Netflix has released fuller detail alongside the trailer for "Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story," including its official synopsis and new comments from creator Ryan Murphy on the season's themes. The synopsis describes Lizzie Borden and her maid escaping a household of "humiliation and cruelty" into "a fantasy of sex, power and revenge," while Murphy has spoken about the show's inevitable controversy and its central question of whether "monsters are made, or born." The fourth season, Netflix's true-crime anthology from Murphy and Ian Brennan, stars Ella Beatty as Borden in a dramatisation of the notorious 1892 axe murders of her father and stepmother in Fall River, Massachusetts.

Murphy revealed this season features "three really great monsters": Borden, Aileen Wuornos (played by Sarah Paulson, who appears briefly in the trailer) and Elizabeth Báthory (Vicky Krieps), continuing the franchise's focus on infamous killers. Wuornos was previously portrayed by Charlize Theron, who won an Oscar for the role in the 2003 film "Monster." Murphy also described a personal connection to the case, recalling winning a childhood singing contest performing the "Lizzie Borden Took an Ax" nursery rhyme. "Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story" premieres with eight episodes on Netflix on 17 September.