‘Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story’ Final Trailer Paints a Portrait of Parents José and Kitty
José and Kitty Menendez make their Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story debut in the final trailer for the Netflix anthology series, unmasking the now-deceased parents of the real-life brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez.
Following a teaser trailer that hinted at cracks in the family, and the first official trailer focusing on the Menendez brothers after their parents were killed, the new nearly three-minute look at Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s latest Monsters installment brings José and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez into a dark spotlight. The 10-episode season releases Sept. 19 on Netflix.
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The trailer opens with a tension-building conversation between Barden’s José and son Lyle, portrayed by Nicholas Chavez, where José compares his son to a disobeying dog. “I think that I didn’t hit you hard enough,” says José, before slapping his son across the face. “So as a father, that is my fault. And I’m sorry.” He then kisses him on the cheek.
Sevigny’s Kitty is also heard confessing, “I hate my kids,” saying they’ve turned her and her husband into parasites. “They’ve turned us into people we don’t want to be.” At one point, she tells her sons to their faces, “I regret having you. … I could have been a movie star like Kim Novak. And you’re what I got?”
Cooper Koch, as Erik, talks about how “cruel” his upbringing is, as José is seen throwing his sons into rooms and cars, screaming at Lyle and then touching them each lovingly on the chin. “It was never going to end,” says Erik. “You could never escape from it.” Kitty questions her husband about his relationship with the boys, saying she will keep it between them, and Erik says, “I was always going to choose my relationship with my brother over my parents.”
The Menendez case and trial was a media sensation in the early 1990s. Now, 35 years after the killings, Murphy’s new Netflix series will reexamine the self-defense theory that was put forth by the defense team of the Menendez brothers, who were convicted in 1996 for the murders of their parents. During their original 1993 trial, the brothers claimed they shot José and Kitty after suffering years of sexual abuse at the hands of their father and with the knowledge of their mother.
After their conviction for premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit murder, both boys were given consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. After a decade’s worth of appeals were rejected by California’s courts, they have spent their adult lives incarcerated. Now, journalist and author Robert Rand hopes to bring forth new evidence that could bring about the vacating of their sentences. In 2023, they filed documents seeking new habeas corpus petitions.
Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story is the second installment in Murphy and Brennan’s true-crime anthology after Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, the miniseries about Jeffrey Dahmer, played by Evan Peters, that launched in 2022. Netflix turned the series into an anthology after Dahmer’s success, ordering two more installments focused on “stories of other monstrous figures who have impacted society,” with the Menendez story being the first follow-up.
The synopsis for The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story asks: Who are the real monsters?
Here is the full logline: “While the prosecution argued they were seeking to inherit their family fortune, the brothers claimed — and remain adamant to this day, as they serve life sentences without the possibility of parole — that their actions stemmed out of fear from a lifetime of physical, emotional and sexual abuse at the hands of their parents. Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story dives into the historic case that took the world by storm, paved the way for audiences’ modern-day fascination with true crime and in return asks those audiences: Who are the real monsters?”
Alexis Martin Woodall, Eric Kovtun, David McMillan, Louise Shore, Carl Franklin, Scott Robertson and Bardem are executive producers alongside creators Murphy and Brennan. The series is directed by Brennan, Max Winkler, Paris Barclay, Michael Uppendahl and Carl Franklin and written by Murphy, McMillan, Todd Kubrak, Brennan and Reilly Smith.
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