Netflix's 'Monsters' explores Lizzie Borden mystery in first female-focused season

"Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story," which begins streaming on Thursday, follows Borden, who was tried and acquitted of the 1892 ax murders of her father, Andrew Borden, played by Charlie Hunnam, and her stepmother, Abby Borden, played by Rebecca Hall.

The case became embedded in American culture through a folk rhyme and countless portrayals across music, radio, film, theater and television. Yet much about what happened inside the Borden home remains unknown.

"I knew that she was this sort of almost mythological figure in American history, and I knew the nursery rhyme," said Hall, an English actor.

"I didn't know that she wasn't convicted. I didn't know that there was all this mystery around the details of what happened, but she's this kind of like folkloric figure almost," she said.

For director Max Winkler, those unanswered questions offered an opportunity to explore the limitations placed on women in the 1890s.

"You're essentially treated like a piece of property, and your best role is to get married off and have as many kids as possible," Winkler said.