On a scorching, hot summer day in 1892 in Fall River, Massachusetts, Lizzie Borden returns home to the house she shares with her father Andrew, stepmother Abby and sister Emma. But, unlike any normal day, Lizzie encounters the bloody scene of her parents violently murdered. Police quickly question multiple suspects in town, but evidence keeps pointing back to the Borden's youngest daughter Lizzie, the seemingly wholesome Sunday school teacher, as the prime suspect. Lizzie's lawyer, Andrew Jennings, proclaims her innocence arguing that it is inconceivable a woman could commit the heinous crime of brutally murdering her family with an ax. Or is it? Lizzie is put on trial for the murders, both in the courtroom and in the press, sparking a widespread debate about her culpability. As the case rages on, the courtroom proceedings fuel an enormous amount of sensationalized stories and headlines in newspapers throughout the country, forever leaving Lizzie Borden's name in infamy. Written by

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iliveforhim1976 from United States
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I think this movie could have been a truly good film. Unfortunately, the mixture of this period film with rock and roll music and synthesizer music makes this almost unbearable. The acting is good and the scenery is well done. Costumes are perfect for the period. Christina Ricci plays the part well as she does with most of the roles she takes on. I also like Clea Duvall as Emma. She does a great job opposite Ricci. I only wish that Nick Gomez would have hired someone to do the music that would have put the scenes with music that fit the period. I think some piano, violin, and other strings would have been much more suitable to this film. Occasionally there is some nice creepy music over some scenes, but in the transitions between scenes we are forced to hear Sons Of Jezebel's song "Whoo Boy". It just doesn't fit. Overall this movie was a let down.

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deschreiber from Canada
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You probably know the "Lizzie Borden took an axe" children's rhyme and wondered where it came from. This movie tells the story of the real crime that formed the basis of the rhyme.

I was quite surprised that the actual case took place as recently as 1892. The rhyme had always seemed very traditional to me; I thought it must have been based on something a very long time ago.

Thankfully, the sound track was used at only half a dozen places in the film, because it was so inappropriate that it could easily have ruined everything. While the story took place in a sedate New England town, where people lived genteel lives, sipping tea and wearing frock coats (think Anne of Green Gables), the sound track was screaming rock. Unbelievably jarring. Even in a party scene where people were dancing whatever they danced in those days of long gowns--waltzes, I suppose--it was portrayed minus the sounds of the party, minus the music that would have been played there, all replaced with a nerve-jangling sound track of rock music. Whoever made that decision should find another field to work in. Horrible.

"Lizzie Borden took an axe, Gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, She gave her father forty-one."

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kimberlyanngerber from United States
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I was anxiously awaiting for this movie to come out. I've been interested in this case for many years and have done extensive research on the murders. This movie was completely inaccurate and disappointing. The soundtrack was inappropriate for this movie. The murders took place in a small town during the Victorian era. The movie should have been accompanied by anything other than the annoying rock music played. The portrayal of Lizzie Borden was off, the house and setting was off. The time line, people involved, statements, trial and inquest were all off. For instance, her uncle arrived at their home the day before and spent the night. He was present the morning of the murders and returned later that day. Lizzie didn't burn her dress outdoors at night in a fire pit. She burned the dress during the day in the kitchen's stove with her friend, Alice Russell present. The comments concerning the murders that were overheard was not by the maid but during her stay in prison by a female prison guard. Lizzie was never noted to dress provocatively nor noted for going to late drinking parties. Those were just a few of the numerous inaccuracies throughout the movie. Although I like Christina Ricci, they could have chosen an actress more fit to portray Lizzie. Christina is more of a frail and petite woman which didn't hit the mark of Lizzie, who was more robust in stature. Her acting as well as some other actors in the movie was mediocre at best. For those fascinated by this case should watch Elizabeth Montgomery's portrayal in the 1975 The Legend of Lizzie Borden which is more accurate.

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poetzmuse from Maryland, USA
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Was looking forward to watching this but a let down. As the others reviewers added, music was awful. Should have been no music or period music. Blaring Sons of Anarchy-type songs did not fit in with an 1892 murder case! And was so poorly edited as to block out characters speaking...! Ricci performance was decent. Rest of movie a disappointment. Would have liked more development on Bridget the Irish maid and Emma. Possibly more angles from neighbors, town-folk. The movie to watch on the case was Legend of Lizzie Borden with Elizabeth Montgomery. What a surprise from her Bewitched days! Her portrayal was edgy and spot on.

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utgard14 from USA
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Lifetime TV movie about the murder trial of Lizzie Borden. I think we're all pretty familiar with the case so I won't go over that part. Basically, Lifetime takes the Lizzie Borden story and adds sex appeal and rock music. It's pretty silly at times but entertaining enough. Christina Ricci's performance borders on campy which probably helps the movie more than harms it. Having seen and read quite a bit over the years about this case I know they played fast & loose with the facts, as just about any movie does with historical events. Although I could be wrong and Lizzie did, in fact, show off her cleavage and go to raves. Maybe historians just don't want us to know the ugly truth. If this were a theatrical release I would rate it lower. But since it's made for television, it's actually above par. If you can find it you should definitely check out the 1970s TV movie with Elizabeth Montgomery called The Legend of Lizzie Borden. It's much better and you can enjoy it on a serious level without the giggle factor this version produces.

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thomasbarr from United States
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My wife and I both enjoyed this movie, and she had just recently read a book on the case. The story was well-told and left open for interpretation, for most of the movie, to whether she was guilty or not. The acting was excellent and the period costumes were as well. However, whoever allowed this soundtrack to be used tried their best to ruin the whole experience. I don't think a thriller/mystery set in 1892 should have 21st-century electric/amplified rock music inserted, especially in the first half of the movie. To have a scene or a transition of a movie set in the 1890's interrupted by an amplified guitar and keyboards with the nauseating "Oooooo, boy!" was not only ridiculous, after a while we started laughing and wondering when the next inappropriate music would come bursting in. Overall, however, it's a very good TV movie.

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FlushingCaps from United States
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As one who has read much about this grisly 1892 double homicide, and who has visited the actual home in Fall River, Massachusetts, I was appalled at the inaccuracies too numerous to detail here. As a person who normally pays little attention to a film's background music, this film had such horribly distracting rock music, with vocals, on many scenes that I understand the other reviewers here who claim they ruined the film.

But the film was ruined by many other things. First of all, there is almost nothing accurate about the Borden home as shown in this film. It was much narrower and has no interior hallways. One room leads to another. One of the keys to believing her guilty is how when Andrew Borden returned home that day, Lizzie stood at the top of the front staircase, laughing. Where she would have been--just outside her bedroom, she could easily have looked right and seen her dead stepmother. In this film, that bedroom was down the hall from the staircase, as shown when the maid went looking for Mrs. Borden. The film shows her downstairs when Andrew arrived home.

Also wrong, the film, after the police were examining the crime scene, has Lizzie sending the maid alone upstairs to look for Mrs. Borden. In real life, before the police arrive, she asked the maid and her friend to look for her because she was sure she had heard her stepmother return.

One of the key elements in making her a suspect in real life was that Lizzie told the police that she never entered the room where her father lay dead, never saw his hatchet-ed face, never even saw any blood, only his body on the couch. So without seeing anything amiss, why did she call to the maid reporting that father had been killed? In the film, she saw the bloody face and screamed wildly--not at all matching the facts.

The family all called the maid Maggie, but the movie only mentioned her actual name of Bridget. She was a popular suspect with the public, largely because she was an Irish Catholic in a town full of people that didn't care for either. This wasn't mentioned either.

The film shows the maid washing windows when Andrew was killed. Wrong. While Maggie was washing windows at the time of the first murder, she was napping when Mr. Borden was killed. This was her option after Lizzie had suggested she go shopping for a while--right after Andrew had returned home. Her room was on the third level, far from the first floor sitting room site of the murder.

They also showed Maggie inside, hearing a thud (the falling body of Mrs. Borden) when in fact she reported hearing nothing, (as did Lizzie).

The many times when an investigator referred to Mrs. Borden as her "mother" and was interrupted by Lizzie, insisting she was only her "stepmother" were omitted from this film.

The dress that was such a focal point had been burned in the kitchen stove, not an outside pot as stated in the film. When the police arrived, Lizzie had already switched to a pink dress, unlike what the film depicted.

Extra SPOILER alert: The film depicts a totally concocted scene about what Lizzie actually told her sister about the murders that totally contradicts the historical record. It appears to take place shortly after the trial, and the next day, Emma is seen leaving their home and words on the screen tell us they never spoke again.

In real life, they shared the much larger home they bought after the murders for a dozen years. Years after moving out, Emma insisted she believed Lizzie innocent.

A blade was found in the basement, suspiciously buried in ashes, with the handle broken off. This blade was fitted precisely to the wounds in the skulls. It is believed the broken handle was burned in the stove. Amazingly, the film omits all of this.

I was also distressed at how the farcical elements of the trial were omitted from the film. The chief defense attorney was not the family lawyer as shown, but the former governor of the state who had appointed to the bench one of the three judges that sat on the case. That judge had delivered the charges to the jury that were pretty much a second summation for the defense, instead of what they should be. He even presented a theory about the missing note that the defense had not presented, as if he was trying extra hard to help the defense in the case. You'd have thought his name was Ito.

It was absurd for the film to show closing arguments as a back-and-forth between the two sides, which isn't at all true. When the jury returned to the courtroom, they enter in slow motion for some reason.

The director also found it necessary to repeatedly show scenes, usually short bits, of the hatchet swinging and blood flying, in flashback format, as if one look at all the blood wasn't enough.

I believe this film poorly made, with the worst soundtrack I ever heard, to be excessively bloody, and with over two dozen factual inaccuracies (I quit counting) to be a real waste of time.

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SunStar56 from United States
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I'm just going to get this off my chest right away.

What was with that abhorrent soundtrack? This would've been a much better movie if it weren't for that awful music. Seriously. Rock & Roll? Stuff that sounds like grunge metal? In a movie that's set in the late 1800s? That makes *awesome* sense! Not.

If you can get past the soundtrack and give it a chance, it's a decent movie. I didn't really care for Christina Ricci, she just didn't seem that believable to me, but Billy Campbell was pretty good; though I've seen him in better things.

I just can't get over that soundtrack though. Yuck. It made an OK movie nearly unwatchable. My advice: Don't waste your time on this one.

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dlundber64
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What a great story! Spinster daughter, faced with penurious life because inheritance could go to hated stepmother, is accused of killing stepmother and father with an ax. Why tart up film with weird atmospheric sounds, hip music, and unhistorical hints of incestuous emotions. A straight telling of events emphasizing the dependent role of women in the 19th century, the inability of society to accept that women could kill parents,and other legal and cultural aspects of Victorian America would have been enough. Christina Ricci, skillful actor though she is, seems to be reprising her role as the evil child in the Addams Family. She really needs to dial back the wide eyed penetrating stares and consider other ways to convey emotion. Clea Duvall, Lizzie's sister, was a standout. Not only did she looking a person of the late 19th century, she acted as one. Would that Christina Ricci had done the same.

What a disappointing film.

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Tony Heck (cosmo_tiger@hotmail.com) from United States
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"I told you what happened. Do you think I'm hiding something from you?" During the summer of 1892 in the town of Fall River, Massachusetts a young woman named Lizzie Borden (Ricci)returns to her house and finds her father and step-mother brutally murdered. When the police begin to investigate all the evidence points to Lizzie. Her lawyer comes up with the only defense available. How could a woman kill anyone in that fashion? First of all this is a Lifetime movie so those of you looking for gore and horror can look elsewhere. The movie isn't bad but is glaringly obvious that this is a low budget made for TV movie. The story of this murder is very intriguing and is a good idea for a movie, but the fact that Lifetime did it really tones down what could be a great movie. Christina Ricci is the perfect choice for this role and she is really the only thing that saves the movie. Most of the movie is a courtroom drama which I usually love and the defense that a petite woman couldn't do this is very interesting and shows what the country used to be like. The biggest problem with this movie is that it never achieves the tense feeling it was going for. It is very flat and not as interesting as it could have been. As a side note the music choices were awful, when you watch it you will see what I mean. Overall, flat and emotionless, even for a made-for-TV movie. I give this a C.

murder|sunday school teacher|massachusetts|fall river massachusetts|sister sister relationship|morphine|female protagonist|blood|death|blood splatter|jumping rope|nursery rhyme|axe murder|murder trial|not guilty verdict|fainting|human skull|potassium cyanide|mob of reporters|exhumation|grave side ceremony|funeral procession|hatchet|pigeon coop|napping on a sofa|washing a window|climbing a ladder|horse drawn carriage|robbery|sneaking out of the house|party|father daughter relationship|reading a newspaper|strict father|matricide|fratricide|close up of mouth|close up of eyes|hanging laundry|eating a pear|1890s|title spoken by character|character name in title|

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Certifications:
Germany:16 / Singapore:NC16 / UK:15 / USA:TV-14