Trigger Warning: This article mentions murder and extreme violence.
The Butcher of Plainfield has been announced as the main player in the third season of Netflix’s anthology series Monster, which premieres Oct. 3.
Ed Gein shocked the nation in the 1950s when his crimes of murder, body snatching, and corpse mutilation were discovered inside his house of horrors, a scene that is featured in the teaser trailer released by Netflix. He is one of the first monsters to capture the attention and imaginations of America, and is the inspiration for Psycho, The Silence of the Lambs, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Ed Gein (portrayed by Charlie Hunnam) is notably defined by his relationship with his domineering and abusive mother, Augusta Gein (Laurie Metcalf), an extremely religious and abusive figure who tyrannized Gein’s existence. Gein began terrorizing rural Wisconsin a few years after her death. Though he idolized her, his eventual victims were older women with a clear resemblance to the woman he dedicated his life to. Judging by Netflix’s promotional material, you can expect her to be as big a character as Gein himself, the mother monster, if you will.
The previous monsters
In 2022, the first season of the Monster series featured notorious serial killer and cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer, who killed young, primarily gay men. Fourteen of his seventeen victims were men and boys of color, a community that he purposefully targeted due to racist policing that ignored the terrorization of BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities.
Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story was met with backlash upon its release for romanticizing the murderer, who was portrayed by internet heartthrob Evan Peters. Peters has a history of playing psychopaths; his portrayal of a fictional school shooter in season 1 of Murphy’s American Horror Story was romanticized and edited into TikTok and Instagram videos alongside every thirst-trap soundtrack imaginable.
In every iteration of the anthology, there are several common threads: The “monster” is portrayed by a conventionally attractive celebrity, there is a strong emphasis on the humanity of the subject and what led to their crimes, and the family of those involved is never consulted—instead forced to deal with the fallout surrounding the dramatization of their most traumatic moments.
The criticism surrounding the re-victimization of the families of Dahmer’s victims did little to discourage Murphy and Brennan from continuing the series that was both controversial and incredibly successful. In 2024, the sophomore season of the show was released: Monsters: The Erik and Lyle Menendez Story.
There was a key difference in this story: the family of the victims and the perpetrators were one in the same. Though the controversy surrounding the second season was slightly different, the results were similar. The humanization of the show’s subjects led to a scourge of fan edits across social media, a blatant disregard for those who lost their lives, and real-life repercussions for those involved in the cases. These are consequences that Murphy and Brennan never have to deal with.
What to expect from ‘The Ed Gein Story’
The newest installment in the Monster series will no doubt do its best to humanize this American monster. If you are familiar with the story of The Butcher of Plainfield, you may think this story will be difficult to romanticize. Gein was an isolated hermit, and his acts are horrific beyond imagination.
While discussing the process of stepping into the role of Ed Gein, Hunnam tells the Netflix publication Tudum that his version will pull from the initial interviews with the murderer rather than popular source material covering Gein, which Hunnam deems grossly sensationalist, grotesque, and bleak. To me, that is a fitting description of Gein’s crimes.
“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 being at the center of it, rather than what he did,” Hunnam tells Tudum.
“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 being at the center of it, rather than what he did.”
– Charlie Hunnam
While this is a psychologically interesting exploration of a notorious killer, it follows the controversial pattern and thesis of Monster—humanizing and glorifying America’s most notorious murderers.
My predictions: this season will surely result in fan edits of Hollywood’s take on Ed Gein. It’s likely the showrunners—and the audience—will place the blame for Ed Gein’s crimes more on the mother than the murderer himself.
Final takeaways
Fans of the Monster anthology tend to forget that the series is a dramatization of true horrific events—not a documentary. As a consumer of true crime content myself, I completely understand the “can’t look away” morbid curiosity that surrounds certain cases. It is important, however, to keep in mind that these are real things that happened to real people, and unlike Psycho, The Silence of the Lambs, or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the victims and their families are real human beings who have already suffered tremendous loss and suffering.
Monster: “The Ed Gein Story” premieres Oct. 3 at midnight Pacific time.