A new Netflix drama about two brothers who murdered their parents has been criticized by one of the real men it is based on.

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story was released last week and reached the top of the Netflix streaming chart.

The show stars Cooper Koch and Nicholas Alexander Chavez as the two brothers, and Javier Bardem and Chloe Sevigny as their parents.

The series is a sequel to the controversial first Monsters series about the American serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. which was criticized in some quarters for being insensitive.

The show was created by Ryan Murphy, the director, writer and producer behind series such as Glee, Pose, The Watcher, Feud, American Horror Story, Hollywood and Ratched, and Ian Brennan, who co-created Glee.

In the first weekend of release, the series is said to have been viewed 12.3 million timesalthough we do not know how many individual viewers or households this concerns, as it is spread over the nine episodes.

Lyle and Erik Menendez are two brothers who murdered their parents on August 20, 1989. Jose and Kitty Menendez were shot multiple times at close range in their Beverly Hills mansion.

The brothers, who were 21 and 18 at the time, initially told police they found their parents dead when they returned home.

The couple was eventually tried for the murders, at first individually, with one jury for each brother. However, both juries were deadlocked, resulting in a mistrial, and the pair were later retried together.

The brothers claimed they committed the murders in self-defense, after years of alleged physical, emotional and sexual abuse.

They said they feared their father would kill them after threatening to expose him. But the prosecutor argued that they wanted to kill their parents to inherit their money.

During their second, joint trial, the judge excluded evidence of abuse from their defense.

A jury found them guilty and the couple were convicted in 1996 of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

They were sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

The Netflix drama presents the murders from different perspectives and explores what could have driven the siblings to kill their parents.

It follows the events surrounding the murders, including the brothers’ claims of physical, emotional and sexual abuse.

But the show also makes an effort to show things from the parents’ point of view, something the creators say is based on extensive research.

Monsters was released on Thursday, September 19, and quickly climbed to the top of Netflix’s streaming chart – as is often the case with shows in the hugely popular true crime genre.

But the show has not been well received by critics. In a two star review Jesse Hassenger of the Guardian described it’s so tiring and repetitive” while So said Ben Travers of IndieWire it was a “messy, lustful slog”.

Variety’s Aramide Tinubu added: “Despite its gripping subject matter and excellent performances, (the show) has no idea what it wants to be. So it just dissolves into a retelling of unspeakable abuses and heinous crimes.”

There was a similar sentiment from Ed Power of the Telegraph, who said: “Under the withering gaze of the Netflix algorithm, no topic is too sensitive to be off-limits or turned into eye candy.

“And that’s ultimately all Monsters boils down to. It’s expertly crafted hokum, made in the worst possible taste.”

Erik and Lyle Menendez, now 53 and 56 years old respectively, are currently in prison in San Diego, California.

In a statement released on X by his wife, Erik Menendez criticized the production the day after it was released, calling the show “disheartening slander”.

“I believed we had moved beyond the lies and ruinous character portrayals of Lyle and created a caricature of Lyle rooted in horrible and blatant lies that were rampant on the show,” he said.

“I can only believe they did this on purpose. It is with a heavy heart that I say: I believe that Ryan Murphy cannot be so naive and inaccurate about the facts of our lives that he can do this without bad intentions.

He continued: “It is sad for me to know that Netflix’s dishonest portrayal of the tragedies surrounding our crime has taken the painful truths several steps backwards – back in time to an era where the prosecution built a narrative on a belief system that men were not. sexually abused, and that men experienced rape trauma differently than women.

“These terrible lies have been disrupted and exposed over the past twenty years by countless courageous victims who have broken through their personal shame and courageously spoken out.”

Speaking to Entertainment Tonight, Murphy said: “I find it interesting that he made a statement without having seen the show.

He acknowledged, “It’s very difficult, when it’s your life, to see your life on screen.

“What I find interesting, which he doesn’t mention in his quote, is that if you watch the show, I would say 60-65% of our show focuses on the abuse and what they claim happened to them.

“We do it very carefully and give them their day in court, and they talk about it openly.”

But, Murphy added, he and his team felt it was important to show things from the parents’ point of view as well.

“In this day and age when people can talk about sexual abuse, talking and writing about all points of view can be controversial,” he said.

“There were four people involved, two people are dead, what about the parents? We had an obligation as storytellers to also try to portray their perspective based on our research, and we did that.”

Murphy also later responded to criticism from the brothers’ family of the series, to Variety their comments were “predictable at best”.

Members of said the family the pair have been “victimized from the outside by this grotesque shockadrama”, adding that the show is “full of untruths”.

Murphy said their response was “interesting because I’d like to have details about what they think is shocking or not shocking. It’s not like we’re making this stuff up. It’s all been presented before.”

The family’s statement also said: “The character assassination of Erik and Lyle, our cousins, under the guise of ‘storytelling’ is abhorrent.”

They added: “We love them and are close to them to this day. We also know what happened in their home and the unimaginably turbulent lives they endured.

“Some of us were eyewitnesses to many atrocities that you should never witness.”