Another episode of “Monster”, another accusation of re-traumatizing the victims.

After “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” premiered on Netflix on September 19, real members of the Menendez family criticized the series on Facebook.

The anthology series, created by Ryan Murphy, centers on Lyle (Nicholas Alexander Chavez) and Erik (Cooper Koch) Menendez, who were convicted in 1996 of the 1989 murder of their parents, Mary Louise “Kitty” (Chloë Sevigny) and José Menendez (Javier Bardem). The brothers claimed to be victims of sexual abuse; prosecutors argued that the duo wanted to inherit their parents’ fortune after their deaths. The brothers were 21 and 18 years old, respectively, at the time of the murders. Both siblings claimed that their father, José, sexually abused them starting at age 6.

Now relatives of the brothers describe the portrayal of the duo in the series “Monsters” as “pure evil”.

“Conclusion 1: no resemblance to reality,” one post said. “Conclusion 2: Aside from the utter incompetence of the police, very little of it was accurate.”

As the series progresses, scenes such as Kitty surprising Lyle and Erik while they are showering together or the brothers kissing suggest incestuous abuse. The Facebook page attributed to Lyle described the portrayed relationship between the brothers as “absurd.”

One post said: “So, these ‘writers/creators’ got up in the morning, ate their cereal and went to an office where they decided to lie about rape victims who suffered every single day of their lives. The professionals did it for the money. How ironic. Never forget: There was more evidence of abuse in the first trial than in most successful child abuse cases.”

Another post reads: “They had a wealth of material to draw from and this is what they did???? It’s ridiculous. It’s pathetic. And it re-victimizes the victims. It’s imaginary. It’s fiction. And putting forward the absurd notion that the brothers were lovers is the height of pure evil. How convenient that the new evidence was never brought up! The truth is I have no idea what I just saw because it bears no resemblance to reality or the people I know. (…) Why don’t male victims of sexual assault come forward? Because they’re afraid of encountering people like the people who made this garbage.”

And even if Netflix had added a disclaimer that the show was fiction and not a true crime story, the series would still be “terrible,” according to the site.

In a statement from Erik, also published on the site, he said the series was based on “horrific and blatant lies” and that both brothers were portrayed in a “disgusting and horrific” manner.

The purpose of the platform, according to Menendez’s social media page, is to “provide a safe place where people can talk about similar experiences and find comfort in others who have suffered silently in the same way.”

The first part of “Monster,” “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” met with similar reactions from the families of the victims. Eric Perry, a cousin of Jeffrey Dahmer victim Errol Lindsey, commented on Twitter to describe the series as “cruel”.

“Reenacting my cousin’s emotional breakdown in court in the face of the man who tortured and murdered her brother is WILD,” Perry wrote, adding that the producers of “Monster” had not contacted his family about adapting Lindsey’s story. “When they say they are doing it ‘out of respect for the victims’ or ‘to honor the dignity of the families,’ no one contacts them. My cousins ​​now wake up every few months to a ton of calls and texts knowing there is another Dahmer show. It’s cruel.”

Series creator Murphy said at a premiere of “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” in New York that the second part of “Dahmer” is different. However, both seasons were created after “years” of research by Murphy’s team to make the series as “real” as possible.

“When you do a show like our first season of ‘Dahmer,’ which was so unexpectedly successful, we were all about looking at who gets justice and what forms of social injustice there are,” Murphy said. “And I felt the same way about this season. This season was about abuse, who to believe and who not to believe. … All of this is true, by the way. We spent many, many, many years researching this. Things you really can’t make up, but what struck me when Ian and I were working on it was … (the show) is really more interested in talking about how monsters are created than how they are born. All of the seasons have that in common. This one certainly does, and we try not to judge it too much because we’re trying to understand why they did something, not how they did something.”