“Monsters” Episode 5, “The Hurt Man,” is dedicated solely to Erik Menendez’s point of view. Sitting in a prison meeting room, talking to his attorney Leslie Abramson (Ari Graynor), Erik (Cooper Koch) recounts “all of that” — everything in his life that led he and his brother, Lyle (Nicholas Alexander Chavez), to murder their parents, José (Javier Bardem) and Kitty Menendez (Chloë Sevigny). And he does. Erik remembers the four different ways his father raped him as an 8 year old. He remembers the childlike names he gave each version — simple, evocative labels like “knees” and “mouth massage.” He remembers the “real torture” of his years spent being sexually, physically, and emotionally abused by his dad: “to still love him.” He remembers how their mother allowed it to happen, even sensing she was jealous of her husband’s obscene relationship with their son. Near the end, Erik remembers when he realized what “all of that” meant for the rest of his life: that he doesn’t know his own sexuality, if his natural feelings are real or triggered, if love is something he can feel with the kind of purity it should always offer.
All of this is captured in one take. Director Michael Uppendahl sets his camera behind Leslie as she sits across from Erik. At first, the frame is static. Erik talks, and we sit in the same fixed state as Leslie. But slowly, we start to zoom in. By the time he’s explaining the episode title, his face is in close-up. The back-and-forth is gone, though it’s clear Leslie’s words of encouragement — largely emphasizing that good parents, loving parents, would never have done this, and he is not to blame for any of it — have left a mark.
“Maybe we are sociopaths, but can you blame us if we are, when you know what’s been happening to us?” Erik says. Well. Can you? That’s the question “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” is asking its audience. It’s also the same question posed as the trial became a Court TV phenomenon in the early ’90s. Here we are again.
“The Hurt Man” is a definitive, unflinching perspective. It’s an engrossing 33 minutes — not always for the right reasons, but always maintaining the stark rawness of truth. It’s exactly what’s missing in the rest of “Monsters,” a true crime retelling so obsessed with the same question posed 30 years ago that it loses any perspective of its own; any perspective that could be gained from the benefit of hindsight; any perspective that would make revisiting such an awful case worthwhile for modern audiences. Erik’s perspective is clear, and it’s especially convincing in Episode 5, but it’s also one that dominates the show’s unconvincing attempts to look at other angles.
Initially, the series is rooted behind its titular brothers. The first episode starts after the murders have taken place, but it still gives us a glimpse of each boy’s life and personality. Erik is disciplined. He wakes up early, works out, practices tennis, and goes to therapy. Lyle is wild. When Erik leaves the house in the morning, Erik is just getting home. Later, he pitches harebrained business schemes to his uncle, which is funny because he actually doesn’t have any hair. (His wig is a recurring joke — like the oft-derided title of Erik’s movie script, “Friends” — that’s stretched very, very thin.) Apart, the two brothers’ differences are clear. But together, you see the bond they share. They’re on the same page. They want, no, they need the same thing: to be free from their tyrannical parents.
When you first see the murder, it’s graphic. Nauseating. That the gore is part of the point doesn’t make it any easier to stomach. Director Carl Franklin frames each shotgun blast like he’s shooting a 3-D grindhouse picture. Kitty stretches her hand in front of the camera, only to have it blown clean off. When Lyle stands over his father’s shoulder, pointing the gun at his head, we get to watch his face disappear in a bloody gush that sprays right over the low-angled camera. The series will revisit this scene from time to time, with differing depictions, but it’s this first hauntingly violent interpretation that matters because it stands in stark contrast to Erik’s monologue in Episode 5. What you hear and don’t see then is much more rattling than anything you actually see elsewhere. It extends our sympathies to Erik, the young boy, over Erik, the killer. From the brothers’ perspective, there’s little question which crime — the abuse or the murders — is worse.
In the back half of “Monsters,” after Episode 5’s unshakable exclamation point, the series bends over backward to consider all possibilities, even when it’s clear their heart remains with Erik. Later episodes spotlight the parents, kicking off with Kitty telling her own therapist, “I hate my kids.” Another foregrounds Vanity Fair reporter Dominick Dunne (Nathan Lane), an aggrieved dad whose daughter was killed by a man who cited past abuse as a reason for his criminal behavior. He hates Leslie, calling her “the dragon lady,” since she often uses the same legal strategy — urging juries to consider the accused’s state of mind before rushing to judgement. (Remembering an old case, Leslie even says, “I wanted the jury to see that [my client] was not the monster. On the contrary, he was the victim.” Hey, that’s the title of the show!)
But each of these new windows into what happened are tainted by the storytellers’ obvious disdain for dissenting views. Thankfully, Murphy and Brennan aren’t trying to evoke pity for the parents. (Bardem’s José Menendez is shot like a literal horror movie monster, often appearing as if from nowhere or glowering with venom into the camera.) But seeing the couple complain about their boys — and then seeing their boys act out these memories like the spoiled rich kids they likely were — does little to explain the twisted motivations of each adult. Instead of digging in, Murphy and Brennan lean on the cycles of abuse to account for everything — a valid reason to be sure, but one that’s just kind of tossed in, like a lazy summation by a prosecutor bored with their own case.
Dominick, meanwhile, is too smug to be sympathetic, even when Episode 7, “Showtime,” flashes back to his daughter’s trial, the “not guilty” verdict is read, and he starts screaming at the judge. Perhaps it’s that he’s always framed in host-mode, sharing his apparently coveted thoughts on the Menendez brothers’ trial to a bevy of dinner party guests (presumably there to physically represent the many, many readers affected by Dominick’s trial coverage in Vanity Fair). Or maybe it’s Dominick’s steadfast refusal to consider any accused criminal is also a human being. Or it could just be that he’s always so clearly framed as the one in the wrong — like a Bond villain, constantly in monologue, but swigging a drink instead of petting a cat.
Within “Monsters’” crock pot of cracked theories, there are strong performances. Koch earns his episodic spotlight, shading Erik in subtle and stark shades of tortured misery throughout, which perfectly contrast the brash behavior of his loud, obnoxious, big brother. Chavez makes Lyle a charming sociopath whose “everything is great” disguise is just as convincing as the few moments where he’s truly vulnerable. Bardem, to his credit, fully commits to the vicious patriarch he’s asked to embody, even in what could’ve been a very silly scene involving a male prostitute and golden laurel crown.
Are any of these turns worth sitting through nine hours of smutty true crime recreations? Not really. If you are compelled to watch, then Episode 5 should be enough. “Maybe we are sociopaths, but can you blame us if we are, when you know what’s been happening to us?” That’s the whole series right there, in one sentence. The rest, all of that, is just for show.
Grade: C-
“Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” was released Thursday, September 19 on Netflix. All 10 episodes were released at once.
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