Hunnam’s going the full Charlize in his own Monster.
Ed Gein, as serious horror fans are doubtless already aware, was a real life murderer. While there have been a few films directly based on his crimes – none of them great, from what I’ve seen – he’s best known in the pop culture sphere for inspiring two stone cold classics: Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. It’s a shame we never got the documentary that Errol Morris and Werner Herzog planned back in the ’70s, but we are getting a new look at the life and crimes of America’s most famous grave robber in the form of Monster: The Ed Gein Story, the latest in American Horror Story creator Ryan Murphy’s anthology crime series.
Monster: The Ed Gein Story Trailer
What’s the plot?
you’re probably across the broad strokes, but in more detail:
Serial killer. Grave robber. Psycho. In the frozen fields of 1950s rural Wisconsin, a friendly, mild-mannered recluse named Eddie Gein lived quietly on a decaying farm – hiding a house of horrors so gruesome it would redefine the American nightmare. 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. From Psycho to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to The Silence of the Lambs, Gein’s macabre 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 — he became the blueprint for modern horror.
Hazarding a guess after having a look at the cast and the trailer, this is going to be about Gein’s life and the broader cultural impact of his atrocities, given that we have Alfred Hitchcock, Tobe Hooper and more showing up as characters.
Who’s in it?
Plenty of familiar faces from Murphy’s wider body of work here:
- Charlie Hunnam as Ed Gein.
- Laurie Metcalf as Augusta Gein, Ed’s mother.
- Suzanna Son as Adeline Watkins, Gein’s love interest.
- Tom Hollander as Alfred Hitchcock.
- Vicky Krieps as Nazi war criminal Ilsa Koch, who Gein was fascinated with.
- Olivia Williams as screenwriter and film editor Alma Reville, Hitchcock’s wife.
- Lesley Manville as Bernice Worden.
- Joey Pollari as Anthony Perkins, who played Norman Bates in Psycho.
- Charlie Hall as Deputy Worden.
- Tyler Jacob Moore as Sheriff Schley.
- Addison Rae as Evelyn Hartley.
- Will Brill as Tobe Hooper.
- Mimi Kennedy as psychologist Mildred Newman.
- Robin Weigert as Enid Watkins.
When’s it out?
Monster: The Ed Gein Story hits Netflix on October 3, with all eight episodes dropping at once.
What’s the vibe?
Could go either way, really. I run hot and cold when it comes to Murphy’s camp horror sensibilities. I’ve never made to through an entire season of American Horror Story, a series that consistently wastes interesting set ups in favour of disappearing up its own asshole, but some of his other stuff is great. And given his biographical and true crime work tends to yield more promising results, this could be a banger. That Pet Shop Boys tune, though? I dunno, man…
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