Monster: The Ed Gein Story

Last updated

Contents

Monster: The Ed Gein Story
Monster The Ed Gein Story 2025.jpg
Promotional release poster
Showrunner Ian Brennan
Starring
No. of episodes8
Release
Original network Netflix
Original releaseOctober 3, 2025 (2025-10-03)
Season chronology
List of episodes

Monster: The Ed Gein Story is the third season of the American biographical crime drama anthology television series Monster , created by Ian Brennan for Netflix. The season focuses on convicted murderer, graverobber, and suspected serial killer Ed Gein (Charlie Hunnam). The cast also includes Suzanna Son, Vicky Krieps, Laurie Metcalf, and Tom Hollander. The season incorporates meta commentary on the cultural obsession with true crime, exploring Gein's influence on Hollywood and pop culture.

It is the third installment in the Monster anthology series, following Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (2022) and Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story (2024). A season based on Ed Gein was announced to be in development on September 14, 2024. It is the first season not helmed by Ryan Murphy, with Brennan serving as the sole creator and writer.

Upon its premiere on October 3, 2025, the season received negative reviews and was deemed inferior to its predecessors, with critics panning its meta commentary, subplots, runtime, excessive graphic violence, and factual inaccuracies, while opinions on Hunnam's performance were divided.

A fourth season based on murder suspect Lizzie Borden is currently in production.

Premise

The series explores the life of convicted murderer and body snatcher Ed Gein (Charlie Hunnam) through allusions to fictional cultural works inspired by his crimes, such as Psycho (1960), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), and The Silence of the Lambs (1991). [1] [2] [3]

Cast and characters

Main

Recurring

Guest

Episodes

No.
overall		No. in
season		TitleDirected byWritten byOriginal release date  [3]
201"Mother!" Max Winkler Ian Brennan October 3, 2025 (2025-10-03)
In 1944, Ed Gein lives on an isolated farm in Plainfield, Wisconsin, with his heavily religious mother Augusta, who condemns unmarried women as Jezebels. Despite that, Ed has a girlfriend in town, Adeline Watkins. She shows him photos of Holocaust victims and Ilse Koch, "the Bitch of Buchenwald", with whom Ed becomes obsessed. When his brother announces that he plans to leave with a woman, Ed strikes him down with a log, not realizing at first that his brother is dead, and later lays a fire to cover it up. In grief, his mother suffers a stroke. When they visit a neighbor and she witnesses an unmarried woman chastising the man for beating a dog, Augusta suffers a second stroke, and dies soon afterward. Back home after the funeral, Ed still hears her voice in his head. She orders him to bring her back, which he does by digging up another woman's corpse and bringing it into the house.
212"Sick as Your Secrets"Max WinklerIan BrennanOctober 3, 2025 (2025-10-03)

Inspired by Koch who has turned the skin of concentration camp inmates into objects, Ed attempts the same. After a date with Adeline, he takes her home to show her a bowl made of a skull, where she also sees a chair upholstered with skin around a nipple. He introduces her to his "mother", the corpse sitting in a chair turned with the back to them. As she does not answer, Adeline becomes uncomfortable and leaves. Angry at his mother, Ed leaves, taking his rifle with him, to go drinking at a tavern. At first, he compares the owner Mary Hogan to his mother, but after she says she can arrange sexual meetings for him, he shoots her and drags her body away. Later, an employee after discovering the scene tells the Sheriff that, when he had left the tavern, he had seen a truck that might have been Ed's.

In 1959, film director Alfred Hitchcock and his wife Alma Reville meet Robert Bloch, author of the novel Psycho , who explains that Ed was schizophrenic. Closeted gay actor Anthony Perkins is in a secret relationship with Tab Hunter, when he receives the main role of Norman Bates for the film Psycho . On set, Hitchock leads him to a replica of Ed's house. He implies that he has cast Perkins because he like Ed has a secret that turns into sickness. Perkins meets his psychologist Mildred Newman who suggests conversion therapy, as he expresses disgust at his own desires. At the film's premiere, Hitchcock and his wife sit in the audience to see the reaction. The scene where Norman Bates kills his victim in a shower causes people to scream and vomit to Hitchcock's delight.
223"The Babysitter"Max WinklerIan BrennanOctober 3, 2025 (2025-10-03)

Ed gets questioned by the Sheriff about when he last has seen Mary. After Adeline shows him photos of Christine Jorgensen, a trans woman who has undergone gender-affirming surgery, Ed snatches a ring from a corpse and taking Adeline to the graveyard at night proposes, which she accepts. When she initiates sex, he stops because according to his mother he only should have sex to procreate, and he is not sure about becoming a father.

To have him be around children, Adeline introduces him to a family whose babysitter Evelyn Hartley is in a hospital with polio. Alone with the two children, he disturbs them at his farm, showing them the skull bowls and a finger bone and a mask made of a face. After he is fired by the enraged parents, he follows and kidnaps Evelyn. To Adaline, he lies that the babysitting has worked, and she moves in with him. While Evelyn is in his basement tied to a chair, he tries to make "mother"'s corpse beat her with a hammer.

In 1964, Perkins ends a relationship with a man because he has started meeting a woman. He only receives role offers similar to Bates and even of Bates again in a sequel. Hitchcock too looks for a new story but the studio only wants films of the new sadistic, exploitative "sex horror" genre. He concludes that he has changed the audience's taste. In 1974, a scene from the film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre depicts the protagonist captured by the villains the same way as Evelyn.
234"Green"Ian BrennanIan BrennanOctober 3, 2025 (2025-10-03)

While Ed prepares Evelyn's body, Adeline discovers the corpse in the chair and runs back to her own home. There, she confronts him about the corpse and that he takes her underwear to wear it. He explains the corpse; she finds it macabre but is fascinated. At a hardware store, Ed sees the owner Bernice Worden crying and takes her out to a date. At her home, she lets him wear her underwear and have sex with her, after which she orders him to move in.

Back at his home he hallucinates, telling his mother that he moves out and Augusta calling Bernice the "town whore", who has sexual diseases. The next day which is the beginning of hunting season, he fights with Bernice in the store about this and shoots her with a store rifle. When two hunters come to his shed, he chases and kills them with a chainsaw. Later, he shows Adeline in his shed that he has hung up and cut open Bernice's body to make a body suit of her skin.

In 1973, inspired by Ed using a chainsaw, Tobe Hooper develops his film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. On set, he explains the character Leatherface to the cast. He says that Ed wore women, but was not gay because he also had sex with women.
245"Ice"Ian BrennanIan BrennanOctober 3, 2025 (2025-10-03)
Adeline begins an affair with a local farmhand, while refusing sex to Ed who wants to start a family. She plans to leave Wisconsin for New York City to pursue a photography career. Pressured by her mother to marry, she attends homemaking classes, hosted by Mrs. Eleanor Adams. Adeline mocks the women's conformity and later appears at Mrs. Adams's funeral dressed in red, laughing. Before leaving town, she photographs Ed's mutilated corpses and encourages him to satisfy his urges on the newly buried Mrs. Adams. In New York, her work is ridiculed by famous photographer Weegee, who doesn't believe that her photos show human corpses, and she assaults her landlady before fleeing home. Meanwhile, Ed gets aroused watching a film about Jorgensen and digs up Adams's body. He successfully has sex with the corpse, when he fantasizes her to be Ilse Koch. When Adeline returns, her mother cruelly confesses she once tried to abort her. Ed refuses her advances, telling her she's "too warm", so that she submerges herself in a bathtub filled with ice.
256"Buxom Bird"Max WinklerIan BrennanOctober 3, 2025 (2025-10-03)
The episode opens with a flashback showing Frank Worden asking his mother Bernice to host Thanksgiving dinner despite her reluctance. In the present, Frank and Sheriff Arthur Schley arrive at Bernice's hardware store, discovering bloodstains and a gift box addressed to Ed. At Ed's farmhouse they find the building in disarray, littered with human remains, and a human heart boiling on the stove. Frank searches the barn and finds his mother's mutilated corpse hanging upside down. He attacks Ed when he returns, before Ed is arrested and interrogated. During questioning, Ed claims he dug up bodies from cemeteries and denies killing anyone, including Bernice and Mary Hogan. Meanwhile, Adeline distances herself from Ed and seeks media attention, presenting herself as a casual acquaintance while exploiting the notoriety of the case. At Bernice's funeral, Adeline pretends to be a reporter and is forced away by Arthur, who later invites Frank to Thanksgiving dinner. Haunted by visions of his mother's death, Frank breaks down as the dinner triggers memories of Ed's crimes.
267"Ham Radio"Max WinklerIan BrennanOctober 3, 2025 (2025-10-03)
In 1958, Frank Worden struggles to cope with Bernice's death and sues the Gein estate, planning to auction the property. Days before the sale, Ed's house burns down, leaving only his car, which Adeline sells at auction. Now institutionalized, Ed receives $300 in proceeds and asks Nurse Salty to buy him three ham radios and women's lingerie. He imagines conversing over the radio with Ilse Koch, who encourages him to ignore those calling him a monster, and later with Christine Jorgensen, to whom he confesses feelings of confusion about his identity and his creation of a "woman suit." Christine rebukes him, explaining his desires are rooted in misogyny, not gender identity. A new nurse, Roz, bans Ed from crossdressing, prompting violent hallucinations in which he kills her. When she appears alive the next morning, Ed breaks down. His doctor informs him that the radios never worked and that he has been speaking to himself, diagnosing him with schizophrenia. The episode ends with Ed beginning medication under Roz's supervision.
278"The Godfather"Max WinklerIan BrennanOctober 3, 2025 (2025-10-03)
Years later, the narrative shifts to serial killer Ted Bundy's murders. Investigators, noting Ed Gein's influence on other killers, visit Ed for insight. He agrees to be interviewed, commenting that dead bodies no longer arouse him and theorizing that Bundy seeks his mother in his victims. He advises police on the kind of hacksaw Bundy might use, indirectly aiding their case. Meanwhile, imprisoned murderer Richard Speck idolizes Ed and writes to him, describing Bundy's crimes. Ed shares information from the letter with Deputy Will Stanton, helping police narrow their search and ultimately capture Bundy. After the arrest, Ed is diagnosed with lung cancer and told he has only months to live. Roz encourages him to write his own story, but he refuses. Adeline visits Ed one final time, confessing her own instability and intent to harm others; Ed urges her to abandon revenge. He later dies peacefully, imagining a reunion with his mother, Augusta, who tells him he has "made a name for himself." In 2000, a group of young people pulled out and stole Ed's vandalized gravestone and the season closes with scenes of filmmakers creating slasher films inspired by his crimes.

Production

Development

On September 16, 2024, it was announced that the third season of Monster will focus on convicted murderer and suspected serial killer Ed Gein. [1] [2] On October 4, it was confirmed that the season would be titled The Original Monster, exploring Ed Gein's life as the first "celebrity serial killer" and examining how true crime evolved into a pop culture phenomenon. [4] The season was retitled to The Ed Gein Story in August 2025. [3]

It is the first season of the Monster anthology series not helmed by Ryan Murphy as a creator.

Casting

On September 16, 2024, it was announced that Charlie Hunnam had been cast to portray Gein. [1] [2] On October 15, it was announced that Laurie Metcalf, Tom Hollander, and Olivia Williams had joined the cast, as Augusta Gein, Alfred Hitchcock and Alma Reville, respectively. [5] In February 2025, it was announced that Suzanna Son had been cast as a series regular in an undisclosed role. [6] The full cast was announced in August 2025. [7]

Filming

On October 5, 2024, it was reported that principal photography for the season was scheduled to begin on October 31. [8] On November 23, it was reported that filming had begun earlier that month. [9] In February 2025, it was reported that filming was taking place in Chicago. [10]

Release

The season was released on October 3, 2025, on Netflix. [3]

Reception

Audience viewership

The season debuted at number two on Netflix's global weekly chart, garnering 12.2 million views (or 90.6 million hours viewed) within three days of its release. [11]

Critical response

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 17% approval rating based on 35 critic reviews. [12] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, gave a score of 28 out of 100 based on 15 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews. [13]

In her review for Variety, Aramide Tinubu commends the season for its strong production values, highlighting the "absolutely outstanding performances" of the lead actors and the "classic noir film style" portrayal of 1950s Wisconsin. [14] However, she criticizes the series for its campy tone, excessive graphic violence, and overabundance of subplots, which contribute to a lack of cohesive tone and resolution. Tinubu argues that the show prioritizes Ed Gein's pop culture image over a deeper exploration of his abusive mother–son relationship with Augusta, a theme introduced in the first episode but largely abandoned thereafter. She concludes that this focus "makes Ed Gein mythical again, and in turn strips away the texture and grit that was desperately needed to make the series work." [14]

The Hollywood Reporter 's Daniel Fienberg criticized the season as a "tired, overstuffed mess" that squanders Charlie Hunnam's and Laurie Metcalf's performances, while failing to meaningfully engage with the series' meta themes on true crime's cultural legacy. [15] Fienberg questioned the show's decision to depict explicit imagery, noting that it caters to audience demand for "monstrosities" while at the same time mocking their consumption of it. He described the season's narrative as chaotic and its themes as contradictory, lacking the cohesive episodes found in its predecessors such as "The Hurt Man" from Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story (2024) and "Silenced" from Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (2022). Fienberg concluded that the season "feels like Ryan Murphy's anthology has finally run out of gas," prioritizing spectacle over substance in a way that "honors neither the victims nor the monster it claims to dissect." [15]

Writing for The Age , Craig Mathieson described the season as "dreadful in enough ways to be repellent rather than mere trash," criticizing the selection of "the wrong monster" in Ed Gein, who "had little personality, zero purpose, and provided no real illumination on his crimes." [16] He called it a "garish, wildly unfocused, and fundamentally dishonest attempt to make eight episodes of prestige horror." Mathieson criticized Hunnam's "one-note performance as a mewling weirdo with a high-pitched voice," and dismissed the production's inauthentic period detail as "alternately grim and glossy." He further derided the series' sprawling subplots involving figures like Alfred Hitchcock (portrayed "as a peeper like Gein") and Ilse Koch, as well as "ludicrous additions" such as a fictional love interest for Gein and "pointless hallucinations" like him "danc[ing] to a record and flirt[ing] with a corpse," culminating in a "late, heinous effort to fictitiously rehabilitate" Gein by having him aid in capturing Ted Bundy, which Mathieson deemed "the last of too many egregious errors. [16]

In Vulture , Roxana Hadadi wrote, "Monster tiptoes very close to delivering a thought-provoking argument about the way we use entertainment to avoid taking responsibility for our collective sins of complacency and cultural narcissism. Alas. Like Gein, Monster doesn't know when to stop." [17] Hadadi opined that the fourth episode would have been a fair place for the season to conclude. [17] She concluded, "In the season's back half, neither its overloading of vile desecrations nor maudlin sentimentality adds anything that Monster hadn't already established…We already know how the tale of Ed Gein ends, with commercialization and infamy. What Monster fails to consider is that it's part of the problem." [17]

Similarly, Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com gave the season 1 and ½ stars out of 4, writing it is ambitious for Murphy and Brennan to explore Ed Gein's influence on pop culture icons like Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to reflect "our current obsession with extreme violence and stories of true crime". [18] He criticized the series for its unfocused execution, prioritizing grotesque shock value over substantive themes, and described it as "connecting dots with crayons" while lacking depth in addressing the impact of violence. [18]

Tallerico also criticized Hunnam's "distracting and unconvincing" performance as a "soft-spoken simpleton" devoid of humanity, along with factual inaccuracies—such as unsubstantiated depictions of Gein's crimes, including a sexual encounter with victim Bernice Worden—and pointless recreations like a graphic Psycho shower scene, questioning, "What is the point of re-creating such a landscape-shifting moment in culture but doing so with a Netflix 2025 degree of 'adults only' shots? Is it a commentary or just provocation?" He concluded that the series "flirts with interesting themes" but is ultimately "content to wear the skin of projects like those without having any sign of a heartbeat," failing as meaningful commentary on pop culture violence. [18]

Drew Burnett Gregory of Autostraddle criticized the "grossly inaccurate" portrayal of Ed Gein as a crossdresser, which she said to be unsupported by historical evidence. [19] She argued that the series’ depiction of Gein wearing women’s clothing and idolizing transgender actress Christine Jorgensen perpetuated harmful stereotypes. [19]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Otterson, Joe (September 17, 2024). "'Monster' Season 3 Sets Charlie Hunnam to Star as Ed Gein". Variety. Retrieved September 17, 2024.
  2. 1 2 3 Nemetz, Dave (September 17, 2024). "Charlie Hunnam to Star in Monster Season 3 as Serial Killer Ed Gein". TVLine. Retrieved September 17, 2024.
  3. 1 2 3 4 McGowan, Andrew (August 27, 2025). "'Monster: The Ed Gein Story' Sets Netflix Release Date, Drops First-Look Photos". Variety. Retrieved August 27, 2025.
  4. ↑ DeVore, Britta (October 3, 2024). "Ryan Murphy Unveils the Title For 'Monster' Season 3, Explains Why He Chose Ed Gein". Collider. Retrieved October 4, 2024.
  5. ↑ Otterson, Joe (October 15, 2024). "'Monster' Season 3 Casts Laurie Metcalf as Ed Gein's Mother, Tom Hollander as Alfred Hitchcock and Olivia Williams as Alma Reville (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety . Retrieved October 20, 2024.
  6. ↑ Cordero, Rosy (February 18, 2025). "Ryan Murphy's Monster Adds Suzanna Son As Series Regular In Season 3". Deadline. Retrieved February 18, 2025.
  7. ↑ Dilillo, John (August 27, 2025). "Monster: The Ed Gein Story Will Unmask the Origins of Modern Horror in October". Netflix Tudum (Press release). Retrieved August 27, 2025.
  8. ↑ Bentz, Adam (October 3, 2024). "Monster Season 3 Filming Start Date & Title Revealed By Ryan Murphy". ScreenRant. Retrieved December 15, 2024.
  9. ↑ "'Monster' Season 3: All the Details on the Anthology's Next Chapter Starring Charlie Hunnam as the Notorious Serial Killer Ed Gein". People.com. Retrieved December 15, 2024.
  10. ↑ Roche, Barbara (January 10, 2025). "Third season of Netflix 'Monster' anthology series to begin filming in Chicago". Reel Chicago News. Retrieved June 27, 2025.
  11. ↑ Seitz, Loree (October 7, 2025). "'Monster: The Ed Gein Story' Debuts at No. 2 on Netflix Charts With 12.2 Million Views, Outpacing 'Menendez'". TheWrap . Retrieved October 8, 2025.
  12. ↑ "Monster: The Ed Gein Story | Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes . Retrieved October 7, 2025.
  13. ↑ "Ed Gein Reviews". Metacritic . Retrieved October 7, 2025.
  14. 1 2 Tinubu, Aramide (October 3, 2025). "Charlie Hunnam's 'Monster: The Ed Gein Story' Is Graphically Violent and Too Unfocused: TV Review". Variety . Retrieved October 6, 2025.
  15. 1 2 Fienberg, Daniel (October 4, 2025). "'Monster: The Ed Gein Story' Review: Charlie Hunnam Dons Frilly Undergarments and Flesh Masks for Netflix's Trashy Takedown of True Crime and Those Who Love It". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved October 7, 2025.
  16. 1 2 Mathieson, Craig (October 6, 2025). "Worse than trash: This Netflix true-crime drama is repellent". The Age. Retrieved October 6, 2025.
  17. 1 2 3 Hadadi, Roxana (October 4, 2025). "Monster Doesn't Know When to Quit". Vulture. Retrieved October 7, 2025.
  18. 1 2 3 Tallerico, Brian (October 4, 2025). "Monster: The Ed Gein Story TV Review (2025)". RogerEbert.com . Retrieved October 6, 2025.
  19. 1 2 Gregory, Drew Burnett (October 6, 2025). "Ed Gein Never Even Crossdressed". Autostraddle . Retrieved October 9, 2025.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.