“Death, sex, privilege, lies” – the 1989 murder of Kitty and Jose Menendez by their sons, Lyle and Erik, “has it all”, said Ed Power in The Telegraph. “At least, it does if you are Ryan Murphy.”
Following Murphy’s similarly provocative Netflix series about serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, the “American Horror Story” showrunner has turned his hand to another grisly crime, this time revisiting the story of Lyle and Erik Menendez. They are serving life sentences without parole for murdering their parents at their Beverly Hills home.
While the brothers claimed they carried out the crime in response to years of horrific sexual abuse at the hands of their father, prosecutors argued the double murder was motivated by an enormous inheritance.
‘Immensely slick and breathtakingly crass’
“Flashy, exploitative and propulsive,” “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” is “peak Murphy”, said Power. Like Dahmer, the nine-part series “struggles against the temptation to glamorise its subjects” and is at once “immensely slick and breathtakingly crass”.
Cooper Koch and Nicholas Alexander Chavez try their hardest to “bring depth” to the titular “cartoon villains of American true crime”, but a “haze of vulgarity” lingers over the show. Murphy even has the Vanity Fair crime writer Dominick Dunne (Nathan Lane) speculate about whether the brothers’ relationship was incestuous – the “perfect excuse to crowbar in a scene of them canoodling in the shower together”.
Trying to figure out what tone the show is trying to strike is “headache-inducing”, said Imogen West-Knights on Slate. One moment, it leans into “Tarantino-esque, aestheticized violence“, the next it attempts a sensitive portrayal of the “devastating” impact of childhood sexual abuse. “It is a doomed enterprise.”
The show’s attempts to explore multiple points of view amounts to “endless back-and-forth rug-pulling”, said Jesse Hassenger in The Guardian. It’s meant to come across as “multifaceted” but instead becomes an “exhausting” flip-flopping between two “overplayed notes”: the brothers as traumatised abuse victims, and the brothers as “possibly sociopathic connivers”.
Writing from prison, Erik Menendez himself has criticised the “horrible and blatant lies rampant in the show” and called the portrayals of himself and his brother “vile and appalling”.
‘Moral questionableness be damned’
Of course, Murphy has been “doing the rounds justifying the show’s existence”, said West-Knights, “making copious noises about handling things sensitively”. Doubling down, he told Variety that “Monsters” is “the best thing that has happened to the Menendez brothers in 30 years. They are now being talked about by millions of people all over the world.” Indeed, the show scooped 12.3 million views in its first weekend of release and shot straight to the top of Netflix‘s streaming chart.
Sure, Murphy knows how to “serve up a compelling binge-watch” and the show “clips along”, said Power, but ultimately it’s “competently put-together hokum made in the worst possible taste”.
“Tastelessness and moral questionableness be damned,” said West-Knights. With Murphy’s track record, “I guess we’ll do this all again in two years’ time”.