Ryan Murphy’s new serial killer thriller The Shards is an insufferable monstrosity

Ryan Murphy and Bret Easton Ellis; it’s a nightmarish link-up.

Two individuals whose creative output is so devoid of restraint, you can probably imagine what their combined effort looks like.

That is The Shards, based on Ellis’s sprawling, 600-page semi-autobiographical tome of the same bad name, which many readers assumed was beyond adaptation.

Watching the new Disney Plus nine-parter, I fear they might have been right.

From the off, we are thrust into the asinine mind of our leading man Bret Ellis (Igby Rigney). Imagine the worst person you know, then what their inner monologue might sound like, and you’re getting on to the voiceover of The Shards. No, I don’t know why it’s called that.

Told in the rearview mirror, we’re in 1980s Los Angeles, where Bret and his mates are well-off high school seniors having the time of their lives. This involves copious cocaine, Euphoria-style parties and speeding down the PCH to Vienna’s Ultravox (the soundtrack is cracking).

But there’s a serial killer called The Trawler on the rampage, threatening to ruin all their fun. First a legion of pets go missing, then their student owners start to get heavy-breathing crank calls and next, they vanish.

Bret is the only one that’s terribly fussed. The rest of them don’t want their fun spoiled.

‘Casually beautiful, all-American and from wealthy families,’ is how he describes two of his pals, but it could apply to the whole friendship group. Except for the charismatic newbie Robert Mallory, who Bret can’t figure out, but definitely wants to bed.

He’s played by Homer Gere, and the cast also includes Kaia Gerber (two actors who just did it on their own). In the lead-up to release, they’ve been touted as the new wave of Hollywood, which is never a good sign, since those things tend to happen organically (Euphoria, Skins, Sex Education).

The Shards is a mixed bag of acting chops. Gere is surprisingly solid and Gerber can limp by when all she has to do is pout and smoke. Rigney has nailed Bret if the main note was ‘be insufferable’. 

But take Bret’s girlfriend Debbie: an electric blonde whose nose is forever attached to a roll-up with a line at the end of it. She’s played by Hayes Warner, in her first ever acting job – it shows.

It might not entirely be Warner’s fault, since her character makes no sense. Neither does the plot. Nobody gives a toss about the missing kids. Tricky conversations are abruptly resolved with the suggestion of a dip in the hot tub, or the return of Bret’s monotone voiceover.

Wondering where the parents are? Those who are in the picture are just as messed up as their offspring. Debbie’s Hollywood producer dad (Wes Bentley) is grooming Bret. His wife (Evan Rachel Wood, wasted in this) is getting back at him by making porn.

Bret, who both is and is not the real Ellis, is writing his debut book Less Than Zero. This requires him telling us again and again, ‘I was working on my novel’, with a real drawl on the last word. His friends seem as fed up hearing about it as I am.

His voiceover isn’t as self-aware as American Psycho, even if there is a highly specific morning routine. Catcher in the Rye came to my mind. JD Salinger refused to adapt his coming-of-age tale, because how would that whiny, internal monologue work on screen? Right call.

But back to The Shards, or as I have been mentally referring to it, Gossip Girl with a serial killer on the loose.

When that half of the show gets going, I initially marvelled at the self-control.

We are spared the violent scenes of the first murder. But then, when the teenage girl (because, of course, it’s a woman) is discovered, we’re shown her strung up on a tennis court from three different angles. Later on, the moments before Sharon Tate’s murder are recreated, just because of its historical proximity to events.

One victim is a student with Tourette’s, who Bret and his mates treat like a Make-A-Wish child. When she vanishes, they plaster her face on sparkling water bottles to raise awareness. I really hope it’s tongue-in-cheek, but with the acting, it’s hard to tell.

So, yes, it’s another Ryan Murphy Monstrosity. But everyone and everything is gorgeous, so at least there’s always something pleasant to look at.

Ellis and Murphy might not know how to give us exactly what we want, but they know how to serve up what we wish we didn’t want. That is The Shards.

I quake to think of the amount of Disney dollars that have been pumped into this, only to make a beautiful, mediocre mess.

The Shards is available to stream on Disney Plus from August 6.