🩸 Monster: The Menéndez Brothers (2023)


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🎬 Trailers First

Let’s start by showing y’all the trailers shall we?

The trailers marketed this as a “true crime re-examination.” But the glossy visuals and Netflix prestige-porn vibe told you exactly what this was going to be — another attempt to turn real tragedy into bingeable soap opera. This time, with the Menéndez brothers as the misunderstood centerpieces.

Just look at that poster. No, really?Please look at that poster. I think that poster says a lot about this show. The only question I have is just “why?”

🧛‍♂️ The “Monster Cinematic Universe” Problem

Here’s where I have to stop and ask the most obvious question: what the hell is Netflix even doing here? They’ve basically created what feels like a “Monster Cinematic Universe” — except instead of capes and superpowers, it’s real-life murderers and tragedies. They’re promoting these shows with the same energy Marvel uses to tease its next crossover, only instead of Iron Man and Captain America, it’s Dahmer, the Menéndez Brothers, and now Ed Gein.

That’s not just exploitative — it’s downright dystopian. You’re taking real victims, real trauma, and real families who still exist today, and packaging it up like it’s part of a shared universe of horror icons. Tune in next season for your favorite killer’s origin story! Seriously? What’s next, Monsters: The Rodney Alcala Story?

And this isn’t about shedding light or respecting history. If it was, they wouldn’t be stylizing it like prestige horror or using glossy posters that look more like promo art for Silence of the Lambs than true crime. It feels less like they’re educating, and more like they’re saying: “Hey, step into our Monster-Verse! Collect them all!”

It’s grotesque. It’s exploitative. And it’s proof that Netflix has stopped asking whether these stories should be told, and only cares about whether they can market them.

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📖 Non-Spoiler Plot Overview

The show dramatizes the infamous Menéndez case: in 1989, brothers Lyle and Erik Menéndez murdered their parents, José and Kitty, in their Beverly Hills home. The trial became a media circus in the early ’90s, broadcast on Court TV before the O.J. Simpson trial took over the spotlight.

Netflix, of course, doesn’t frame it as a cold-blooded double murder. Instead, they run with the angle that has resurfaced in the last decade: the brothers as “victims” who acted out of abuse and desperation. Suddenly the narrative shifts from “greedy killers” to “tragic sons fighting back.”

And here’s the thing — why now? This angle was not their defense strategy during the trial. Only years later did this “abuse narrative” become their Hail Mary for public sympathy. Netflix latches onto that, almost endorsing it, as if to say “well maybe they had to kill their parents.”

Gross.

🚩 The Showrunner Problem

One of the most telling red flags about Monster: The Menéndez Brothers is a quote from one of the showrunners: “I’ve never met the Menéndez brothers. What would I ask them? I already know what their perspective is.”

That’s… yikes. If you’ve never even spoken to the people at the center of your story but you’re confident you “already know” their perspective, what you’re really saying is: “Facts don’t matter. Nuance doesn’t matter. I’ll just invent the narrative I want.”

And that’s exactly what the show does. Instead of presenting the messy, uncomfortable truth of the case, it leans into painting the brothers as tragic victims — not because that’s accurate, but because it makes for a juicier, bingeable soap opera.

This isn’t storytelling, it’s exploitation. Netflix didn’t just dramatize history; they built a melodrama around two convicted killers without ever grounding it in the real people or their words. It’s less “true crime” and more “fanfiction with a budget.”




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👥 Character Rundown

Lyle Menéndez (played here by Nicholas Chavez) – The older brother. The show portrays him as stoic, protective, and seething beneath the surface. But instead of accountability, the scripts want us to pity him.

Erik Menéndez (Cooper Koch) – The younger brother, shown as fragile, nervous, and easily manipulated. Again, painted as a tragic figure, not a murderer.

José Menéndez (Carlos Gómez) – Their father. Netflix leans into the abusive-parent angle, painting him as cruel, controlling, and emotionally destructive. Is there evidence he was tough and cold? Yes. But the show heightens it to justify what the brothers did.

Kitty Menéndez (Lolita Davidovich) – Their mother, shown as unstable and dependent. The series makes her a passive villain in their abuse narrative, as if her flaws excused the fact that her sons brutally executed her with a shotgun.

The Lawyers / Prosecution – Reduced to stereotypes: heartless prosecutors vs. empathetic defense lawyers. Again, leaning the audience to “side with” the brothers.



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🕰️ Pacing / Episode Flow

Much like Dahmer, this is bloated into 8 episodes. The first episodes focus on the murders themselves, then the circus of media attention, then the drawn-out trial. Netflix’s pacing isn’t about clarity — it’s about milking the spectacle. We get endless reenactments of court scenes, family flashbacks, and tearful monologues from the brothers. The victims — their parents — are practically sidelined.funny.

🎭 The Show Has No Lane

This series has no coherent vibe — it feels like six different shows stitched together, and none of them work in harmony. Here’s what it juggles:

⚖️ Courtroom Drama – At its heart, the show wants to be a Law & Order-style courtroom series, full of testimonies, jury tension, and lawyers posturing. But it stretches real trials into melodrama, padding out every legal beat until it drags.

🎭 Family Soap Opera – Half the time it abandons the crime to lean into overblown family drama, portraying the Menéndez household like a daytime soap, complete with overwrought monologues, abusive flashbacks, and teary, dramatic stares.

🤡 Comedy of Errors – Not intentionally, but some choices play almost comedic. The acting, the “big reveals,” even the overwrought staging of the brothers crying in court ends up looking like parody rather than gravitas.

🔪 Crime Thriller – Then, suddenly, it tries to be a crime thriller. The camera gets moody, music swells, and you’re meant to be unsettled. But we already know how this case ends, so it just feels hollow — faux suspense over facts everyone knows.

📢 Social Satire / “Message TV” – The show tries to inject commentary on privilege, media circus culture, and the justice system. But instead of making a point, it leans into exploitation, presenting the brothers as sympathetic figures by reframing them as “victims” of their parents.

🤷 Genre Confusion – No really, what is this? A prestige legal drama? A melodramatic soap? A campy satire? It doesn’t commit to any lane, so the end product feels scattered and tonally broken.

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✅ Pros

Solid performances (especially Nicholas Chavez). The actors do their jobs well.

It captures the “media circus” vibe of the early ’90s.



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❌ Cons

Exploitative framing: focuses on sympathy for murderers instead of the victims.

Netflix endorses the “abuse” defense narrative without real balance.

Drags across 8 episodes, turning tragedy into entertainment.

Victims (José and Kitty) are painted as villains, not as human beings.

Yeah that’s right they went out there and villainized the victims and victimized the villains, go fuck right off.

Feels like it’s rebranding murderers for Gen Z true-crime TikTok.



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💭 Final Thoughts

The Menéndez case was one of the most sensationalized trials of its era, second only to O.J. But let’s not rewrite history. At the time, the brothers were seen as spoiled rich kids who murdered their parents for money. The abuse narrative came later, when sympathy was the only card left to play.

Netflix choosing that angle isn’t educational. It isn’t balanced. It’s pandering. It’s saying: “what if the Menéndez brothers are actually the real victims here?” And that’s disgraceful. This show and the Dahmer show both feel like they are aimed to girls who have a morbid curiosity and a sick mind, congrats Netflix u made these killers hot.

The tragedy here isn’t just the murders. It’s that a whole generation of victims’ families now have to watch streaming giants turn brutal crimes into binge drama.

Yes the Dahmer show was eexploitative but this show is just outright offensive, because it just rewrites history.

🚫 Stop Giving Killers Space in Your Head

Here’s the thing that always gets under my skin with these shows: why do we even need to study these killers like they’re some kind of twisted celebrities? What’s the point of giving Jeffrey Dahmer or the Menéndez brothers more screen time, more podcasts, more shows? The more we retell their stories, the more we give them exactly what they never deserved in the first place — space in our heads.

There’s nothing profound about obsessing over the “mind” of a murderer. At best, it’s morbid curiosity. At worst, it turns into glorification. Meanwhile, the people who actually deserve remembering — the victims — get shoved to the side, reduced to names on a list or blurry faces in a montage.

And honestly, it’s not even necessary. You don’t need to understand every little detail of how Dahmer lured people, or how the Menéndez brothers spun their courtroom narrative, or (soon) how Ed Gein decorated his house of horrors. That doesn’t teach us anything new about humanity — it just re-traumatizes families and keeps their monsters alive in pop culture.

So yeah. Enough with the “character studies.” Enough with the “true-crime dramas” that act like killers are fascinating puzzles to solve. Stop feeding them oxygen. Remember the victims, not the monsters. Ur not making urself smarter by learning any of this.



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⭐ Rating

1/10 – same as Dahmer. Not because it’s badly acted or poorly shot, but because the whole concept reeks of exploitation and revisionism.


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⚠️ Spoiler Warning

From here on out, spoilers.


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🩸 Spoilers (Expanded)

The Murders (1989) – The show recreates the infamous shotgun killings of José and Kitty Menéndez. Netflix stages it almost cinematically — sound design, slow motion, the works. It’s framed less as a cold-blooded ambush and more as a “tragic breaking point.”

The Aftermath – The brothers initially try to stage it as if they found their parents murdered by someone else. Their 911 call is dramatized. The show lingers on their “grief” — crocodile tears, in hindsight — but still leans into their pain as real.

The Media Frenzy – Early ’90s TV coverage is woven in, showing how America became obsessed. The series tries to highlight racism in the justice system, contrasting their case with others. A worthy point — but it gets lost because the show keeps centering their feelings.

The Trial – This is the heart of the series. Netflix digs deep into the abuse defense, giving long flashbacks of José as cruel and sexually abusive. While allegations of abuse did surface in real life, their credibility was debated heavily. Netflix leans on them hard, almost erasing doubt.

The “Victims as Villains” Angle – The show paints José as a tyrant and Kitty as neglectful, making the murders look almost inevitable. This framing feels like revisionist history to get audiences to sympathize with killers.

Sentencing – The brothers are found guilty and sentenced to life without parole. The show dramatizes their prison separation, treating them like tragic martyrs.

The Larger Message – Netflix pushes the idea that “abuse cycles create monsters,” but the execution comes off as manipulative: the show asks us to mourn for the Menéndez brothers instead of their parents.

And oh, you thought this show couldn’t get any tackier? Think again. They actually have the Menéndez brothers meet O.J. Simpson in prison. Yes, really. It plays like some bizarre crossover event—as if Netflix is trying to build a “Monster Cinematic Universe” where real-world killers just bump into each other for fan service. It’s not dramatic, it’s not insightful—it’s exploitative. It turns true crime tragedy into parody, like these guys are just action figures you can mash together. The second that scene showed up, any remaining credibility this show might have had flew straight out the window.

Also the 2 brothers menrion how they’ve been compared to Dahmer, ha ha ha funty.



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🕯️ On the Real Case

The Menéndez murders were shocking not just because of the brutality but because of who they were: two rich Beverly Hills kids killing their wealthy parents. The public saw greed and entitlement. Years later, the brothers leaned into “abuse survivor” narratives — and Netflix latched onto that.

It’s revisionism disguised as “prestige true crime.”


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🧟 Closing Line

Monster: The Menéndez Brothers is a case study in exploitation. A glossy drama that turns murderers into protagonists, parents into villains, and real-world tragedy into streaming “content.”

Also here’s a trsiler for the upcoming Monsters: The Ed Gein Story, jeepers.