Netflix's 'Monster' turns the Lizzie Borden mystery into a dark, bloody and compelling tale of murder, female rage and historical fiction.
Spilt blood in the name of Borden’s rage. Picture: Supplied
There was a movie called So I Married an Axe Murderer somewhere in the early 90s. It was a Mike Myers funny.
Netflix’s Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story is about as far removed from slapstick as an axe can travel. Yet there’s still the peculiar risk of falling a little bit in love with its antagonist. And it is as close to a piece of dramatic perfection as, well, tales of vicious killers can be.
Borden was an axe murderer. Well, allegedly so, as she was never found guilty, but her story became ingrained in American folklore nonetheless.
Monster imagines Borden killing her dad and stepmom in an explosion of rage after years of abuse, repression and being made to feel small and insignificantly stupid. It answers a question history never has: why?
Borden’s take is the latest instalment in Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s true-crime anthology. It takes place in Fall River, Massachusetts, in 1892. And while there’s been a lot of creative licence along the way, the fabric of the show somewhat matches what allegedly happened in real life. Well, kind of and not quite.
The show somewhat matches Borden’s rage
The series gives Lizzie motives, relationships and even additional victims while drawing a line through female rage that stretches from alleged serial killer Elizabeth Báthory to Aileen Wuornos. It is a far more complete story than history has ever managed to provide because, despite the mythology that has grown around Lizzie Borden, nobody actually knows who killed Andrew and Abby Borden, her folks.
The pair were murdered in their home on 4 August 1892, Abby was struck 19 times and Andrew 11.
Lizzie was arrested, charged and put on trial, but a jury acquitted her in 1893. No one else was convicted and the murders remain unsolved.
Yet there were enough oddities of circumstance to keep suspicion alive. Borden had apparently attempted to buy poisonous prussic acid shortly before the murders and testimony emerged about her burning a dress after the killings.
There are a number of these loose ends that the showrunners tie together in sailor’s knots to form a narrative that’s as dramatically enticing as it is engaging and believable.
Even her relationship with servant Maggie and the latter’s role in the bloodshed, is invention rather than established history. But, goodness, it adds to the topsy-turvy plot. You’ve got to watch this, in fact, binge this show, to fully appreciate its cinematic intensity.
Watch the trailer
The show also jumps forward to real-life serial killer Aileen Wuornos, played by Sarah Paulson, and imagines her as inspired by Borden.
It even places Wuornos in the Borden home with her partner, although there is no evidence the real Wuornos was obsessed with Borden or her crimes. It’s another liberty, but one that feeds directly into the bigger story Murphy and Brennan are trying to tell about female rage.
The show also jumps backwards as Maggie introduces Lizzie to Elizabetta, a 16th-century Eastern European countess whose bloodlust and love for violence casts a chilly spell on the narrative.
The exceptional Ella Beatty stars as Borden, with Charlie Hunnam as her father Andrew, Rebecca Hall as stepmother Abby and Vicky Krieps as the family’s maid, Bridget “Maggie” Sullivan.
But Beatty is the absolute star of the show. She immersed herself in a character that’s part history and part invention, filling in blanks that have remained empty for more than a century. Beatty gives Borden a sensual, dark broodiness that’s permanently at boiling point beneath her skin.
Sensual, dark broodiness
Hunnam’s drunk coffin maker, complete with the bizarre practice of chopping the legs off corpses to ensure a good fit in his coffins, edges into the misogynistic views and ideals of relationships at the time.
Rebecca Hall’s ice-cold Abby, meanwhile, is the witch of stepmother witches. Together, the performances create the kind of suffocating household where the show’s version of Lizzie simmering towards breaking point becomes entirely believable.
Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story is definitely not everyone’s cup of tea.
The violence, decapitations and pigeon butchering require somewhat of a strong constitution. But this isn’t simply another serial-killer binge.
It’s an intricate, bloody dissection of female rage, using Borden as its starting point and a fictionalised account of Wuornos to carry the idea forward through time.
In the end, it doesn’t matter whether Borden swung the axe or not or how close to historical rumour-mongering the narrative lies.
What matters more than anything is that this is a fascinating, entertaining and beautifully shot and performed show.
