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It takes a lot for a sitcom star to transform their image. Actors strive to disappear into roles, and that’s nearly impossible to do if you spent 9 seasons playing Urkel or Kramer. That’s why sitcom stars ranging from Woody Harrelson to Elizabeth Berkley went to extremes to make people see them as someone else. We’ve even seen a much milder version of this with Disney tween star Selena Gomez’s maturation into super cool and snarky quasi-femme fatale in Hulu’s Only Murders In the Building. But long before Jessie Spano spun around a stripper pole and Woody Boyd became a natural born killer, Samantha Stephens went from a witch/housewife to the axe-toting Lizzie Borden.
You read that right, fellow members of the Nick at Nite generation! After playing the witch with a nose twitch for 8 seasons of Bewitched, Elizabeth Montgomery decided to trade in supernatural sitcom hijinks for one nude and bloody killing spree. And after spending most of the decades since its initial airing on ABC in 1975 as an obscure piece of pop culture trivia, you can finally stream The Legend of Lizzie Borden on Prime Video.
The timing couldn’t be more perfect, what with Halloween being just around the corner. In fact, Bewitched has a string of excellent Halloween episodes that would make for a scary good pairing with this ’70s TV movie. And by watching Montgomery in some lighthearted, family-friendly spooks first, you’ll really be able to see just how extreme her dramatic turn as the OG—albeit acquitted!—axe-murderer really was.
Montgomery plays an ice-cold accused murderer perfectly because it was in her blood. Seriously. Lizzie Borden was Elizabeth Montgomery were both descendants of John Luther, a citizen of 17th century Massachusetts. This makes Borden and Montgomery sixth cousins once removed!
The film itself is also just about as far from a Bewitched romp as you can get. The 90-minute movie tells Borden’s true story (with some TV movie flourishes and embellishments, obvs) via her sensational trial and some disturbing flashbacks.
Despite the axe and body count, The Legend of Lizzie Borden is not a slasher movie in the slightest; it’s more of a Psycho-esque slow burn—and that comparison is apt once you see the film’s editing style when Lizzie lets her axe swing into dad’s skull.
Beyond all the blood splatter and pigeon murders, there are fun little Easter eggs for classic TV fans—like Who’s the Boss? icon Katherine Helmond playing Lizzie’s sister Emma. And in one delightful scene, we get the slightest glimpse at what a Bewitched/I Dream of Jeannie crossover could’ve been when Hayden Rorke (Dr. Bellows) plays a journalist interviewing Borden.
While The Legend of Lizzie Borden may seem tame to modern audiences, especially after Malignant just set the bar for bloody horror WTF-ery even higher, the film caused a commotion back in 1975. ABC affiliates in Philadelphia and Birmingham gave the TV movie the axe, refusing to air it because it was too violent. San Francisco Examiner columnist Dwight Newton joked in his favorable review that “ABC prefaced the show with an ‘advisory’ reading: ‘Parental judgment and discretion are advised.’ Translated, that meant: ‘What we are going to have here, folks, is a naked lady killing a couple of people with an ax, and beware of spraying blood. Hoo-eee!'”
I mean, where is the lie? And now that The Legend of Lizzie Borden is streaming on Prime Video, you can have a bloody good time watching Elizabeth Montgomery transform into an unflinching killer without even a twitch of her nose.
