My Review of Monster: The Ed Gein Story (Netflix Series, 2025)

 

Written by Ian Brennan

Directed by Max Winkler And Ian Brennan 

Ed Gein (to Anthony Perkins): "You're the one who can't look away."

It's that time of year again for Ryan Murphy to stoke the ire of social media with another true crime horror fest that takes too many creative liberties so to speak. After what we saw with Jeffrey Dahmer and the Menendez Brothers, what could he do with Ed Gein (Charlie Hunnam) to piss off the internet?

Well, quite a lot of actually. This was never going to be a sensitive portrayal of the real life killer/grave robber and once again, there's that danger of this anthology series drawing too much sympathy for the subject matter as well as sexualising them.

There's no getting away from the fact that leading man Charlie Hunnam doesn't look a thing like Ed Gein and there's only so much that hair, makeup and prosthetics can do and here, they do struggle to mostly hide their lead man's attractiveness under a sinister figure of terror.

Throughout these eight episodes, we're given insight into Ed's relationships with women and some with his victims. His most prominent relationships naturally involved women. His abusive mother, Augusta (Laurie Metcalf) did a number on Ed's views towards other women and his own sexuality and gender issues. Yes, there's an attempt to examine if Ed might have been trans but it's handled in a very messy way.

Then we've got a romance of sorts with local girl, Adeline Watkins (Suzanna Son). She's written as a toxic enabler with her own dark impulses who had no problem exploiting Gein's eventual downfall for her own gain. While this portrayal doesn't mirror the person's it's based, Suzanna Son did emerge as a break out talent here.

Now, what about Gein's actual victims? There's some focus on babysitter, Evelyn Hartley (Addison Rae) and hardware shop owner, Bernice Worden (Lesley Manville). The emphasis being more on the latter and how her death being the very thing to bring about Ed's exposure as a grotesque killer before he spent his remaining years institutionalised before his own demise.

Unlike the seasons that focused on Jeffrey Dahmer and the Menendez Brothers, this season might have less episodes but it often felt like it tried to do too much as well. For example, Ed's fixation on transwoman Christine Jorgensen (Alanna Darby) and Nazi war criminal, Ilse Koch (Vicky Krieps) took more screen time than it needed to, if I'm being honest.

On top of that, there's also some focus put into the three prominent movies it influenced - Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Silence Of The Lambs. The first movie made the subplots of two episodes with director Alfred Hitchcock (Tom Hollander) drawing wholly inappropriate similarities between Gein and his closeted leading man, Anthony Perkins (Joey Pollari). The likes of Tobe Hopper (Will Brill) and Buffalo Bill actor, Trent Levine (Golden Garnick) are less emphasised. Again, these are things that probably could've been mentioned in passing.

Circling back to Gein, the series doesn't skim on the gore or depravity of his hobbies and there's moments where it's in danger of humanising Gein too much before pulling it back. Gein's ending however was unwisely given a bit of a rockstar type of send off. I get what it's trying but it's definitely a misplaced choice here.

- Episode titles for the series were Mother!, Sick As Your Secrets, The Babysitter, Green, Ice, Buxom Bird, Ham Radio and The Godfather.

- Anthony's relationship with Tab Hunter (Jackie Kay) was explored briefly as well as his conversion therapy. Joey Pollari feels like a future American Horror Story regular to me.

- Both Charlie Hunnam and Vicky Krieps will appear in the next season, which will focus on Lizzie Borden and has now gone into production.

- Other serial killers that appeared included Ted Bundy, Richard Speck, Charles Manson, Jerry Brudos. It gets a bit Mindhunter in the last episode. Real life crime scene photographer Weegee (Elliot Gould) also factored into a subplot for Adeline.

- Standout music: The marketing had fun with the remastered version of the Pet Shop Boys It's A Sin.

- Chronology: 1944-1984, Wisconsin mainly. Also taking in post Nazi Germany, Washington, Los Angeles and so on. 

Arguably the weakest in this anthology series, I did struggle a bit with Monster: The Ed Gein Story. Saying that, I do think there's some very strong performances, notably with it's leading man. Charlie Hunnam might have given the most interesting performance in his whole acting career to date.

Rating: 7 out of 10