Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story might not be as gruesome as its Jeffrey Dahmer predecessor, but be warned: the Netflix series doesn’t hold back, with the very first episode depicting the murder scene in “graphic” detail. Warning: the following contains spoilers and some may find this content distressing. Season 2 of Ryan Murphy’s true crime anthology series centers the case of Erik and Lyle Menendez , the brothers who killed their wealthy parents, Jose and Mary Louise “Kitty”, in 1989.
As well as dramatizing the events leading up to the crime and the legal battles that followed, the new Netflix show makes the bold move of loading Episode 1 with the grisly slayings. It begins with Jose (Javier Bardem) and Kitty (Chloë Sevigny) watching TV in the den of their Beverly Hills mansion, when Lyle (Nicholas Chavez) and Erik (Cooper Koch) walk in carrying 12-gauge shotguns. Erik starts by shooting his father a number of times, before turning the gun on Kitty and shooting her through the hand.
This moment is notably graphic, with the camera closing in on her fingers as they’re ripped off in a bloody explosion. Lyle then shoots their parents multiple times from behind as they both groan in agony, before landing a blow right through Jose’s head. Again, it’s a gruesome sequence – viewers see the bullet traveling through his eye socket, creating a gaping hole in his head.
Just finished the first episode of MONSTERS and Nicholas Alexander Chavez is ELECTRIC .