Monster: Lizzie Borden Story Hits Netflix Sept. 17
All eight episodes of Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story arrive on Netflix on Sept. 17, with Ella Beatty as Lizzie Borden.
She is the first woman to lead the anthology, meaning each season tells a separate true story with a new cast. Netflix bills Borden as Monster's first female "monster" The Hollywood Reporter.
The cast includes Beatty, Charlie Hunnam and Sarah Paulson, according to Netflix's Tudum site. Hunnam stars alongside Beatty The Hollywood Reporter, while Paulson was confirmed for the season in August Netflix Tudum. The series comes from Ryan Murphy.
Beatty previously appeared in Feud: Capote vs. the Swans The Hollywood Reporter. Her casting puts a 32-year-old case with a young female accused at the centre of a franchise previously built around men.
The story starts on Aug. 4, 1892, in Fall River, Massachusetts. That morning Lizzie Borden found her father dead in the parlour of their Second Street home. Her stepmother figure Abby Borden was found dead upstairs in a guest room.
Both victims had been struck in the head with a hatchet nearly a dozen times each The Hollywood Reporter. Borden was arrested and stood trial. A jury found her not guilty.
For viewers new to the case, that acquittal is why the name lasted. No one else was convicted. The mystery of who killed Andrew and Abby Borden has fuelled books, plays and screen versions for more than a century.
Netflix's season is at least the fourth scripted retelling of the case. The best-known earlier version was The Legend of Lizzie Borden, a TV movie released by ABC in 1975. Murphy's take brings the story to a global streaming audience for the first time.
All eight episodes drop together on Sept. 17 The Hollywood Reporter. That box-set release, meaning the full season is available at once, follows Netflix's usual pattern for Monster.
What makes this stand out is the slot it fills. True crime is one of television's most crowded genres. A 19th-century acquittal now headlines one of Netflix's flagship anthologies.
