Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story hits No.1 on Netflix UK days after release
The Lizzie Borden Story has reached No.1 on Netflix UK just days after release, with Ella Beatty leading the eight-part series.
Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story has raced to the top of Netflix UK just days after arriving on the streaming service.
The latest chapter of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s Monster anthology reached No.1 on Netflix UK’s television chart on 19 September, only two days after all eight episodes were released.
Ella Beatty leads the series as Lizzie Borden, the Massachusetts woman who became one of America’s most notorious murder suspects following the deaths of her father Andrew and stepmother Abby in 1892.
The real Lizzie was charged with both murders before being acquitted in 1893, leaving the case officially unresolved and creating a mystery that has continued to inspire books, films and television dramas for more than 130 years.
Netflix’s version does not attempt a strictly factual reconstruction. Instead, the series presents its own heavily dramatised interpretation of Lizzie’s life and the events surrounding the murders, with Charlie Hunnam playing Andrew Borden, Rebecca Hall as Abby and Billie Lourd as Lizzie’s sister Emma.
Vicky Krieps plays the family’s maid Bridget Sullivan, whose relationship with Lizzie becomes particularly important to the series.
The new season marks the fourth story told under the Monster banner following previous instalments centred on Jeffrey Dahmer, Lyle and Erik Menendez and Ed Gein.
It is also the anthology’s first season built around a female central figure. Its rapid climb on Netflix UK suggests the Borden case still has considerable pulling power more than a century after the murders.
The series has also performed strongly internationally, reaching the top of Netflix charts across numerous countries following its release.
For viewers discovering the case through Monster, however, there is an important distinction between what happened historically and what the programme has created for television. Several of its relationships and events are fictionalised rather than established historical fact.
All eight episodes of Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story are streaming now on Netflix UK.
