🔪 MONSTER: The Ed Gein Story (S01) Review: Exploitation or Essential Viewing?
The third installment in Ryan Murphy's anthology series: Monster: The Ed Gein Story.
Following the massive cultural shockwaves of the Dahmer season, this one takes us back to the infamous "Butcher of Plainfield"—the man whose horrific acts of murder and grave robbing gave birth to cinematic monsters like Norman Bates (Psycho) and Leatherface (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). The question is, does Murphy manage to tell a story worthy of the man's profound influence, or does he simply succumb to sensationalism?
💥 The Highs: A Chilling Portrait Anchored by Performance
This series is undoubtedly a visually unsettling and atmosphere-heavy watch, succeeding most often when it focuses on the internal decay of its subject.
Charlie Hunnam's Career-Defining Turn: Hunnam completely disappears into the role of Ed Gein. He portrays Gein not as a slick psychopath, but as a fragile, damaged man whose loneliness and isolation manifest as horrifying psychosis. This is a quiet, internal, yet physically transformative performance that elevates the material, capturing the unsettling realism of a 'harmless' recluse who hides a house of horrors.
The Mother-Son Dynamic: The toxic, suffocating relationship between Ed and his domineering, religiously-fervid mother, Augusta (Laurie Metcalf), is the dramatic engine. It paints a compelling, tragic portrait of how trauma and isolation—and an extreme form of control—can completely break a human being.
The Horror Meta-Narrative: The series cleverly interweaves scenes depicting the production of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, acknowledging how Gein’s real-life nightmares became the blueprint for modern horror. This cultural reflection adds a necessary layer of commentary to the obsession with true crime.
❓ The Lows: The Gaze of Exploitation
This is a Ryan Murphy project, and that means subtlety is not invited. Critics have pointed to several fundamental flaws that undermine the show’s ambitions.
Lascivious Voyeurism: The most damning criticism is that the series is "utterly devoid of morality." Instead of suspense (Hitchcock’s domain), Murphy chooses blunt literalism and gore. The camera reportedly lingers "gleefully or lasciviously" on the horrific evidence—skulls, skin suits, and other macabre discoveries—pandering to the audience's basest instincts without offering deep insight or moral consequence.
Sacrificing Fact for Thrill: The show takes liberties, assigning Gein involvement in unsolved cases (like the disappearance of Evelyn Hartley, played by Addison Rae) and incorporating lurid, fictionalized fantasies (like the Ilse Koch subplot). This move sacrifices historical nuance to feed the appetite for constant thrills, pushing the "monster" legend over the broken man.
Victims in the Background: In its desperate attempt to "explain the unexplainable" and humanize the killer, the series once again risks reducing the victims to plot points, diminishing the gravity of their suffering and replicating the very objectifying gaze the true crime genre is often accused of.
🔥 Early Verdict: Horror Iconography Over Human Tragedy
Monster: The Ed Gein Story is a haunting, often hard-to-watch series, anchored by a phenomenal performance from Charlie Hunnam. It is structurally sound and visually striking. However, by choosing literal shock value and myth-making over ethical restraint, the series ultimately feels more like a glossy, depravity-loving ode to the horror genre than a responsible exploration of human tragedy. Watch it for the performance and the atmosphere, but be prepared to wrestle with its moral ambiguity.
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