Los Angeles, CA – Ian Brennan’s latest instalment in the Monster series travels back to the 19th century to explore the Lizzie Borden case. The show opens with direct quotes from the District and Defense Attorneys involved in Lizzie Borden’s trial, which state something to the effect of: such a horrific crime is impossible for a woman to carry out. Brennan, and Ryan Murphy, who served as an Executive Producer, appear to have taken the mantle for all women to prove these theories wrong. The offense they take at the accusation that a woman may be so weak leads them down an impatient and muddled path that ends with a caricaturish sum of all female killers.
Brennan helmed the writing charge for this project alone, and the story starts by revealing the murder, and the murderers. In the late 19th century, Andrew Borden (Charlie Hunnam) and his wife Abby (Rebecca Hall) were found brutally hacked to death at their house in Fall River, Massachusetts. Andrew’s younger daughter, Lizzie (Ella Beatty), was charged and then eventually acquitted of the crime. With the more technical details about the Borden murders out of the way, the rest of the eight-episode show becomes free for Brennan to chalk out the more human details of the case. The writing of the show mistakes human for horrid. Brennan’s writing revives the blunt force of that axe to deliver a choppy saga about family and feminism.
Rebecca Hall acting as the constantly condescending stepmother to Lizzie makes some sense of a half-hearted script, while Ella Beatty as Lizzie delivers a pretty decent transition from the sheltered victim to an axe-wielding liberator. However, Brennan’s interests lie so far beyond the Borden family that the actors barely get time to breathe in their character before the scene chops away. As with the previous instalments involving Jeffrey Dahmer, the Menendez brothers, and Ed Gein, Lizzie Borden’s story spends much of its time zooming on the blood, gore, and violence, often at the expense of establishing the socio-cultural contexts for the Borden family.
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If that’s not enough, Lizzie’s story encounters more distractions when the writing jumps time and place to show the audience the life of the 1990s serial killer Aileen Wuornos (Sarah Paulson). Murphy and Brennan establish the connection as Aileen being some kind of Lizzie Borden superfan. The show also jumps back in time to show the alleged crimes carried out by the 16th century Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Báthory, whom Lizzie gets fascinated with. Murphy and Brennan attempt some kind of cross-temporal journey to link one female killer to another, but in the process flatten all the women to represent the sum of the crimes committed against them, and the crimes they subsequently committed against others. Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story is available to stream on Netflix.
