Charlie Hunnam currently stars in Monster: The Ed Gein Story on Netflix. It’s another season of the Ryan Murphy franchise, following the “success” of Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story and The Menendez Brothers Story. I remember when the Dahmer series came out, and the youths were like “but was Dahmer such a bad guy RLY?” Yes. He was. And the families of Dahmer’s real-life victims were disgusted with the series too. Personally, I haven’t watched any of these. Not to be hypocritical, I will admit to loving the Dexter franchise, so it’s not like I’m completely against “serial killer dramatization.” I just think Ryan Murphy is in danger of humanizing actual monsters who actually did terrible things and killed many, many people. Speaking of, Charlie Hunnam thinks his Ed Gein series will leave people questioning who the real monsters are. I’m pretty sure Ed Gein was the bad guy, Charlie???
Charlie Hunnam hopes that after viewers watch Monster: The Ed Gein Story, they’re left questioning who the real monsters are. Hunnam, who plays Gein, defended the series ahead of the release of the new season in the Netflix true-crime horror anthology, given that the previous two editions — The Jeffrey Dahmer Story and The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story — both received criticism for being sensational portrayals.
“If people are compelled to talk about it and think about it, hopefully they’ll actually be compelled to watch the show,” he told The Hollywood Reporter when asked what he hopes conversations would be about Ed Gein. “What I would hope and feel really confident in is that it was a very sincere exploration of the human condition and why this boy did what he did.”
Co-created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, The Ed Gein Story picks up in 1950s rural Wisconsin, and follows the titular monster — known as the Butcher of Plainfield or the Plainfield Ghoul — and tells the tale of his perverse crimes, which would go on to inspire the onscreen horrors seen in Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and The Silence of the Lambs.
Of the episodes, Hunnam said, “I never felt like we were sensationalizing it. I never felt on set that we did anything gratuitous or for shock impact. It was all in order to try to tell this story as honestly as we could.”
And, he hopes that means viewers are left looking inward after watching. “Is it Ed Gein who was abused and left in isolation and suffering from undiagnosed mental illness and…that manifested in some pretty horrendous ways? Or was the monster the legion of filmmakers that took inspiration from his life and sensationalized it to make entertainment and darken the American psyche in the process?” he told the outlet. “Is Ed Gein the monster of this show, or is Hitchcock the monster of the show? Or are we the monster of the show because we’re watching it?”
Ed Gein was literally making home decor and a “suit” out of human bones and human skin. He also killed people. I’m okay with calling him a monster! “But he was mentally ill!” Enough! Not to be the un-woke person at the party, it’s perfectly fine to say “hey, this serial killer is a monster!” The reason why Gein inspired so many novelists and filmmakers is because of the heinous nature of his crimes, especially for the time. “What if Alfred Hitchcock was the real monster??” Well, Hitchcock was a different kind of monster, but not because he made Psycho.
Photos courtesy of Getty Images for Netflix and Netflix.
Ryan Murphy is a hack and always has been. Ian Brennan being involved is no surprise as he took parts of Ed Gein’s story and used it as a plot for Bones. I honestly didn’t know Hunnam was still getting gigs.
Also, “boy”? I believe Gein was at least 40 when he started committing his crimes.
Attempting to infantalize Gein to absolve him of responsibility. This is a very weird approach for the series to take.
There was a time when the name “Ryan Murphy” meant “appointment television”….
That time has passed….YEARS ago…right after 2013’s “AHS: Coven”…
And what he’s done over the years in dramatizing real life
😱…is deplorable in my book😠
I adore Charlie Hunnam.
But I won’t be watching this.
One brief clip terrified me so much. The clip in which he creepily says hello to a girl at the ice cream parlor.
His stare, his demeanor, his voice, his haircut…. took me back 30 years, to one of the creepiest patients I ever had to attend to. My hands are clammy just typing this.
I get what he’s trying to say, but by this logic isn’t he a monster for playing the role? We’re watching but he’s helping to create the content for our consumption.
Exactly!
Many killers have grown up abused, neglected or worse and yes that has contributed to why they committed their crimes. But make no mistake, they are still monsters. Ed Gein was a monster. He committed inhuman, atrocious crimes against his victims. Hunnam needs to reflect a little more on Ed Gein — the difference between what he actually did versus filmmakers “that took inspiration from his life and sensationalized it” and viewers who watch this movie or any film with violence. Because Charlie, there is a difference.
Lots of people had horrendous childhoods without growing up to be actual monsters.
I mean yes I agree. I’m the child of two loving parents who both experienced horrific abuse.
But I think the larger question is that if violent people HADN’T experienced abuse would they have grown up to be normal, functional, and productive adults? It’s the difference between individual coping mechanisms/ability to overcome adversity, inherent personality traits, mental illness/personality disorders, social factors, the battle of nature vs nurture and a whole slew of other complex components. There’s a reason why “mitigating factors” are brought up at trial during these kinds of cases.
FWIW, I think it’s worth exploring why some people experience atrocious childhood abuse and break that cycle whereas others go on to replicate that behavior. I just don’t think it should be explored in a movie that aims to whitewash a prolific serial killer who ruined the lives of so many people.
@Kitten – that is a really thoughtful, measured, and smart comment. I agree with everything you said.
Kitten: he killed two people. He was not a serial killer.
I haven’t watched because historic inaccuracy drives me wild, but while Gein had a crummy childhood, it was not nearly as bad as many. His brain cracked, is basically it.
You said exactly what I was going to say. Alfred Hitchcock was a monster for the way he treated his female stars. And this doesn’t get said enough when discussing his genius as a filmmaker. His monstrousness may have led him to make Psycho in the first place, but he was not a monster for making it.
I’m so sick and tired of creative projects that focus on – almost 100% white male – serial killers and others who commit violent crimes.
Ryan Murphy is one of the primary current foisters of this crap on audiences, the entire Criminal Minds crew is as well. They fetishize the violence and the fear and suffering of the victims for money. It’s gross.
It makes me think much less of the actors who bring these real life monsters for the sake of a paycheck or their “craft”.
(And the “intense passionate guy with a dream and a vision who goes off his rocker in pursuit of it, dragging others down with him” is another tiresome variation, one Hunnman has also done)
What? We’re supposed to find more sympathy for the plight of yet another loathsome, murderous white man? I never watch these glorifications of serial killers. Lots of people have horrible, terrible childhoods and don’t become serial killers. Let’s have more movies about how people rise above their circumstances to become better human beings.
Well said! Agreed that we as a society need more stories of the human spirit rising above horrendous childhood abuses and becoming good people who help others.
Sadly, hopeful optimism and ‘triumph of the human spirit’ stories don’t sell as well as sensationalized true crime.
So were the victims’ families consulted and involved with the making of this?
full disclosure: I am a true crime podcast consumer but the ethical creators involve the victim’s families; they let them narrate their own stories and pay tribute to the victims. I just can’t with this notion of centering the perpetrator and treating the victims like faceless, nameless NPCs.
The Guardian said this was horribly exploitative with no redeeming features. I generally avoid these sort of programmes anyhow.
I’m a true crime fan but the Ed Gein story isn’t that interesting to me, or maybe I know it too well. He wasn’t a serial killer: he only killed two people. He robbed graves because he was insane. Also, he was five feet tall and skinny, not like Hunnam, he had no girlfriends ever, and everyone in town was creeped out by him.
He *confessed* to killing two people. There were several unsolved murders that he was suspected of being responsible for but the investigators never had enough evidence to definitively prove it. People that randomly murder and as violently as he did with decapitated heads etc rarely do it just once or twice.
He was primarily a grave robber, a ghoul, not a serial killer. No one seriously thinks he killed more than two. The Monster series is basically silly and not at all factual. he shot two women in the head. He did not dispatch anyone with a chainsaw, Seriously, educate yourself.
Of course, you can say “he was suspected of more BUM DUM DUNNNHHH” but no one involved in true crime thinks so. Just sensationalism to get people to watch.
As for severed heads (not decapitated) he got them via grave robbing.
Look, I don’t want to defend him. But I value the truth, not made up stuff for Netflix.
The running joke on Social Media is that Ryan Murphy is the white Tyler Perry and now I can’t unsee how true that is.
I absolutely hated this show. The last episode is particularly badly written with a temu version of Mindhunter filled with stupid lies about Gein suddenly helping the FBI catching Bundy.
Hunnam’s acting is terrible and I still don’t understand why he insisted on doing that voice while also saying that he had listened to Gein’s voice on the few recordings that exist.
The treatments of trans identity and queerness is general are honestly outrageous and are rightfully being destroyed on social media.
I watched the first episode because I’ve always been super creeped out by Ed Gein’s story and I wanted to see how this was approached. Took me five minutes to figure out it was Hunnam acting as I didn’t know he had taken on this role.
Full disclosure: it felt like I was watching a train wreck happen in real time and I couldn’t look away until the end of the first episode. At that point, the TV was turned off and I had to process the insanity just witnessed. Was not aware that Gein’s story was such an inspiration for Psycho, Et all. Yikes.
There are a lot of layers of ick in what Hunnam is saying here. The fact that the Monsters franchise generates so much weird interest in the killers’ stories is both disgusting and fascinating to me.
The victim’s families were likely not consulted, just as they weren’t in the Dahmer series. That is a kind of fruitless re-victimization that makes me sick and should not be profitably possible, especially for bottom barrel hacks like Ryan Murphy.
It really begs the question:
Does the man have a soul, or did he sell it to the highest bidder?
The Graveface Museum in Savannah, Georgia, has an Ed Gein exhibit that lives in my nightmares. I love that museum but I will never set foot in that exhibit again.