After weeks of eerie teasers and building anticipation, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story finally arrived on Netflix one week ago.
The new limited series stars actors Nicholas Alexander Chavez and Cooper Koch as the infamous brothers, who gruesomely shot their parents inside their Beverly Hills home in 1989 and were later convicted of first-degree murder. Academy Award winner Javier Bardem and Chloë Sevigny play their father José Menendez and mother Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez, respectively.
Monsters marks the second edition of Ryan Murphy’s hit anthology series, which featured actor Evan Peters as serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in 2022. Here’s everything you need to know about the new season, its account of the Menendez brothers’ crimes, and the controversy it has sparked.
How can I watch Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story?
Monsters debuted September 19 on Netflix. Subscribers can now stream all nine episodes.
Who plays the Menendez brothers?
Nicholas Alexander Chavez and Cooper Koch were cast as the brothers all the way back in June 2023. Chavez portrays Lyle, while Koch plays younger brother Erik.
Chavez is best known for his role as Spencer Cassadine on the ABC soap opera General Hospital from 2021 through 2024. Koch appeared in the 2022 movies Swallowed and They/Them, the latter also starring Kevin Bacon.
Chavez, 25, and Koch, 28, are both older than the real Menendez brothers were at the time of the murders. Lyle was 21 years old and Erik only 18 years old back in August 1989.
Who else is in the Monsters cast?
Deadline reported in January 2024 that 55-year-old Javier Bardem and 49-year-old Chloë Sevigny, an Academy Award nominee, were slated to play José and Kitty, respectively. Monsters is the second major TV role for Sevigny this year. She portrayed socialite C.Z. Guest in the FX series Feud: Capote vs. The Swans, also produced by Ryan Murphy.
Monsters also added Nathan Lane as investigative journalist Dominick Dunne, who covered the brothers’ highly publicized trial for Vanity Fair. Ari Graynor plays Leslie Abramson, the prominent Los Angeles defense attorney who became the lead counsel for Erik Menendez.
Other supporting cast members include Leslie Grossman, Dallas Roberts, Jason Butler Harner, and Enrique Murciano.
Are the real Lyle and Erik involved in the show?
Neither Lyle nor Erik were involved in the production of Monsters, though they did work with Netflix on upcoming documentary. Simply titled The Menendez Brothers, the project arrives October 7 and features new interviews with Lyle and Erik from prison. It marks the first time in almost 30 years that the brothers “revisit the trial that shocked the nation,” according to Netflix.
Why is the Menendez brothers’ case so infamous?
In November 2022 following the success of Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, which eclipsed 1 billion hours streamed, Netflix ordered two follow-up seasons and promised to “tell the stories of other monstrous figures who have impacted society,” according to Deadline. That certainly describes the case of the Menendez Brothers, who shot their parents José and Kitty to death in their Beverly Hills home on August 20, 1989.
It took seven years and three trials, spanning thousands of hours of TV coverage, for the Menendez brothers to be found guilty of their parents’ murders. On July 2, 1996, they were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. But in between the killings and the brothers’ conviction, the Menendez murders became one of the most famous criminal cases of the late 20th century thanks to its potent mix of family drama, Hollywood connections, dramatic testimony—the brothers argued they killed their parents in self-defense after suffering years of sexual abuse by José that Kitty knew about—and cable TV’s ability to blanket the airwaves with coverage.
Almost three decades later, the case is still receiving attention due to new allegations of abuse against José Menendez and how they could affect the brothers’ incarceration.
Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story isn’t the first TV show or movie to tell the story of the Menendez family. You can watch the tragic, grisly events unfold in the drama Menendez: Blood Brothers, the NBC series Law and Order True Crime: the Menendez Murders, and the documentary Truth and Lies: The Menendez Brothers — American Sons, American Murders.
What is the controversy surrounding Monsters?
Given their incarceration, it’s unlikely Lyle and Erik have seen the show, but that didn’t stop Erik from condemning Monsters the day it released. In a statement his wife shared on social media, Erik blasted the “vile and appalling character portrayals of Lyle and me” and the “blatant lies rampant in the show.”
The 53-year-old took particular issue with how the series approached the brothers’ experience of sexual abuse at the hands of their father. “It is sad for me to know that Netflix’s dishonest portrayal of the tragedies surrounding our crime have taken the painful truths several steps backward—back through time to an era when the prosecution built a narrative on a belief system that males were not sexually abused and that males experienced rape trauma differently than women,” he said.
On Thursday, Erik and Lyle’s aunt Joan VanderMolen and 23 other family members similarly trashed Monsters, calling it a “grotesque shockadrama” that is “riddled with mistruths and outright falsehoods.” “[Co-creator Ryan] Murphy claims he spent years researching the case but, in the end, relied on debunked Dominick Dunne, the pro-prosecution hack, to justify his slander against us and never spoke to us,” they said in a statement.
For his part, Murphy highlighted how much of the show focuses on the brothers’ abuse. “We give them their day in court, and they talk openly about it,” the TV producer said at an event on Tuesday. “In this age, where people can really talk about sexual abuse, talking about it and writing about it and writing about all points of view can be controversial.” He also stated they had “an obligation” to share “the points of view and theories” from journalist Dominick Dunne, defense lawyer Leslie Abramson, and other people involved in the case.
One of most eyebrow-raising parts about how the Menendez brothers are portrayed—spoiler alert—is the implication they had an incestuous relationship. Nathan Lane’s character Dominick Dunne suggests the theory in one scene, though there is little evidence to support this. “I do not think that it’s true,” said actor Cooper Koch, who portrays Erik, according to Variety. “I think that was just a theory that one person had and that got put into the show because that person was a character in the show… I stand with Eric and everything that he says in his testimony I believe to be his truth, and I believe him.”
Lyle hasn’t commented on the new show.
Are there other seasons of Monster?
The first season of Monster about Jeffrey Dahmer is currently available on Netflix.
Additionally, showrunner Ryan Murphy has already announced Monster Season 3 will center around notorious killer and grave robber Ed Gein, played by British actor Charlie Hunnam. Production begins for the third installment of the anthology series in October.
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