'Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story' Reviews: "an ominous retelling of the infamous crime"

         On September 19, 2024, Netflix released 'Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story', which has received a mixed reception from critics. In the limited series, viewers are re-introduced to "the Menendez brothers, convicted of the brutal 1989 murders of their parents in Beverly Hills." The ensemble cast includes Nicholas Alexander Chavez, Cooper Koch, Nathan Lane, Javier Bardem, Chloë Sevigny, Leslie Grossman, Ari Graynor, and Dallas Roberts. But what did the critics say?

        Jonathan Wilson of Ready Steady Cut notes, "I didn’t find Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story to be aggressively off-putting like its predecessor, but I did occasionally find it tone-deaf, clunky, and a bit silly." Adding, "Nicholas Alexander Chavez (Lyle) and Cooper Koch (Erik) are excellent here all the same. They’re awful by design; preening rich boys whose obnoxiously flamboyant lifestyle hides a laundry list of insecurities and traumatic incidents. Some of these are obvious – they murder their parents with shotguns in the first episode, and it’s such a dementedly violent scene that you can barely look at them as people afterward – but some are less so, like a more understated and faintly comical moment when Lyle’s mother rips his hairpiece off his head at the dinner table, revealing his baldness to his brother for the first time."

       Archi Sengupta of LeisureByte.com was less impressed, stating, "Nicholas Alexander Chavez and Cooper Koch make for two very creepy brothers in this retelling of a very bloody incident that leaves us feeling… a bit all over the place. The thing with Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story is that it grips you from the first episode and keeps you captive within the narrative of the story, taking us through the atrocities that Dahmer dished out against his unsuspecting victims, making us feel like we were almost looking in from the outside. The thing, however, with the second season is that it misses out on that tense action from the first season." Continuing, "The second season is kinda goofy, with us following the Menendez brothers through their minds’ maze and understanding the stark contrast between what they are thinking and imagining to the reality of their situations. Although the first episode is thrilling and showcases the unemotional way in which the brothers murdered their parents, the next few showcase them exorbitantly spending money and living the high life, oblivious to how vulnerable they are in reality. There’s a drama in the series that feels a bit off-putting, taking away from the thrill in the eventual episodes."

Photo by Pete Alexopoulos on Unsplash

        Aramide Tinubu of Variety says, “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” is an ominous retelling of the infamous crime. Created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, the second in their “Monster” anthology for Netflix follows brothers Lyle (an incredible Nicholas Alexander Chavez) and Erik (an outstanding Cooper Koch). Having endured emotional, physical and sexual abuse — the series argues — at the hands of their father, José (Javier Bardem) and mother, Mary Louise, aka “Kitty” (Chloë Sevigny), the pair murder their parents in cold blood. Chronicling the brothers’ upbringing, the murders and everything thereafter, the series is overlong and exhausting. The show attempts to unpack the circumstances that led to the crime while highlighting Erik and Lyle’s trauma. But in the end, the narrative feels futile and bizarre. "