Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story - Netflix

[Rollergirl11]

Anyone watching? It’s really quite bizarre; it’s almost played for laughs.

Is that Milli Vanilli they’re playing?! 🤪😂

I'm going to stick my neck out and say yes they were the victims of sexual abuse. The ferocity of the shootings was such to be motivated by hate and anger, not the desire for enrichment.

SPOILER ALERT

The judge for the second trial would not allow the verdict of manslaughter so evidence of sexual abuse was not allowed. If a charge of manslaughter had been allowed, the outcome would have been different.

I think I used the term ‘no evidence of SA’ & actually it was the wrong way of putting across what I meant. I totally agree with you all about the issues with ‘proving’ it. What I meant was that I was watching the series thinking it was a given that the SA happened & then I was confused when Lyle was telling the woman who recorded him about his great performance on the stand. But I think what a pp said is right, it’s very likely the SA happened but there was an element of coaching involved in putting it across to the jury, particularly because male victims of SA are often treated differently.

Also the overlap with the OJ case is really interesting & of course Ryan Murphy was involved in producing ‘The People vs OJ Simpson’ which is the first in the American Crime Story series. It’s excellent if you haven’t seen it. That period in the mid 90’s feels so familiar to me- the reference to Friends was funny.

I don't think you can tell from this dramatisation. I would like to know more about the case and will go hunting.

I'd look out for the upcoming netflix documentary they interviewed Robert Rand over six months for it so think (hope!) it asks and addresses the right questions.

Cooper Koch (Erik) deserves a thousand awards for that 30-minute take in Episode 5. Wow.

I think they were both sexually abused and materially spoiled with a massive sense of entitlement.

yep, got to love a bit of Milli Vanilli

I was around when they were. Loved them, but horrendous that one killed himself after they were basically used by being lipsynchronised. (sp?)

Old enough to remember the Menendez brothers trial too so will watch that series.

It was riveting!

It’s unbelievably fucked up on so many levels.

I do feel really sorry for Erik. I have off feelings about Lyle. Can’t pin down why. Perhaps that’s all just the series portrayal.

It’s interesting to me that a director would choose to portray that way. It’s not really the fashionable thing to do and actually requires guts these days to give a balance view on something like that. I saw his interview defending it. He seems quite annoyed it’s even being questioned. He seems honest and with integrity.

Which makes me wonder what does he know that no one else does. Because the SA claims seem to be quite well evidenced. It makes me wonder if there was something he suspected but couldn’t say. I feel like he must know more.

Would love to hear his view.

I was unsure about the purpose of Nathan Lane’s character at first, but i think he’s there to show the alternative perspective from the prosecutions side and also the press.

Lyle certainly presents as more your classic psychopath and the main driver with Erik more passive and more believable as a victim. But as they said, he did Shakespeare!

Was thinking of who the title ‘Monsters’ refers to, the boys or the parents - maybe all 4 of them

Evan Peters got a bunch of awards for the last series so I think they’re hoping for that again. I think Javier Bardem should get something, he’s wonderful

Yes dh and I have been having that discussion too.

So, here’s why I concluded that Erik’s account of being sexually abused was true, or at least largely true.

One - could a guy in his late teens with a high school education invent such a psychologically complex “character” who’d been sexually abused? His story is complicated. He didn’t like being abused, but some parts of it were arousing and preferable to other parts, and he did like that his father was paying attention to him. Is that the story that someone Erik’s age and with his level of education would come up with? It would seem more likely for him to say something like, “I hated it every time he touched me. I hated him so much and I just wanted it to stop.” How does Erik know so much about the psychology of incest survivors?

Two - why would Erik invent a story of Lyle sexually abusing him when they were young children, and why on earth would Lyle go along with that false story? It’s unnecessary, and it has the potential to make Lyle look worse to a jury. If your family member made up a story that you sexually abused them, would you agree to go along with it?

Three - it seems unlikely to me that a teenage boy in the late ‘80s would know much about sex between men in Ancient Greece. Possible, certainly, but was there any evidence that he ever studied antiquity? (Or that Lyle did?)

I just watched episode four - super acting in this episode from Ari Graynor and Nicholas Chavez - and I know there’s nothing out there about Lyle abusing Eric. It feels uncomfortable the writers have fabricated this.

The writers haven’t made it up. It’s in the trial footage.

Is there any evidence that the brothers were thinking about murdering their therapist to cover up the crime? They talked about doing it after Lyle found out that Erik had told him everything.

For me, I absolutely believe they were victims of SA throughout their childhood, which is utterly heartbreaking.

I also believe they were guilty of first degree premeditated murder, and because of how damaged they were as human beings were actually very dangerous to society at large.

Pure speculation but I'd argue once they went down that path and committed such a brutal horrific murder that they tried to cover up, I think it changed them beyond repair. So if they did actually think about killing the therapist (but realised they wouldn't get away with it) it showed that they thought murder was a way to get themselves out of trouble. This made them very dangerous individuals.

No, it isn't. Because it never happened.

What on earth are you talking about? If you watch the real trial footage it’s there. I’ve literally watched it myself. Whether it’s true or not is up for debate but it’s definitely not made up for the show.

Here - this is one small clip but the whole part is on there, it’s over 3 hours long in total if you want to watch the whole thing, it’s all on there. (Obviously the whole trial is hours and hours long but I mean this particular part).

Thanks for posting that @Pigeonqueen . I've read a dozen or so articles over the past week and the Wiki page for the brothers and it didn't come up at all so assumed this was fabricated along with the implication of an incestuous relationship between the brothers (which was Dominic Dunne's theory)

No, Mikey, no, that is so not right! Although it actually is and I can’t definitely see where you’re coming from

I have to say, I couldn’t get into this one. It just didn’t feel genuine, or serious enough? I don’t know. Something about it just didn’t feel right.

It’s okay, I think the actual footage of it all is so interesting. I’ve been watching it all and trying to make my own mind up about it all. I think they were telling the truth, but I also think the whole family, including them, were incredibly spoilt and dysfunctional. I guess it’s whether the abuse they suffered made them that way and was enough to tip them over the edge, and whether we can now let them out maybe. As a survivor of abuse myself I struggle with it all a little because there seems to be this inference in the show that abusers tend to go on to abuse - ie the cycle of abuse -, and this really feels hurtful to someone like me who would never, ever do anything to hurt anyone else. Same for my dh who also had a very abusive childhood. I mean my Mum was absolutely vile but I never murdered her.

I've seen the documentary about this case, which is brilliant (it's on C4 "The Menedez brothers: Erik tells all").

I must say I have always thought they exaggerated/made-up the abuse and killed their parents for money (and were incredibly stupid in the way they behaved after the murders and during the trial). But then both sides of the family fully support them and the prosecution could not find a single witness to say anything positive about the father, so he probably was a terrible human. Also, Erik's testimony was very compelling during the trial, but Lyle's comments and behaviour suggested they made it up.

I remember the case at the time, I always thought the narrative around the case was that the abuse was embellished to act as an excuse. I didn’t like the first episode, felt a little too glossy.

Agree @Pigeonqueen