Monsters - The Lyle And Erik Menendez Story: Main Cast Revealed, American Sports Story and more

Following the runaway success of Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, Netflix took was what was intended to be a limited series and decided to make an true crime anthology series.

For Ryan Murphy, he was already doing this for FX with American Crime Story but given the record breaking hit that Dahmer had become, you almost can't begrudge him for going down the anthology route, given that it's his bread and butter since 2011.

The second season of the now Netflix True Crime Anthology series has the title of Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menendez Story and earlier this week, the two leading actors were cast. Playing the role of Lyle Menendez will be Nicholas Alexander Chavez, best known for his role in long running US soap General Hospital. 

As for Erik Menendez, the role has been given to Copper Koch. The actor, slightly less known but in recent months has appeared in LGBT horror movies such as They/Them and Swallowed. I reviewed the latter on this blog earlier in the year and will get to the former fairly soon. Filming for the second season will begin later in the year with a release on Netflix scheduled for 2024. I'll review it in a similar to how I tackled the first season.

Speaking of Dahmer, while it was a source of online controversy, the series has in subsequent months been nominated and won various awards (recently including a BAFTA) with leading actor Evan Peters repeatedly praised for his performance. I don't know if Lyle And Erik Menendez will garner similar awards but it's Murphy's only remaining link to Netflix (along with a second season of The Watcher) as his five year contract with the streaming comes to an end and he heads back to Disney. When more casting becomes known, I will post another update.

Getting back to Disney or more accurately, the FX and Hulu, it seems that not only has American Sports Story been in production since April this year but Josh Andres Rivera was cast in the role of NFL player Aaron Hernandez while Ariana DeBose has also been cast in an undisclosed role. The other rumoured anthology series, American Love Story is still in development and will focus on the courtship and marriage of John F. Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy. 

Last but not least, a little update on American Horror Story: Delicate would be that Denis O'Hare has seemingly confirmed that he will be in the upcoming season, though his role has yet to be revealed. As for spin-off show, American Horror Stories, the only actors confirmed for now are Lisa Rinna, Jeff Hiller and Petra Collins in undisclosed roles.

That's everything for now. More updates soon.

My Review of Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (2022 Netflix Series)

It took me a little longer to catch up with this recent and rather controversial limited series from Netflix, focusing on infamous serial killer, Jeffrey Dahmer. Was it worth the watch?

Written by Ryan Murphy & Ian Brennan & David McMillan & Janet Mock & Reilly Smith & Todd Kubrak

Directed by Carl Franklin & Clement Virgo & Jennifer Lynch & Paris Barclay & Gregg Araki

Glenda Cleveland (to the police): "I called you for months and its too late. Y'all come too late."

Ryan Murphy's foray into the world of Netflix over the last three years with the type of shows he's chosen to do have been a mixed bag for some. As shows they've largely felt no different to the majority of his FX content and in some respects, the rather long title of Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story could've easily been a lost season of American Crime Story. In fact, watching this series did remind me of the second season of that show, which had focused on Andrew Cunanan's murder of Gianni Versace. Tonally, this series wasn't that much different to it.

The first episode opened with Jeffrey Dahmer (Evan Peters) taking home his last victim, Tracy Edwards (Shaun J. Brown) with the intention of killing him. Only this time, Tracy managed to escape from Dahmer's grasp, alert the police and get Dahmer arrested to the relief and anger of his neighbour Glenda Cleveland (Niecy Nash), who had warned the police about Dahmer, only to have been ignored by them.

From the second to the seventh episodes, most of this limited series put the focus on Dahmer's childhood. We see him growing up as a strange kid with a morbid fixation on taxidermy, something which had been encouraged by his father, Lionel (Richard Jenkins). We also see Lionel marry another woman, Shari (Molly Ringwald), following the separation from Jeffrey's mother, Joyce (Penelope Ann Miller), whose own mental issues were depicted throughout the series.

On top of Jeffrey flunking high school, getting kicked out of the army, bouncing from various jobs and his volatile relationship with his religious grandmother, Catherine (Michael Learned), the show saw his descent into terror with an emphasis on some of his victims. Something that Dahmer was able to do due the shocking incompetence of the police force at the time a well as their lack of accountability following the fallout of Dahmer's crimes revealed.

This series made no bones about the fact that the majority of Jeffrey's victims were non white and along with Tracy Edwards, some of the victims largely emphasised throughout the series included Konerak Sinthasomphone (Kieran Tamondong), Steven Hick (Cameron Cowperthwaite), Ronald Flowers (Dyllon Burnside) and Tony Hughes (Rodney Burford). Most of these men died at the hands of Dahmer and the ones who survived him were deeply scarred by what Dahmer had done to them. 

While family members of Dahmer's victims have been critical of this series, I'll admit this series has at least tried to be respectful to them as well as depicting the fallout of Dahmer's actions, his trial, life in prison, finding God as well as his own brutal death at the hands of a fellow inmate. Not to mention the dark shadow that his reign of terror had left on everyone, including Dahmer's own family.

- Other killers who factored into this miniseries within context to Dahmer were Ed Gein (Shane Kerwin) and John Wayne Gacy (Dominic Burgess).Ryan Murphy has previously depicted versions of Dahmer and Gacy in American Horror Story: Hotel.

- In spite of the controversy surrounding  the show, it's become of Netflix's biggest hits in less than a month of its release.

- The end credits of the finale showed all seventeen victims of Dahmer. 

- The episode titles for the episodes are Bad Meat, Please Don't Go, Doin' A Dahmer, The Good Boy Box, Blood On Their Hands, Silenced, Cassandra, Lionel, The Bogeyman and God Of Forgiveness, God Of Vengeance.

- Standout music: The song Please Don't Go by KC And The Sunshine Band was used a lot in this series.

- Chronology: From 1959 up until 1994.

Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story made for an uncomfortable watch with a compelling set of performances from Evan Peters, Niecy Nash, Richard Jenkins and Rodney Burford to name a few here. Also given the success of the series, I wouldn't be shocked if another real life monster gets emphasized in a follow up show.

Rating: 9 out of 10