Ryan Murphy's Monster anthology is back — and this time it's going after one of America's most infamous unsolved murders. The first trailer for Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story has landed on Netflix, and it is every bit as dark, gothic and deeply unsettling as you'd expect.
Ryan Murphy's Monster anthology is back — and this time it's going after one of America's most infamous unsolved murders. The first trailer for Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story has landed on Netflix, and it is every bit as dark, gothic and deeply unsettling as you'd expect.
The trailer opens on a quiet New England morning in 1892 — white curtains, a breakfast table, birdsong. Then the axe falls. Within 90 seconds, Netflix has made it very clear that Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story is not going to be a polite period drama.
The series follows Lizzie Borden, the 32-year-old woman who was accused — and ultimately acquitted — of the brutal axe murders of her father Andrew Borden and stepmother Abby Borden in Fall River, Massachusetts. The case was never solved. The question of whether Lizzie did it has fascinated true crime enthusiasts for over a century.
Murphy's approach, as seen in the first Monster instalment about Jeffrey Dahmer, is to centre the story on the accused — exploring the psychology, the social pressures, and the circumstances that may have led to the crime. The Lizzie Borden instalment looks set to do the same, placing the camera firmly inside Lizzie's perspective.
The production design in the trailer is stunning — all dark wood, heavy drapes, and the suffocating domesticity of a Victorian household. The colour palette is deliberately muted, punctuated by sudden bursts of red. It's Murphy at his most controlled and his most visceral.
No premiere date has been confirmed yet, but Netflix has positioned the series as one of its major autumn 2026 releases. Given the response to the Dahmer instalment — which became one of Netflix's most-watched series of all time — expectations are sky-high.
The internet has already reacted with a mixture of excitement and dread. 'I am not ready,' wrote one user on X. 'Ryan Murphy is going to make me scared of breakfast,' wrote another. The trailer has racked up over 8 million views in under 24 hours.