Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menendez Story (2024) 1x01&1x02 + Secret World Of Polly Flint (1987) 1
A wildly controversial 9 part take on the 1989 murders. Javier Bardem, Chloe Sevigny, no names, Nathan Lane, Jeff Perry and Leslie Grossman star
Blame It On The Rain
A tale of lives long lost. The optics are terrible at the funeral. It is 1989. Lyle and Erik have rudeness, coldness and anger. They’ve filmed this like 4 times already. There is a dodgy shrink and clips from the ‘Billionaire Boys Club’ and nudity and endless rows.
There are flashbacks to violent family arguments, the brothers failing and in a darkly farcical moment KITTY RIPPING LYLE’S TOUPEE OFF AT THE DINING TABLE DURING A SCREAMING ARGUMENT. The toupee scene was unintentionally hilarious. There is gun buying and gun usage. The murders are shown in graphic detail. 🤢 🤮. They buy ‘Batman’ tickets as an alibi.
The shrink’s mistress (Grossman of ‘Popular’ and ‘American Horror Story: Cult/Apocalypse/1984/Delicate/Red Tide’) listens in to a confession. The shrink freaks out over a king sized Snickers. This is camper than ‘Melrose Place’ in the psycho Kimberly era. Lyle gets parking and speeding tickets and rants like a crazy man. There is tennis and Halloween and wtf ott camp soap. The brothers come across as uncouth, ill bred and uneducated.
Best Lines:
“Hey mafia!”
“Be the rock of this family.”
“NOBODY’S KILLING YOU!”
“Negative controlling force.”
“Fine cheese.”
“We’re good people!”
“Gotten kicked out of Princeton for plagiarism.”
Spree
Police didn’t check the brothers for gunshot residue. We see the crime scene being processed and Jose getting his liver temp checked. The police suspected it wasn’t a mob hit from day 1. Jose was given as the reason the murders happened. The brothers robbed houses. A geriatric Jeff Perry shows up.
Jose threatened to disinherit the brothers for the burglaries. The brothers go mad spending money. 🍤! There are 🍑 shots. Zsa Zsa Gabor slaps a cop. It is shown in all its glory. The brothers cut open Jose’s safe. They want his will and they want it now. Lyle is hostile and disrespectful.
The mistress is shrill and vile. There are the sons. A screenplay was written by Erik called ‘Friends’. The name is mocked. Overtly trashy. The mistress goes to the cops out of vengeful wrath. Not a bitter indictment of the society and culture that produced them.
Best Lines:
“Shady people.”
“Called my tennis coach.”
“Strive harder.”
“This is not Compton!”
“Does this strike you as the behaviour of someone who’s innocent?”
“Why are you holding that rock?”
“That thing where I can’t breathe is happening!”
“You are still leaving her?”
“Porn theory.”
“I need my smoky quartz!”
“’Friends’! F♤♤king lame title!”
“White panic.”
“We look incompetent!”
“Really seedy group.”
“Use that word a lot in ‘LA Law’.”
“A CASE! NOT A BOTTLE! OF PERRIER!”
~
The Secret World Of Polly Flint (1987) 1x01
Nice music and no names and a narrator. A miner dad, a mum of aggressive non-charms and time travellers and bad fake accents. Dad nearly dies cos its grim up north. DNF.
Best Line:
"Terrible darkness."