Netflix has officially released the Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story trailer, and it confirms what fans of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s true-crime anthology series suspected all along: the franchise is about to tell its darkest and most divisive story yet.
Posted to Netflix’s YouTube channel this week, the roughly 56-second teaser has already triggered a wave of coverage across entertainment outlets, and given the gravity of the subject matter — an unsolved 1892 double axe murder — it deserves a serious, fact-checked breakdown rather than breathless hype.
What the Trailer Actually Shows
The Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story trailer opens on a theater curtain drawing back to reveal a nearly bare stage, with a single piano key repeating in an unsettling loop. From there, the footage cuts to a chilling voiceover reciting the infamous folk rhyme that has followed the Borden case for over a century: “Lizzie Borden took an ax. Gave her mother 40 whacks.” As the sequence unfolds, viewers hear the repeated sound of an axe striking what is implied to be Lizzie’s mother, though the act itself is never shown on screen.
The clip closes on a stunned, blood-spattered Lizzie as a second voiceover finishes the rhyme: “When Lizzie saw what she had done, she gave her father 41.”. According to Deadline, actor Charlie Hunnam delivers that final line, a detail that has become one of the most discussed beats of the entire teaser.
Multiple outlets note that the tone is unmistakably in Murphy’s house style. Movieweb described the footage as slick, stylish, and full of artfully composed shots of Lizzie swinging her axe as blood splatters across her face — a visual signature that has defined every prior season of the anthology. The Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story trailer, in other words, is less interested in procedural detail than in mood, and that choice is already shaping early reactions.
The Story Netflix Is Telling
Beyond the imagery, Netflix has released an official logline that frames the season’s ambitions. The synopsis describes a repressed daughter of a wealthy New England family and her rebellious maid who escape into a fantasy of sex, power, and revenge after being trapped in a house built on humiliation and cruelty. The logline further states that the gruesome, unsolved murders that follow “give birth to an icon who refuses to live imprisoned in a cage, choosing instead to forge her own legend.”
That framing lines up with the real historical record. As The Wrap and the Boston Globe both recount, the case centers on the Fall River, Massachusetts household of Andrew and Abby Borden, who were found brutally killed with an axe on August 4, 1892. Lizzie Borden was tried for the killings and drew intense public scrutiny over her contradictory testimony, before ultimately being acquitted — a verdict that has never fully settled public suspicion, and one the show appears eager to reinterpret rather than resolve.
Cast and Creative Team Behind the Trailer
The Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story trailer puts Ella Beatty front and center in the title role. Beatty, previously seen in “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” and Murphy’s own “Feud: Capote vs. The Swans,” is the daughter of Warren Beatty and Annette Bening.
The Hollywood Reporter and Variety both flag her casting as significant for another reason: this marks the first time the “Monster” anthology has centered its story on a female subject, after previous seasons devoted to Jeffrey Dahmer, the Menendez brothers, and Ed Gein.
She isn’t carrying the season alone. Joining Beatty in the cast are Vicky Krieps, Charlie Hunnam, Rebecca Hall, Billie Lourd, and Jessica Barden. Per the Boston Globe, Rebecca Hall plays Lizzie’s stepmother, Abby Borden, while Charlie Hunnam — who previously played Ed Gein in the anthology’s third season — takes on the role of her father, Andrew Borden, and Vicky Krieps portrays maid Bridget Sullivan.
Behind the camera, the season is created and written by Ian Brennan and executive produced by Brennan, Ryan Murphy, Max Winkler, Eric Kovtun, Scott Robertson, Louise Shore, Nissa Diederich, Todd Kubrak, Carl Franklin, and Tanase Popa, with Winkler and Sarah Adina Smith directing.
Release Date Confirmed
Every outlet covering the Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story trailer points to the same premiere window. “Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story” premieres September 17 on Netflix, and Deadline confirms all eight episodes will be released on that date.
Not the First Screen Adaptation
Part of what makes the Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story trailer noteworthy is the crowded field it enters. Variety points out that the Borden case was previously dramatized in Lifetime’s “The Lizzie Borden Chronicles,” starring Christina Ricci, and in the 2018 film “Lizzie,” which starred Chloë Sevigny as Borden and Kristen Stewart as Bridget Sullivan. Murphy and Brennan’s version enters that lineage with considerably more resources, a starrier ensemble, and the anthology’s now-established appetite for stylized true crime.
Early Reactions Are Already Divided
Given how the prior three seasons of “Monster” have generated controversy for their sympathetic or stylized treatment of real killers, early commentary around the Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story trailer has followed a familiar pattern. Deadline’s coverage highlighted pointed reader reactions beneath the trailer itself, including remarks accusing Murphy of romanticizing violence and one comment wryly noting that “murderers keep this franchise alive”.
Movieweb similarly suggested that the new season could draw the same kind of criticism that has followed previous installments of the anthology, given the stylistic choices visible in the footage.
That tension is worth taking seriously. The Borden case involves the unsolved, violent deaths of two real people, and any dramatization — however handsomely produced — carries real weight for descendants, historians, and true-crime communities who continue to debate Lizzie Borden’s guilt or innocence.
The Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story trailer, in leaning so heavily into the rhyme and the imagery of the axe, signals a season that is likely to prioritize atmosphere and psychological interiority over a neutral procedural retelling — a creative choice that will almost certainly remain a talking point through the September premiere.
Where to Watch It
The trailer is available now on Netflix’s official YouTube channel and via Netflix’s official title page and Tudum, Netflix’s editorial hub.
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Sources
Coverage and verification for this breakdown of the Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story trailer drew on the following outlets:
- Variety — trailer release, logline, and franchise history
- Deadline — scene-by-scene trailer breakdown and reader reactions
- The Hollywood Reporter — cast details and episode count
- The Wrap — historical case background and premiere date
- Boston Globe — cast breakdown and regional context
- Flickering Myth — full cast list and logline
- MovieWeb — franchise context and critical outlook
- Netflix Tudum — official release information
- Netflix Official Site — official teaser and title page
