‘Monster’ Season Four to Focus on Lizzie Borden, Alleged Axe Murderer

Grew up with the dark nursery rhyme ‘Lizzie Borden took an axe/She gave her mother 40 whacks /After she saw what she had done /She gave her father 41’? This one’s for you: Monster, Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s hit crime anthology series has begun filming its fourth season on Borden. Ella Beatty will play Borden, who was tried and acquitted for slashing her father and stepmother in their Massachusetts home when she was 32 years old.

Production started in Los Angeles just days after Season Three, on Ed Gein, premiered on Netflix on Oct. 3. According to Variety, Charlie Hunnam – the star of Monster’s latest season as Ed Gein – will play Lizzie’s father Andrew Jackson Borden. The cast also includes Rebecca Hall as Lizzie’s stepmother, Abby; Billie Lourd as Lizzie’s sister, Emma Borden; Jessica Barden as the Lizzie’s friend and actress Nance O’Neill; and Vicky Krieps as Bridget Sullvan, the family’s maid.

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Since its 2022 premiere as Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, the Monster series has developed popular and critical acclaim and a cinematic universe that Murphy suggests has influenced how the crimes are understood and engaged with today.

Season Two, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story corresponded with a surge in public interest in the case of the brothers who were jailed in the nineties for the violent muder of their parents, with Murphy saying select episodes were “Probably one of the things that has led to an understanding of this case and a move towards justice.” Amid the renewed interest, the Los Angeles District Attorney, announced that his office was evaluating new evidence that suggested the brothers were molested by their father. Though the Brothers bid for a new trial, a judge denied them following a parole denial as well.

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