Netflix has handed Ella Beatty the axe. The first images from Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story reveal a blood-soaked Beatty as the woman accused of one of America’s most infamous double murders. Charlie Hunnam and Rebecca Hall are among the cast of the anthology’s fourth season, arriving in September.
The first-look gallery introduces several of the players caught up in this ultra-dark retelling. The most striking image finds Beatty staring directly ahead with blood splashed across her face.
As revealed by Netflix’s Tudum, Beatty was selected following an extensive search to find the actress who would bring Lizzie to the screen. She previously appeared in Murphy’s Feud: Capote vs. The Swans and can also be seen in Mary Bronstein’s Oscar-nominated drama If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.
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Beatty also has two famous actors in her corner: she is the daughter of Warren Beatty and Annette Bening. Monster gives the rising star her biggest role to date.
“I am so excited for viewers to experience our exploration of Lizzie Borden’s story and the questions that her life animates to this day,” Beatty said.
“It has been a dream come true to investigate this complicated person’s psychology and to examine an American crime that feels almost mythic in proportion. This season gives us our first female Monster and delves into female rage and repression which I’ve found to feel strikingly relevant. I cannot wait to share it with the world.”
An American Nightmare
Lizzie Borden was accused of murdering her father, Andrew, and stepmother, Abby, with an axe inside their Massachusetts home in 1892. She was acquitted the following year and no one else was ever charged, leaving behind an officially unsolved crime that has fuelled speculation, books, films and one extremely catchy schoolyard rhyme.
The series does not appear interested in treating Lizzie as a dusty historical mystery. This version looks intent on crawling inside her head, reframing the case through desire, repression and the fury building behind the doors of the Borden home.
Netflix describes Lizzie as the controlled daughter of a wealthy New England family, trapped alongside the household’s rebellious live-in maid, Bridget Sullivan, in a home shaped by humiliation and cruelty. The two escape into a fantasy of sex, power and revenge before a pair of gruesome murders shocks the world and transforms Lizzie into something larger than the crime itself.
According to the streamer, the season will explore how Lizzie “changed what the world believed a killer could be”. All it took was an axe.
Charlie Hunnam Returns — This Time as the Victim
Beatty is joined by Vicky Krieps as Bridget Sullivan, the Bordens’ live-in maid and Lizzie’s apparent partner in rebellion.
Charlie Hunnam plays Andrew Borden, Lizzie’s wealthy father. The casting gives Hunnam a sharp reversal after he portrayed the title killer in the anthology’s third instalment, Monster: The Ed Gein Story. This time, he is standing on the other side of the blade.
Rebecca Hall plays Lizzie’s stepmother, Abby Borden, while Billie Lourd appears as her older sister, Emma. Jessica Barden rounds out the principal cast as Nance O’Neil, an actor and friend of Lizzie’s.
The newly released images offer a closer look at the ensemble in elaborate period costume, including Hunnam and Hall as the doomed Borden parents. Another image shows two solemnly dressed men standing beside a polished coffin, making it clear that the season will not take long to arrive at the consequences of whatever happened inside that house.
The Fourth Chapter of Netflix’s True-Crime Anthology
Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story marks the fourth season of the true-crime anthology created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan.
The franchise began with DAHMER — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, starring Evan Peters, before turning to brothers Erik and Lyle Menendez in Monsters: The Erik and Lyle Menendez Story. Its third chapter, Monster: The Ed Gein Story, starred Hunnam as the murderer whose crimes helped inspire characters and stories including Psycho and The Silence of the Lambs.
This time, the anthology turns to a crime kept alive by more than a century of theories, pop culture retellings and a schoolyard rhyme that somehow made an already grisly story even bloodier.
Release Date
Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story premieres September 17 on Netflix.
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