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In the final hour of Netflix’s Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, the titular murderess, having finally made her peace with the act of violence that has defined her life, turns to the loyal companion who’s been by her side through it all. “Okay,” she says. “Let’s make it mean something.”

Lizzie (Ella Beatty) is talking about her wealth and notoriety, which she wishes to channel into a force for good. In the moment, though, all I could hear was showrunner Ian Brennan muttering that sentiment to himself. The latest addition to his and Ryan Murphy’s murder-verse tries desperately to draw something, anything meaningful out of Borden’s saga, with all the finesse of a college freshman trying to crank out a 15-page term paper in the two hours before deadline — and with all the same power of persuasion.

As the subtitle indicates, Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story is first and foremost a retelling of the real events you probably first heard of as a playground chant (one whose melody becomes a recurring motif), or perhaps saw depicted in more detail by Chloë Sevigny and Kristen Stewart in 2018’s Lizzie. While the real-life Borden has always denied responsibility for the August 1892 deaths of her father and stepmother, the series wastes no time playing coy; it takes as settled fact that it was indeed Lizzie who wielded the axe.

As for why, there, too, the series has a clear-cut answer: because they’re emotional sadists whose sole pleasures in life are tormenting the help and insulting their daughter. Playing Abby and Andrew, Rebecca Hall and Charlie Hunnam gorge on the scenery like they’re trying to make themselves sick; one dinner sequence even ends with them spewing geysers of vomit. There’s zero nuance to their performances, and also nothing unique about them to make them memorable. But as a way to get you to sympathize with the devilish Ms. Borden, I can’t say their cartoonish villainy is ineffective.

The only real question left is the how, and that too is more or less established in the Max Winkler-directed premiere. Vicky Krieps plays Maggie, a new housemaid who makes an immediate impression on the family with her skill, her work ethic and her anachronistic style (punk shags in Manic Panic shades, literally a century before they’ll be cool). Lizzie falls in love practically at first sight, and Maggie seems charmed right back. Under Maggie’s guidance, the sweet, shy, sheltered girl who’d never so much as heard of la petite mort blossoms into one confident enough to start rattling the gilded cage her parents have trapped her in. At Maggie’s suggestion, she begins to wonder if killing them might not be her only way out.

Then, having put together so many puzzle pieces so quickly, The Lizzie Borden Story finds itself with the problem of having eight hours’ worth of content to fill. I wish I could say that the series has an easy solution for that, too. Instead, it flails about for a number of stalling tactics, none of them particularly satisfying.

One is simply to slow down the pace of the storytelling. Bits of exposition are repeated in rapid succession (“It’s the culmination of my life’s ambitions, really,” says a character of a completed project, and then, a few minutes later, “It’s everything I ever dreamed of, really,” just in case you weren’t paying attention the first time). Lizzie and Maggie indulge in dreamy nature idylls that clumsily evoke historical lesbian dramas like Portrait of a Lady on Fire or Ammonite, only, for some reason, with way less sex. Intriguing tangents are brought up to go nowhere — no sooner has the show finally started to explain why Abby sucks so much than it’s done her off, thus nipping in the bud any interest we might have taken in her.

The other method, more successful at padding that run time but even more annoying in its spirit, is to insist that The Lizzie Borden Story is actually about something much, much bigger than itself. That Borden is in fact part of a whole historical lineage of female killers, all of whose tales are linked together by some lazily nebulous concept of What It Means to Be a Woman in Society, and that there’s therefore something pretty Female Empowering about the fact that Lizzie has decided to axe-murder her parents, if you really think about it.

The show attempts to do all this by braiding Lizzie’s story with those of arguably the only other female killers as famous as she is. In the late 19th century, Lizzie and Maggie spend long hours reading each other the story of Elizabetta Báthory, the 16th-century countess accused of bathing in the blood of virgins. Krieps plays Elizabetta in flashbacks, which adds nothing significant to our understanding of either Elizabetta or Maggie but does provide the actor an opportunity to don another anachronistic hairstyle (this time, it’s severe bangs and tomato-red streaks).

Meanwhile, in the 20th century, Lizzie has in turn captivated Aileen Wuornos (played by Sarah Paulson in a broad performance more suited for Saturday Night Live). The series lavishes much more attention on Aileen than it did Elizabetta — like, to the point where one wonders if what Murphy and Brennan truly wanted was to do Monster: The Aileen Wuornos Story, and were only stopped by the existence of 2003’s Monster, the Aileen Wuornos story. In this Monster’s telling, Aileen worships Lizzie to the point of booking an overnight stay at her old home and hallucinating interactions with her. To this sex worker turned killer of johns, Lizzie is a role model, a spiritual sister, someone who just gets how the pressures of womanhood can drive a gal to violence.

Never mind that none of these three killers have anything in common — not their backgrounds, not their motives, not their methods, not their outcomes. Never mind that The Lizzie Borden Story’s further attempt to reframe Lizzie as not just a self-actualized independent lady but an outright icon of the women’s suffrage movement comes out of nowhere. Or that for a show supposedly so in tune with the struggles of womanhood, it has no sympathy to extend an embittered wife and mother like Abby (who, for all her abuses, was not a literal murderer), and no curiosity to offer a rebel like Maggie (whose goals or desires or even personality traits always seem to be changing at the whims of the plot).

All of these people, you see, are female. For Monster, that’s reason enough to lump them together — even if, in the end, it has nothing more substantial to say than, “Women be choppin’.”

The Macklemore controversy rumbles on, with new reporting alleging that assurances were given to a group of NFL stadium owners that the rapper would not repeat any comments on the issue of Palestine during Macklemore’s second, and ultimately final, stint as the opening act on Ed Sheeran‘s tour.

In a story published in The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, the newspaper revealed more details of alleged communication between Sheeran, the promoters of Sheeran’s Loop Tour and NFL stadium owners, including New England Patriots and Gillette Stadium owner Robert Kraft, after concerns were raised over Macklemore declaring “Free Palestine” on stage before performing “Hind’s Hall”, his pro-Palestinian song at the MetLife Stadium concert on Sept. 4.

After the incident, the WSJ reports that representatives of Kraft and other NFL stadium owners — including Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper, Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank and Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie — reached out to Loop Tour promoters Messina Touring Group about Macklemore’s overtly political comments. The owners were alleged to have been told that Macklemore, who was initially set to feature on 10 dates for Sheeran, would not bring up the issue of Palestine again during his performances.

At the Sept. 5 concert at the MetLife Stadium, however, the Grammy-winning artist said: “One of the reasons why I wanted to come on this tour was because I wanted to stand up here on stages and stadiums across America and say two words that are very near and dear to my heart: Free Palestine! I want to say this to all of my Jewish brothers and sisters. Criticism of Israel, criticism of apartheid, being against genocide in no way is a criticism of you.”

Macklemore’s comments on the second of the two Metlife Stadium concerts were picked up by news outlets after the Israeli-American Council petitioned for Sheeran to remove the rapper from his tour. Other pressure groups such as StopAntisemitism and Combat Antisemitism Movement as well as the singer Pink also called for the rapper’s removal.

The WSJ reports that behind the scenes, Kraft and Sheeran had a 40-minute phone call about the Macklemore controversy. Kraft is claimed to have told Sheeran that while he had sympathy for the Palestinian people, Macklemore’s comments in his estimation constituted hate speech, and was not a free speech issue.

After days of media scrutiny and with concerns about the future viability of the Loop Tour without access to NFL stadiums, Messina released a statement on Sept. 14 that Macklemore was dropped from the remaining eight U.S. tour dates. In a statement to Rolling Stone, Messina said: “As the concert promoter for Ed Sheeran’s U.S. Loop Tour, we have been notified by venues on the upcoming U.S. tour dates that they will not allow a concert to take place with Macklemore on the lineup, which would result in the cancellation of the tour and impact hundreds of thousands of fans. After discussions with stakeholders, Macklemore will not be performing on the remaining support dates.”

After being dropped, Macklemore released a lengthy statement about the controversy. “Before I get into it, I want to say something that should be obvious. In this moment I think it matters. I am not a victim,” Macklemore wrote on Instagram. “Ed Sheeran is not a victim. Pink is not a victim. We have careers, money, opportunities, safety and audiences around the world. Whatever consequences any of us face for what we say, we get to go home to our families. The victims are the Palestinian people.”

Sheeran also released a lengthy statement after Macklemore’s removal. “After Macklemore’s performances at my New Jersey shows, venues on my upcoming tour dates communicated that they would pull the shows if he was still supporting. I was informed that this stance was based on how Macklemore conveyed part of his message during his performance, rather than on everything that was said. I spoke with the venues at length all week to try and build a bridge. One of those people was Robert Kraft. I was also involved in direct talks with promoters along with activists on both sides to try and find a mutual resolution for all, but the venue’s and promoter’s decision was final.“

Sheeran then reiterated, “Macklemore coming off tour was the promoter’s decision, it was not mine. Macklemore’s contract for the tour was with the promoter, not me.”

Macklemore’s removal set off a fire storm, with Sheeran’s other support acts Finneas, Lukas Graham, Aaron Rowe and his backing band Beoga all pulling out of the remaining tour dates in solidarity with the “Thrift Store” rapper.

On Sept. 16, Macklemore announced that he would donate his earnings from the Loop Tour, approximately $1 million, to six organizations supporting Palestinians and called on Kraft to match his donation. Kraft responded by donating $2 million.

Zach Cregger‘s Resident Evil has arrived — and the critics are embracing the latest reimaginging on the long-running video game franchise.

Based on the popular Capcom video games, Resident Evil stars Austin Abrams as Bryan, an outmatched medical courier who becomes trapped in a monster outbreak in Raccoon City during a single night of chaos and has to try to survive.

The Sony Pictures‘ film reunites Abrams with his Weapons director Cregger, who also co-wrote the script. The cast also features Zach Cherry, Kali Reis and Paul Walter Hauser.

While Cregger’s take on Resident Evil is the eighth installment in the live-action franchise, it’s also a reboot and serves as a fresh start.

Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter earlier this week, Cregger defended his decision to scrap the games’ legacy characters. Responding to online pushback, he said, “I know that when you dive into an IP you’re going to get flack, a certain degree, from the fandom. It would be weird if I were shocked that that was happening. But I think that when the people who love these games the way I do see the movie, my hope is that they feel seen and they feel like this movie is paying homage to the games, because it is, it’s obvious.”

As of publication, it has an 96 percent critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 91 percent audience score. As the movie enters theaters, THR has rounded up what critics are saying, below.

THR’s Frank Scheck, wrote in his review, “Abrams’ shaggy appeal as the everyman hero who somehow manages to overcome every obstacle thrown in his way, including the most monstrous creatures Cregger and his talented creative team could devise, is a key factor in the film’s success. Filled with baroque gore and wildly imaginative set pieces delivered at a feverish pace, Resident Evil transcends its simplistic premise with the sort of cinematic wit and flair for which the filmmaker has been justly acclaimed.”

IGN’s Tom Jorgensen wrote, “Whatever your idea of what a good Resident Evil movie should be, I have to recommend to the skeptical to put that to one side and lock in for what Zach Cregger delivers with this new adaptation of the Capcom games. With a clear appreciation for odds stacked against the protagonist and all manner of freaky foes to stand against them, Cregger ably adapts the spirit, if not the letter, of the Resident Evil games into a jet-fueled horror experience that has room for lots of tension, some great laughs, and a strong central performance from Austin Abrams.”

He added, “With a tendency towards celebrating the feel of the games and not the specifics of the plot, Resident Evil succeeds in amplifying classic gameplay moments into horror movie beats in a way that goes far beyond simple fan service.”

The New York Times’ Brandon Yu praised the tone, writing, “It’s a thriller that’s as funny as it is jumpy, with a remarkable number of jokes rooted simply in Abrams either shrieking in fear or muttering with incredulity. Cregger weaponizes comedy not only as an irrepressible reflex, but as a tool: If horror is about tension and release, he sees the relief of a laugh the same way he might a scream. But it only works because of Abrams. The movie is essentially a one-man show.”

Meanwhile, YouTube critic Jeremy Jahns said the humor “they could have pulled it back a little bit to make the last act a little smoother.” Overall, however, he added, “I actually really enjoyed it. The nods were there without feeling like nostalgia bait. The vibe, the fish out of water scenario that grows bigger and bigger as the film goes on does decidedly feel like Resident Evil. Also, it is decidedly and works well as a Zach Cregger horror film. I guess these two concepts just work well together. And I thought Austin Abrams did a great job carrying us through it. This movie being a Resident Evil dark horror comedy was a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.”

Inverse’s Chrishaun Baker explained that the movie, “playfully engages with the first, is totally uninterested in the second, and cashes all in on the third. For a movie and a filmmaker to have spent months at ground zero of a battle over what form video game adaptations should take, it’s ironic that Resident Evil would end up being one of the best video game films ever made. By bucking the cloying attempts at “pleasing fans” that have sunk so many other movies of this kind, Zach Cregger has made the platonic ideal of what a video game movie should be: a cinematic experience that approximates the medium-specific idiosyncrasies of the game, while offering something new and satisfying for fans and newcomers.”

The Guardians’s Jesse Hassenger compared it to Cregger’s prior film, writing, “Weapons had a creepy, evocative aversion to simple metaphorical reads that ultimately increased its effectiveness; the same isn’t quite true here. Resident Evil foregrounds one obvious bit of character change for Bryan, but after doing a great job making us care about him for more than 90 minutes, Cregger seems to abandon him a few steps shy of completing any real journey. Is he awaiting a level up that never arrives? Hard to say. But maybe bringing a video game sensibility to the big screen while keeping any gamer cheesiness on the margins is journey enough.”