing schizophrenia. The youngest sister Mary is a saint for continuing to take care of her brothers. The "healthy" brothers seem cold and callous towards their schizophrenic brothers. The one brother stated he's not a mental health professional so how could he help at all- many family members who take care of other sick family members are not medical doctors or professionals. They just want to push everything off on their sister and forget their brothers ever existed. Very sad to watch.

I could not stop crying. To see these beautiful lives devastated by mental illness-

It is disappointing to see reviews saying anything about this family making money on this- REALLY!?!?!

They are willing to share their stories and they have been through hell- I do hope they were able to make some money for sharing this amazing and tragic story. This family went through all of this in a time when mental illness had even more stigma than now.

We need more people willing to share their experiences with mental illness. Until everyone can see how it is effecting then we will continue with stigma and avoiding seeking help.

If you've ever wondered about family life with twelve kids in the middle of Colorado in the '60s and '70s, Six Schizophrenic Brothers is for you. :) But it's less about the where and when than the what and why. It truly is a captivating story with plenty of angles and theories as to how it all unraveled. The Galvin family were brave in sharing their truth with the world and shedding light on a disease that's often misunderstood.

In terms of production, tho, the series is a bit sloppy. An obvious example is when the end credits roll before people are even done talking. (And if you're watching on Max at the default settings, you get prompted for the "Next Episode" and the window auto-exits full screen while you're still trying to make out the dialogue.) It can be frustrating, like going out to the theater and having the curtains close and lights come on before the final scene is over. What's the rush? Where are we going? Choppy editing like that limits the impact of an otherwise powerful tale. Some of the stylistic choices do the same. The Galvins' saga is presented almost like a horror flick, with brothers emerging from the shadows for their interviews as if they personify danger; as if they're monsters. The eerie vibe seems like an unnecessary jab at their poor health.

And while I don't want to over-analyze the script because these folks are trying to recall events of 50 years ago- which can't be easy- some of their claims don't line up. For one, they suggest Peter's (#10's) illness may have been triggered by seeing his father suffer a stroke, which "greatly diminished" Dad's ability to communicate/take care of himself and hospitalized him for "at least six months." But then they imply both parents are to blame for not taking care of Peter after he got sick. What was Dad supposed to do? Was he not bedridden himself? The timeline is a bit shifty like that. It's not that they're lying but they do play it loose with some details, making it tough to distinguish between exaggerated memory and objective fact. In short, I thought the series could have been tightened up in editing, style and script. Which is not to say others won't enjoy it because the subject is compelling. I just felt it had greater potential, oddly for the same reason: because the subject really is compelling.

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As for my unsolicited, unprofessional view on their unfortunate story, I do wonder if the original source for all the mental illness wasn't the context itself: namely a single-income family with twelve blood brothers and sisters all living under the same roof. There's no textbook for how to deal with that in modern-day America. Indeed, the very first victim was the very first child- but only after all twelve were born. Seems like a clear red flag: this family's too big. Schizophrenia had never befallen their ancestors, nor has it yet appeared in any of their offspring. So it seems a safe bet that something about this *generation and this *environment spurred this *outcome. We can debate how they witnessed their dad's stroke, were abused by the priest, suffered head injuries playing sports, experimented with psychedelics, worked long hours in isolation... all as possible "triggers"- and the family does- but now we're drawing individual links to explain a group phenomenon. I'd be more inclined to look at the big picture, what with so many being supported by so few (no grandparents around either). For if the structural foundation is flawed, the home will be left more vulnerable to *any storm/trigger.

The fact that Mary (#12) is the only one who takes care of her sick brothers today reinforces that theory for me. The others seem not at all interested in holding up their end of the bargain. "We're not strong enough," they say, and that was tough to watch. I know the Galvins have endured a lifetime of trauma, but to abandon each other in their time of need is something else. It reflects a lack of empathy. After all, you hear the siblings use the word "fun" when they reminisce on their happiest times together- but never "love." Never. Their relationships seem linear and transactional to this day. So where is that rooted? Again, I'd say in a twelve-child household where everyone was used to competing for resources, attention and guidance. It affected them the same way then that it appears to affect them now- whether they're schizophrenic or not. Might this have simply been the case of too many people and no room for love?

Mary says early on that Mom and Dad wanted a large family for the sake of the Catholic Church. They felt it was their duty "to keep the faith going." It's an honorable pursuit and they're entitled to feel that way. But after all they went through and the tenor of their legacy, I can't help but think they might have been better served to prioritize child protection over wild procreation.

One star off for the random commercials and the abrupt ending, otherwise this was an excellent documentary. I had a hard time getting into it at first, but found episode 4 seriously interesting. Bless Mary for not giving up on her brothers! That woman will be sainted. Especially as a sexual abuse survivor who came out of the experience strong. I truly hope the best for her son and hope he can live a mentally healthy life. It's too bad the brothers instigating the abuse weren't taken out of the home as soon as the violence began so those without schizophrenia could've had a more peaceful upbringing (not pointing fingers at anyone because I wasn't there to understand the full situation). This poor family...I cannot imagine what it must've been like in that house.

What a hideously biased documentary that never actually says much of anything and was clearly made to give the martyr of the family attention. I felt so angry at the family's lack of willingness to dig deep and acknowledge the causes of the "schizophrenia", not to mention the ability to simply diagnose in order to disregard the very real trauma this family was dealing with. If you want to see a huge case study of denial and delusion, give this a watch. I question the ethics of the filmmaker as well, especially as they film the "sick" siblings in dark, dingy basements and seem to have asked them to act strangely in order to make them seem worse off than they were. The children's worship of their parents (who were clearly emotionally unavailable and distant to the point that the children believed that crying was a sign of mental illness) is almost cultlike. Was completely unsurprised to see in the credits that the family paid for this to be made.

There is a concept called nature versus nurture with development of mental illness. This show portrays the nature (genetic component) without any of the nurture (family dynamic). The family (parents) were obviously not there and hold no responsibility. The kids had obvious issues caused by neglect (priest molestation) which permeated down to the siblings. The family is seemingly crazy, extreme Catholic (evident by Donald's religious insanity) and the dozen children.

Rather than demoralize people with mental illness, (majority of mentally ill are victims of violence and not actually violent) we should focus on why the children were able to be molested, abused and placed into an extreme environment by absent parents.

This show also portrays schizophrenia as a death sentence. Many people with schizophrenia can live healthy, rich and productive lives with modern medicine. The fact is, misinformation and garbage such as this perpetuates a stereotype that is incorrect with modern day medical breakthroughs.

Complete drudgery.. The production is HORRIBLE.

Did they want people to watch this or fall asleep to it??

The musical tones (long tones, not music) soundtrack is doing its level best to try and PUSH some sort of drama behind the really monotonous, continual, repetitive nature of the talking heads. And really, that's all this series is.. listening to people talk about family history for 4 hours.

Eventually I set this to play a 1.5x speed just so it wasn't slow dreadfully slow. It gets so, so, so, so repetitive which is more noticeable at a faster playback speed.

The series is largely full of unnecessary backstory. Backstory I found uninteresting and WAY too focused on the minutia of a typical large family or just general growing up for many.

I mean back stories about what someone's interests were, what sports they played in high school, the music they liked, who they were dating, what someone's wife was like, etc. I mean exceptionally uninteresting things if you aren't related to any of these people. Then clinical explanations of schizophrenia as a disorder, or a lobotomy as a procedure - NOT as they relate to any of these family members. Doctors detailing the clinical explanations in case a viewer is unaware (which has me wondering why anyone would tune in if they didn't know these things.)

It's just a boring series. Nothing notable.

I suppose if you know someone in the family or were impacted by the family it may be interesting. But as someone completely unrelated to any of it... there was nothing of interest to me here.

They may as well have created a doc about 6 bothers that painted a house in Wyoming. You may be a tad curious about the color they chose, but do you REALLY care they painted a house? And do you really want to sit and watch the paint dry while the family details every brush stroke??

How do we feel about these family members, not selling out per se, but DEFINITELY selling thier stories (and sometimes thier souls) for a bit of coin and some recognition? In this case #12 female child, seems to relish in the story telling and the spotlight a weeeee too much for me - or what I feel one should (and yes that's 100 percent subjective) behave like when recounting these horrible tales of one's own brothers whom she 'survived' (right? Cause she herself stated that she's a survivor) (we're all such survivors today arnt we? Huzzah! ;))

But you know, be forewarned that Ive been down on these 'documentaries' as of late where the filmakers indiscriminately throw money at anyone within the jurisdiction at the time - in hopes of landing the next 'Jinx' or whatnot (lol, I killed them all of course) sooo you know, don't listen to me hahaha, I'm just a bill (and I'm sitting here on Capital Hill....) (winky face emoji)

I'd like to add, cause the other reviwer astutely brought it up - I too was AGAST at the depiction of the remaining brothers in the basement - the mere fact that this locale was scouted and STAGED for effect was repugnant at best - in addition I was also GREATLY OFFENED by the denial of the family members when referring to the death of one brother who in fact was a murderer - his death, in this case suicide, was entirely secondary to the murder of his girlfriend - but only once is he referred to by family as a murderer and only as an afterthought when seemingly the scene cuts for the producer to prompt a comment wherein she returns, as an afterthought - 'and he murdered....'

Again I found this despicable - I trust I wont be alone.

This did NOT need to be a series. A one hour documentary would have been more than enough. It is so repetitive - in fact, they reuse the same footage over and over throughout.

It isn't even really about schizophrenia. It's a very poorly produced litany of what life was like, I guess, in a household that had too many children to effectively manage. Parents were overwhelmed, kids were out of control, and ultimately were determined to have mental illness, but so much of this documentary comes off as dishonest, that who knows how true even that claim is.

For instance, a brother got arrested for drinking from a hose in some guy's yard and ended up in MAXIMUM security prison for that? Nah, I don't think that happened quite the way they claim.

This just seems like people who enjoy hearing their own voices.

I think this is a really compelling documentary and a even more compelling story but it just misses the mark in terms of where I wanted this to go. Because what this really needs is some deeper thought or some explanation, and I know there are can be no real explanation for this but what I mean is, some kind of expert who can at least hypothesise some sort of meaning out of this. And I know it's a huge story, although what I come away with is like I've been told a story with no prior knowledge so I feel like I have no stake in what's going on. But I know from that I can at least enjoy the story for what it is.

This is another one of those mostly one-sided documentaries that should not be a mini-series when one hour would have been plenty for sharing the meager information provided.

Granted, having 6 boys out of 12 siblings diagnosed with schizophrenia is not your run-of-the-mill family.

But beyond this there's little additional information revealed in the four long episodes.

For the most part, the documentary consists of the youngest sister reminiscing.

She is the one who is taking care of her ill brothers, which is laudable, but not enough to fill so many hours.

There were early signs of schizophrenia that were ignored by the parents: the oldest boy killing a dog in the bath tub, for example, continous fights and increasing violence coming from the boys.

Apparently, the parents didn't spend too much time with their children, just ignoring their antics until it was too late.

In the end, they even gave away one of her daughters to well-off friends of the family, because she could no longer cope with the violence she was submitted to from her brothers.

Obviously, the parents were tired, and chose to hide their heads in the sand, which brings me to my take on this: people should not have so many children if they can't take care of them properly.

And also, HBO should not have bought this boring documentary.