‘The Lizzie Borden Chronicles’ is a Real Slice

Lizzie Borden (Christina Ricci)  is a force to be reckoned with

‘The Lizzie Borden Chronicles’ is a Real Slice

Three stars-- a worthwhile watch.

Lifetime’s newest original series, ‘The Lizzie Borden Chronicles’ is the latest dark, dangerous, and creepy offering on the network since ‘Witches of East End’. That show followed the spirited coven of four Beauchamp women with their strong family bonds, even stronger grrrrl power, and their dabbling in the magic arts. Unlike the prematurely cancelled ‘Witches’ that explored the themes of perseverance, love, and forgiveness, ‘The Lizzie Borden Chronicles’ takes an entirely different approach. Nixing the fantastical and paranormal approach, ‘Borden’ goes for screams in this historical horror. From the opening scene it brings down the axe and lets the blood flow.

The story begins in the late 1800s with a trio of young girls singing the famous ‘forty-whacks’ chant and skipping rope. Lizzie and her sister pass by the girls and make their way through an attorney’s building where Lizzie is acquitted of all charges for the brutal murder of her parents.  Venerated horror movie darling, Christina Ricci stars as the title character. With a constant predatory half-smile on her face, and wide unblinking eyes, Ricci as Lizzie is especially eerie to behold. As Lizzie  goes through the motions of signing documents in the building, the camera shakes, blurs and jerks the audience into the past. It sets the tone for the the urgent and alarmed cinematography-- blindingly bright contrasts with deep dark, the frame blurs in and out of focus. There’s something very unreal and disorienting about the camera work that sets the mood and gets hearts pumping.

Ricci as Lizzie is captivating and creepy.

The frantic and violent scenes where Lizzie hacks into her parents bodies cut quickly between clips of the girls jumping rope, and the Lizzie and her sister going through paperwork and dealing with staff in attorney’s office. The flashback of Lizzie slaying her parents is a PG horror-lite scene, and long time veterans of shows like ‘Supernatural’ or ‘American Horror Story’ will find the killing far from cringeworthy. Ricci is convincingly as she relentlessly pummels their bodies, but the blood and gore effects that look more like raspberry syrup than anything makes the scene more silly than scary. The black and white photographs of the mutilated bodies that flash up on the screen after the blood splatter subsides are far more ominous.

The soundtrack to the series is a blunt axe. If anything, it starts to work against what the show is trying to do. The music wails like sirens and  it detracts from the ambiance. Unfortunately, this a recurrent issue with the pilot. The few and far between moments of piano instrumental music is elegant and just a touch eerie, and should have been used instead of the garbled and earsplittingly off tone vocal and techno music that gets the most air time.

Despite the the ruling of her trial, Lizzie and her sister are still pariahs and their troubles are far from over. Portly and smug Mr. Almy is a bank man who demands the Borden sisters entire fund. Gloating that he plans to ‘wipe them out’ by making them pay back their fathers debt plus interest, the impending ruin hovering over the women from his heartless scheme is as heavy as the period costuming they wear.

The elegant clothing Lizzie and Emma (Clea DuVall) wear bounces between funerary and decadent.

The plot thickens when Lizzie and Emma’s sleazy half-brother William returns. A penniless drunk and a “disowned bastard” he grumbles to the Borden sisters that he was evicted from his previous housing and demands “his cut”, half of the fortune they’ve inherited. Only Mr. Almy has already planned to nip that in the bud, something that Lizzie tells William with a quiet hostility. While William is openly disdainful of his sisters and badmouths them, Lizzie is far more composed with her feelings towards William. With her ever present crocodile like smile and in the way she talks to him, she emanates a cool and amused sort of hatred for him.  

On the other hand, Lizzie’s  loving, elder sister Emma has a quiet dignity. With her head held high, she is utterly convinced of her Lizzie’s  innocence. On one occasion while reflecting on the seemingly inevitable financial ruin Lizzie says reassuringly to her sister, “No matter what comes of the situation, I’ll have you and you’ll have me.” Lizzie has a complete change in demeanor around Emma and it’s from those interactions that it’s clear that Emma doesn't seem to suspect the true atrocities Lizzie committed.

At the same time William scrounges around the Borden estate while Emma and Lizzie are attending church, for the “hidden”  Borden fortune, aka dear dead dad’s money, the next main character is introduced.

The music tilts even more off-kilter as what can only be described as the ugly baby of techno and country music with distractedly modern vocals tossed in there. Amidst the shrieking of sound, Pinkerton Detective Charlie Siringo corners a fugitive in the forest and blasts a bullet through his hand, effectively shredding his fingers. The next time he pulls the trigger it’s at a spot right between the man’s eyes. Siringo is driven and determined to get the job done. His latest job, after dropping off the leaking severed head of the fugitive to his superiors in the office, is to pursue the Lizzie Borden case.

Tough detective Charlie Siringo (Cole Hauser) is on Lizzie's trail.

Checking in to a quaint Massachusetts B&B not far from the Borden sister’s home, Siringo’s enigmatic behavior, and the loaded pistol tucked into his jacket mark him as a target for the B&B owner, Ezekiel Danforth. Danforth forces his wife, Isabel (Olivia Llewellyn) to search through Siringo’s room while he’s out. Predictably enough, Siringo catches Isabel in the act and confirms what she discovered-- photos and files from the Borden case-- and that he’s on the case from an undisclosed client to find out the truth about Lizzie Borden. Although she says she doesn’t want the media circus to come back again, she is mum about Siringo’s true intentions to her husband, and effectively becomes an ally for Siringo.

Isabel effectively becomes an ally for Siringo after discovering he's digging into the Borden case.

Siringo’s client is just one of the mysteries. Lizzie purchases a grand new home despite the threat of losing every bit of her and her sister’s money. After cheerfully deciding early in the episode it was time for a “change of scenery”, while surveying the parlor room and flashing back to how she’d hacked into her father on that very couch, it seems like a rash decision and is especially peculiar how certain Lizzie is that she and Emma will be fine. Back at the Borden house, William stumbles upon a baby’s skeleton stowed in a trunk in the basement. Instantly he threatens blackmail, and Lizzie in typical fashion doesn’t take the bait.

“A dead baby doesn’t matter?”

Lizzie is unfazed, “You’re a thief and a liar, and you’ll say anything to get what you want.” Half shroud in the shadows of the parlor she smirks,“Yeah you play that card and see where it gets you.” She is utterly chilling.

Desperately, William assaults Mr. Almy on the street and demands his money. He flees and hides from the constables in the Borden’s barn attic. Lizzie looks up with a knowing smile. She could sell him out to the cops but she chooses not to.

As Siringo learns when he meets with the decrepit Mary Weddington, a character reference and old school teacher of Lizzie who suddenly decided not to testify two days before the trial, “Lizzie was a sweet child . . . when it served her.”

Siringo gets his hands on Lizzie's childhood school files.

Lizzie’s manipulative nature is in full form as the episode comes to a close. That evening she brings up drinks to the attic in a stab at being chummy with William but, its permeated by a sense of unease.

“You and I are going to be civil,” she says matter-of-fact. She tells William that she’s help him get what he deserves, and they’ll fix his little problem. “We need to come up with a plan to solve this,” she says over her glass, with eerie tinkling music in the background.

Looming in the shadows of Almy’s office, Lizzie wears a bright confection of a dress as she  slowly approaches him. The camera blurs in and out, and shakes, book ending to the quality and composition of the camera work in the opening murder scene flashbacks. It’s intense, and it’s foreboding. Much like an alligator, floating in a swamp still and unthreatening as a mossy log,  Lizzie removes her hair pin. Then like the jaws of the river beast snapping open and with all the might of that deadly creature, she brutally savages his body. The finishing touch is when Lizzie puts an iron horseshoe in a leather sack and smashes Almy’s head into a pulpy mess.

The featured outfit in the 'what to wear for a murder' column in a fashion mag.

In the final scene Emma finds William’s body swinging from the rafters in the barn where he was hiding the night morning. While Emma is screaming, the camera shifts to Lizzie whose eyes instantly snap open as she’s laying in her bed.

‘The Lizzie Borden Chronicles’ is a promising new thriller that brings to life the history of this mysterious murderess. The strong acting skills of Ricci, the lush costumes and ornate houses start the show off with an abundance of physical appeal. The storyline that starts viewers off with seeing the atrocities Lizzie committed, but with the introduction of the Detective Siringo many more questions are asked. Lizzie’s dark motives and her manipulative nature are more than enough to make this pilot episode end with all the force of a razor sharp guillotine dropping down on its latest victim.

Dear old daddy Borden was just the beginning after all . . .

IMAGES from IMDB and Lifetime