Netflix just dropped the official full Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story Trailer on its YouTube channel, and if you thought the previous seasons of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s true-crime anthology were unhinged, buckle up. This one’s got axes, repression, rebellious maids, and enough crimson to make a Renaissance painting jealous.
The Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story Trailer arrives just in time to remind us that 1892 Fall River, Massachusetts, was no picnic—unless your idea of a picnic involves 40-plus whacks.
For the uninitiated (or those who only know the nursery rhyme), Lizzie Borden was the young woman accused—and famously acquitted—of the 1892 axe murders of her father and stepmother. The Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story Trailer doesn’t exactly play coy about its take on the unsolved case. It leans hard into the idea that one repressed daughter and her rebellious maid decided the house of humiliation and cruelty needed a serious renovation… via hatchet.
Official logline time: when the repressed daughter of a wealthy New England family and her rebellious maid find themselves trapped in a house built on humiliation and cruelty, they escape into a fantasy of sex, power, and revenge. The gruesome unsolved murders that follow don’t just shock the world—they give birth to an icon who refuses to live imprisoned in a cage.
Shocking, monstrous, and gloriously free. In other words, the Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story Trailer promises the wildest installment yet.
What Does The Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story Trailer Tell Us?
Let’s break down the Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story Trailer itself, because it’s a two-minute masterclass in stylish dread mixed with pure camp energy. It opens with Bridget “Maggie” Sullivan (Vicky Krieps) delivering the thesis statement for the entire season: “There’s nothing wrong with blood. Blood is power. Blood is freedom.” Lizzie (Ella Beatty) is listening closely.
We get glimpses of the toxic household dynamics—Charlie Hunnam’s Andrew Borden and Rebecca Hall’s Abby Borden serving peak Victorian parental disappointment—while Lizzie and Maggie bond over shared misery and increasingly spicy daydreams. Weapon selection becomes a whole subplot: a knife is too easy, a rifle almost too kind.
Nope. They’re going full axe.
“Just let me have the first whack,” Lizzie says, and you can practically hear the entire internet nodding in agreement.
The Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story Trailer doesn’t skimp on the aftermath either. Ella Beatty ends up covered in blood like she just walked out of a particularly aggressive abstract art installation, and the investigators deliver the classic line: “No way a woman could do this. This is the work of a man.” Cue the audience rolling its eyes so hard they risk injury.
Then comes the final twist: Sarah Paulson shows up as Aileen Wuornos, decades later, essentially saying “Oh, I f—king know what happened.” Because of course this season connects the dots between female “monsters” across time. Murphy has teased that this installment features three great ones: Lizzie, Wuornos, and Elizabeth Báthory (also played by Krieps in dual duty). The Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story Trailer knows exactly how to leave you wanting more.
Cast-wise, this is a stacked deck. Ella Beatty steps into the lead as the first female “monster” of the anthology after turns in Feud: Capote vs. The Swans and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. Vicky Krieps brings her signature intensity as the live-in maid who becomes Lizzie’s partner in fantasy and (possibly) crime.
Charlie Hunnam, fresh off playing Ed Gein last season, switches to patriarchal villain mode as Andrew. Rebecca Hall is the stepmother you love to hate. Billie Lourd, Jessica Barden, Joey Pollari, and the aforementioned Paulson round things out. Directors include Max Winkler for most episodes and Sarah Adina Smith for a couple. All eight episodes drop on Netflix on September 17, 2026.
Publications have been all over the Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story Trailer. Netflix Tudum called it a case of Ella Beatty seeing red and highlighted the “hell hath no fury” vibe. The Hollywood Reporter focused on the bloody tale of the infamous axe murders and the first female lead. Deadline covered the earlier teaser and the full drop.
Check out the previous trailer right here.
Variety noted Murphy taking a whack at the oft-adapted story. TheWrap and its follow-up pieces zeroed in on the lust-and-wrath mix plus Paulson’s Wuornos reveal. ComicBook.com, Bleeding Cool, ScreenRant, and others have joined the chorus, praising the intensity while noting the show’s usual willingness to dramatize the still-unsolved case.
Historically, the real Lizzie Borden was tried and acquitted in 1893, and the case remains a cultural Rorschach test. Was she a calculating killer? A victim of circumstance? The Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story Trailer isn’t here for subtle ambiguity—it’s here for blood as power, forbidden connection, and a young woman forging her own legend with an axe.
Murphy and Brennan have called it their wildest yet, and if the Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story Trailer is any indication, they mean it. Previous seasons tackled Dahmer, the Menendez brothers, and Ed Gein; this one flips the gender script and dials up the sensuality alongside the slaughter.
So grab your popcorn (and maybe a change of clothes—things get messy), because the Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story Trailer has set the stage for one of the most anticipated drops of the fall. September 17 can’t come soon enough.
Just remember: if anyone starts humming that old rhyme around you, keep an eye on the nearest hatchet. The Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story Trailer has spoken, and it says blood is freedom. Who are we to argue?
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