The latest Monster instalment, about the 1892 Borden axe murders, is packed with periods and beheadings, and feels like it was made up as they went along
Okaaay – here’s what I think must have happened. Some time in the past year or two, Ryan Murphy discovered that women menstruate. Incredulous but enthralled, he rushed off to share the news with his soon equally incredulous and enthralled little friends. After confirming the basics they all looked at each other for a moment in silence as they contemplated this crazy, secret habit of the wimminz. And then Ryan said: “You guys? We have got to make a show about this!” The others nodded in fervent agreement and off they all ran.
The result is the utterly bonkers, blood-soaked, borderline-fetishistic fever dream that is The Lizzie Borden Story – the latest entry in Murphy’s popular anthology series Monster. This one is written by Ian Brennan and directed in the main by Max Winkler, the pairing responsible for the series’ previous offering, last year’s lamentable The Ed Gein Story. As, I presume, a gesture to the sex of this one’s subject, there is a female director for two of the Lizzie Borden episodes – Sarah Adina Smith – but it doesn’t really dent the vibe. Think: the gleeful disgust of a roomful of adolescent boys being taught about the female reproductive system in PSHE. It is now an eight-hour miniseries starring Rebecca Hall. We live in strange times.
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