Netflix just dropped the first images from the next installment of its controversial serial killer anthology series. Monster: The Ed Gein Story stars Charlie Hunnam as the titular murderer — and his story is as macabre as they come. It’s so dark, in fact, that in addition to inspiring the Ryan Murphy-produced season, Gein’s life has also inspired some of the most iconic horror films of all time.
The logline for the new Netflix season, per the Hollywood Reporter, teases that the upcoming show will explore Gein’s influence on the genre and the world’s fascination with serial killers in general.
“Driven by isolation, psychosis, and an all-consuming obsession with his mother, Gein’s perverse crimes birthed a new kind of monster that would haunt Hollywood for decades,” the logline reads. It says that Gein’s legacy “gave birth to fictional monsters born in his image and ignited a cultural obsession with the criminally deviant.”
“Ed Gein didn’t just influence a genre,” the logline concludes. “He became the blueprint for modern horror.”
This installment follows the first two seasons — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, which premiered in September 2022 starring Evan Peters, and Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, released in September 2024 — continuing Netflix’s true crime anthology trend.
So how did Gein go from man to myth? Here’s what to know.
The Ed Gein story
Gein was born in 1906 and grew up in Wisconsin, the son of a deeply religious mother, Augusta, and an alcoholic father, George. Augusta kept Gein and his older brother Henry at home in their farmhouse in Plainfield, Wis., and often preached about the dangers of alcohol and women. Gein became obsessed with his mother — and when she died in 1945, he lost his grip on reality.
Though Gein has reached pop culture status as a prolific killer, Gein was convicted of murdering only two people: Mary Hogan in 1954 and Bernice Worden in 1957, both of whom resembled his late mother. Gein is also suspected of killing at least seven more people — including possibly his brother, who died in 1944 under mysterious circumstances after a fire.
But Gein is most notorious for his actions as a grave robber. Around the time of the killings, Gein desecrated multiple corpses: He exhumed bodies from local cemeteries and used body parts to create furniture and face masks, earning Gein the nickname the “Butcher of Plainfield.” He also created a “woman suit” out of the skin of corpses.
Gein never went to prison for his actions. In 1958 he entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity and was found unfit to stand trial after being diagnosed with schizophrenia. Instead, he was committed to the Central State Hospital. A decade later, he was determined fit to sit trial, where he was found guilty of killing Worden. However, since he was deemed insane at the time of the murder, he returned to Central State Hospital — where he quietly remained until he died of lung cancer in 1984 at the age of 77.
How Ed Gein inspired horror movies
Multiple films were inspired by Gein’s life, including the 2000 biopic Ed Gein and 2007’s Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield. However, some of the most iconic horror films of all time borrowed bits of this killer’s story to craft onscreen murderers.
Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 thriller Psycho, based on Robert Bloch’s 1959 novel of the same name, stars Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates, whose obsession with “Mother” reveals his dark and disturbing nature. In the movie, Norman kills multiple people while believing himself to be his deceased mother, whom he also killed.
Bloch grew up 50 miles from Gein’s hometown and was inspired by the sensational media coverage of the story. Gein’s relationship with his own mother mirrors that of Norman’s, who was often scolded by “Mother” (really a dissociative Norman in a costume) about falling under the spell of lustful women.
According to Netflix, Hitchcock will be a part of the upcoming season of Monster. Tom Hollander was cast as the famed director, while Olivia Williams will play his wife Alma.
The 1974 movie The Texas Chainsaw Massacre also pulled from Gein’s horrific tale, and even claimed the film — about a family of cannibals living in rural Texas who stalk and kill a group of friends on a road trip — was based on “true events.” Instead, the film — which features a character called Leatherface who wears his victims’ faces like a mask — only used minor but gruesome details from Gein’s grave robbing and murders as a jumping-off point. Gein wasn’t the only murderer to inspire The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Writer Kim Henkel stated he was also intrigued by the story of fellow killer Elmer Wayne Henley.
And Gein’s “woman suit” was also the inspiration for Thomas Harris’s 1988 novel The Silence of the Lambs. In the novel, as well as the 1991 film adaptation, serial killer Buffalo Bill creates a suit made out of the skin of women he’s killed to achieve the female body he desires. (The character has since been viewed as a controversial depiction of a possibly transgender character.) Netflix refers to this movie in the poster for the new Monster season, writing in the poster’s tagline, “Before The Silence of the Lambs…there was Ed.”
There have been other movies that have pulled elements from Gein’s life too. That includes 3 on a Meathook, a 1972 horror flick that came out just two years prior to Texas Chainsaw Massacre and featured a cannibalistic killer with Gein’s famed mommy issues. Deranged, a 1974 slasher comedy, features a mom-obsessed killer who robs graves and makes skin masks. And in 1993, Steve Buscemi starred in the comedy Ed and His Dead Mother, about “Ed Chilton,” a man obsessed with bringing his mom back to life — only to have her return as a zombie.
Monster: The Ed Gein Story hits Netflix on Oct. 3.
Cover thumbnail photo: Courtesy of Netflix
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