Netflix Debuts 4th Monster Season on Lizzie Borden's 1892 Axe Murders

3 articles · Updated · BBC.com · Sep 17

Netflix released "Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story" on Sept. 17, making the 1892 Fall River killings the anthology’s fourth season and latest true-crime subject.
Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan frame the series around the still-unsolved case of Lizzie Borden, who was acquitted in 1893 after her father and stepmother were killed with a hatchet.
The new dramatization leans into themes of female rage and social constraint, with Ella Beatty’s Lizzie portrayed closer to recent feminist retellings than earlier colder screen versions.
Some scenes also bring in Sarah Paulson as Aileen Wuornos, linking Borden’s story to a broader argument about how women’s violence is interpreted in different eras.
The case has endured for 134 years because no one else was tried, key evidence remained circumstantial, and the acquittal left a mystery that writers and filmmakers keep revisiting.