Updated

Updated · Deadline · Aug 20

Netflix Unveils Full 'Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story' Trailer Ahead of Sept. 17 Premiere

Updated

Updated · Deadline · Aug 20

Netflix Unveils Full 'Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story' Trailer Ahead of Sept. 17 Premiere

Q: Why does modern serial killer Aileen Wuornos appear in Netflix's new 19th-century thriller about Lizzie Borden's infamous axe murders?

Aileen Wuornos appears because Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan are using her as a thematic bridge, not as a literal figure in Lizzie Borden’s 1892 case. Reporting around the trailer indicates Sarah Paulson’s Wuornos shows up in scenes set decades later and is portrayed as someone influenced by Borden’s legend. The creators and star Ella Beatty have said the season is exploring a “legacy of female rage” and the conditions that can push women toward violence. In that framework, Wuornos helps connect Borden’s story to a later, modern case. That also fits the central question of the Monster anthology: whether killers are “made or born.” Beatty said Wuornos’ presence serves the show’s broader examination of “why women kill,” while Netflix has described her role as a “crucial part in the thematic focus” of the season. Ian Brennan has likewise called her arrival an “unexpected breath of fresh air,” suggesting the series uses her to widen the story beyond a straight period retelling. Murphy has also said this season has “three really great ‘monsters’ behind it”: Lizzie Borden, Aileen Wuornos and Elizabeth Báthory. So Wuornos is there to place Borden inside a larger lineage of notorious female violence, mythmaking and cultural obsession. In short, Wuornos appears not because she was connected to the Borden murders historically, but because the series wants to compare two infamous women across time and ask what social repression, trauma and rage can produce.

3 articles · Updated · Deadline · Aug 20

Netflix released the full trailer for “Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story,” giving a broader look at the anthology’s fourth season before its Sept. 17 debut.
Sarah Paulson appears as serial killer Aileen Wuornos, while Charlie Hunnam and Rebecca Hall are newly shown as Lizzie Borden’s father and stepmother alongside Ella Beatty’s Lizzie.
The trailer opens with the line, “Blood is power. Blood is freedom,” extending the darker tone introduced in Netflix’s 56-second teaser released on Aug. 11.
Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s latest “Monster” installment centers on Borden as the series’ first female “monster,” revisiting the infamous unsolved ax murders through a story of repression, revenge and legend-building.