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Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story Movie Review

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story is the second season of the crime anthology series Monster that previously included ‘Dahmer’. It’s an inferior, but still very engaging season.

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“I was always gonna choose my brother over my parents“

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The series centers on the 1989 murders of Jose and Kitty Menendez, who were killed by their sons, Lyle and Erik. This season contains nine hour-long episodes, so it’s quite a long show. But it was very entertaining from start to finish owing to its strong technical aspects, fantastic dialogue and a sensational, intriguing narrative.

First off, I realize how many would find this show insensitive to the victims and even the killers. Murphy once again showed his hand and made a series that is distinctly his own, which is to say it is very sensational, very melodramatic and even theatrical and campy in a sense. But even though that led to a lack of seriousness and dignity at times, it also led to such an undeniably fun show. For any Murphy fan, which I count myself as, this will be a delightfully juicy and diverting show. For everybody else, it’s best not to engage with it at all.

In spite of its trashy and campy elements, Monsters does still deal with a very serious subject matter and that is domestic abuse. Apparently, these two brothers suffered from years of physical, emotional and sexual violence inflicted on them by their father while their mother turned the blind eye to all of those actions. While this of course doesn’t excuse what they did, it does put into context their punishment and whether or not it was and still is a bit too extreme. The show does a great job at depicting the American legal system in its harshest ways.

But it would be wrong for all of us to just ignore what these young men did and focus only on their suffering. Murder is never an answer, especially not of the premeditated variety, and the season finale does a fine job of reminding viewers of that. But the show is also excellent at pinpointing the importance of mental health and listening to the victims of sexual assault, which is something that people back in this era simply did not do. But now we have the psychological knowledge, so we can better deal with these situations.

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Monsters features a terrific cast of performers, both new and established. Chloe Sevigny was very memorable and excellent as the abused, but also toxic and horrible mother that she was. Javier Bardem was perfectly cast as the biggest monster of the story – a truly reprehensible human being. The cycle of abuse is a real thing, but no matter how hard Murphy tried to even empathize with this horrible man, I could never find a shred of humanity in him. Ari Graynor was quite effective as Erik’s lead defense attorney in such a showy turn.

Let’s talk about the brothers. Lyle is the less interesting of the two as this overly controlling, ambitious and unlikable guy who is very well acted by Nicholas Alexander Chavez, but Erik still remained the more intriguing character of the two. Murphy explored so well his fears and insecurities and his repressed homosexuality. This is the most fascinating and complex character on the show, one that was performed exceptionally well by Cooper Koch, a great find for sure.

Ryan Murphy has always had a knack at finding new talent and Koch is one of them. He got so much star quality and obvious talent. The fifth episode is all his and how he delivered that 40-minute long monologue was impressive. I wished that the rest of the season was as complex or as well written in dialogue as that standout episode was. The remainder consisted of some important stuff, but also needless flashbacks of the parents and a rather tasteless and unnecessary focus on the unconfirmed incestuous relationship between the siblings.

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Often times Murphy could not stop himself from delving into overly excessive details that were needless and made the show a bit too long for its own sake. Don’t get me wrong, it was still wildly entertaining, but not really earned in that scope and treatment. But the cinematography is excellent, the 80s soundtrack is a banger and the editing is top-notch in what is another exceptionally well made Murphy show from a technical standpoint.