People are calling Netflix’s new series Monster: The Ed Gein Story the most terrifying thing they have ever seen. The show comes from Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, who returned for a third season of their Monster anthology series.
Previous seasons focused on Jeffrey Dahmer and the Menendez Brothers, but this one dives into the story of the 1950s Wisconsin killer Ed Gein, whose crimes inspired horror classics like Psycho and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Early reactions show that viewers found it traumatizing, with some saying it could scar them for life and that they didn’t even dare to keep watching after the preview.
Others called it insanely good and incredibly horrifying, saying that seeing Gein wearing a mask made from his mother’s face was just terrifying. Early reviews suggest this season pushes the limits even more than before.
Karina Adelgaard described the show as perhaps the darkest one yet, with an extremely dark tone mixed with a strange WWII element. She wrote that Charlie Hunnam plays Ed Gein with an eerie darkness that fits the real-life killer perfectly.
Hunnam reportedly lost 30 pounds for the part and changed his voice entirely, using a high, soft tone unlike anything he has done before. Laurie Metcalf’s performance as Augusta Gein, Ed’s domineering mother, also got strong attention, with Adelgaard saying she played her with a sinister vibe that seemed to infect everything.
One controversial creative choice in the series is the use of World War II imagery to show Gein’s inner thoughts. While Adelgaard said that part wasn’t her favorite, she admitted that the symbolism made sense considering Gein’s crimes.
Critics also pointed out how the series explores Gein’s influence on horror itself. Tom Hollander appears as Alfred Hitchcock and Will Brill as Tobe Hooper, showing how the real events inspired the two most famous movies about Gein’s crimes. Adelgaard summed it up by saying: “From the very first episode, his real-life actions alone make it obvious why Ed Gein became the blueprint for modern horror villains.”
Kara Hedash explained that the 1950s setting keeps the new season away from the kind of backlash the earlier seasons faced. She said: “Being much further removed from the actual crimes means Monster season 3 is at a lower risk of unearthing the past trauma linked to Gein’s confirmed victims.” But she added that the show’s subject matter will always come with controversy.
Hunnam told Netflix’s Tudum: “I wanted to get as close as possible to who Ed was, to do him justice, and for this thing to feel authentic. This is going to be the really human, tender, unflinching, no-holds-barred exploration of who Ed was and what he did. But who he was was at the center of it, rather than what he did.”
The cast also includes Suzanna Son, Olivia Williams, Tyler Jacob Moore, Robin Weigert, and Lesley Manville. The series promises to dig into not just what Ed Gein did, but how monsters are made by the world around them.
