Ryan Murphy is back with another season of his true crime anthology Monsters, this time bringing the story of the Menéndez brothers to the screens. Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story trailer gave a chilling glimpse into the twisted life of the Menéndez family leading up to the cold-blooded murder of José (Javier Bardem) and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menéndez (Chloë Sevigny) by their sons.
General Hospital alum Nicholas Alexander Chavez and Cooper Koch to play the Menéndez brothers, Lyle and Erik, respectively. The trailer showed the strange dual dynamic of the family where they appear picture perfect from the outside but have dark secrets among themselves.
“I need to know what’s going on with you and the boys,” Sevigny’s Kitty says, to which José replies, “What do you mean?” Kitty says she doesn’t want “anymore lies between us,” and promises she “won’t tell” some secret to people.
The trailer ends with the brothers hugging each other, shirtless, as one of them says, “It’s just us now. We are on our own,” in the voiceover, followed by a gunshot sound. The Menéndez brothers were convicted of murder and were sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. The prosecution claimed that they committed the crime for money, but the brothers claimed that their parents were physically, sexually, and emotionally abusive.
In 2017, chatting with Dateline, Lyle revealed that their story was considered “different” to create a media frenzy over the fact the brothers killed their parents for money. “There are, like, two to three hundred parricide cases a year where a parent is killed by a child. And they are almost all related to abuse,” he said.
However, their stay in Beverly Hills and their father’s wealth allowed the media to switch the narrative conveniently. He believed that it was easier to sell the headline that “these brothers killed for money.”
This series is the second installment in Murphy’s anthology, which focuses on fictional retelling of true crime cases. The first season focused on Jeffrey Dahmer (Evan Peters), a cold-blooded serial killer known as the Milwaukee cannibal and the unfortunate victims. Despite intense and graphic storytelling, the show earned several accolades, including 13 Emmy nominations.
Niecy Nash-Betts won for the best supporting actress for her portrayal of Glenda Cleveland Dahmer’s neighbor who warned police that he was a dangerous man way before he was caught.
Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story will premiere on Netflix on September 19.
