Monster: The Ed Gein Story (2025)

…Ryan Murphy’s “Monster Universe” finally hits rock bottom 💀🤦‍♂️


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⚠️ Disclaimer

Yeah, remember when I said I wasn’t gonna watch or review this? Well… I lied. Or more like, I caved. I had to see if it was somehow worse than Dahmer and Menéndez. (Spoiler: it is.) But this isn’t a “review.” This is me telling you: don’t watch this trash. Don’t give Ryan Murphy or Netflix one more click for this “Monster Cinematic Universe.”

We are now three seasons deep into this mess and honestly… why am I even surprised anymore?


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☠️ Graphic Content Warning

This show is graphic, but not in a “respectful true crime” way. It’s gore-for-clout. Chainsaws, corpses, masks, mutilation — they even splice in horror movie footage. And yeah, they actually have him doing the Texas Chainsaw Massacre dance in the woods. This isn’t history. This is exploitation horror cosplaying as “true story.”


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🎥 Trailers

Let’s start by showing you all the trailers, shall we? (AKA proof they were selling us slasher fantasy, not biography.)

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📖 Plot Rundown

The show pretends to cover Ed Gein’s real life. Instead, it’s Ryan Murphy’s “horror mixtape.” It mashes together Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Psycho, and Silence of the Lambs, then pretends that’s what Gein’s life looked like. Spoiler: none of it lines up with the actual case.

The “Humanizing” Excuse That Rings Hollow

One of the most frustrating things about this series is the way the creators try to spin their intent. In interviews, they’ve insisted “we didn’t glamorize Ed Gein, we wanted to humanize him.” In fact, one of them even used the baffling phrase “homo sapienize him” — which, let’s be real, doesn’t mean anything. It’s just word salad meant to sound thoughtful.

But when you look at the show itself, the defense falls apart. They didn’t pull back, they leaned in — taking every horror trope inspired by Ed Gein (Leatherface, Norman Bates, the whole slasher mythos) and retrofitting them into his story. That’s not restraint. That’s myth-making. Instead of focusing on the real people whose lives were shattered, the series turns Gein into a kind of horror icon, the central figure you’re following as if he were some tragic antihero.

So when the showrunners claim they avoided glamorization, it rings hollow. They can call it “humanization” all day long, but when the camera lingers on him, when the narrative folds him into decades of pop culture legend, they’re not pulling back — they’re building up his legend. And that’s the exact problem with this whole Monster franchise: it can’t decide if it’s a warning or a spectacle, so it tries to be both, and ends up glamorizing by default.


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👥 Character Rundown

Ed Gein (Charlie Hunnam) – Oh look, another hot actor playing a disgusting, awkward recluse. Why? Because Murphy thinks serial killers need to be “sexy sad boys.”

Augusta Gein (his mom) – controlling religious nut, rewritten into a soap opera plot device.

Henry Gein (his brother) – dies in a fire in real life. Here? Nope. Ed “murders” him because drama.

Mary Hogan / Bernice Worden – his real victims, barely shown because apparently the spotlight belongs to Ed’s “tragic arc.”

Adeline Watkins (Suzanna Son) – one of the most offensive parts od the show, she exists as a caricature of her real life world counterpart. Because he or she’s basically the devil on Ed’s shoulder, helping him pushing him to his full potential of his murderous passion. Did I forget to mention this show was distasteful?


It’s less true crime, more “slasher casting call.”

Charlie Hunnam and the Betrayal of Respect 🎭

Here’s where I really lost it. Charlie Hunnam didn’t just appear in this project — he played Ed Gein himself. He was the face of the show’s tasteless reimagining. And instead of showing an ounce of self-awareness about how offensive this depiction was, he went on social media to defend it. He literally said, “We didn’t portray Ed Gein in a disrespectful way. I don’t see anything disrespectful about this show.”

Excuse me? You’re standing in the middle of a series that glorifies a murderer, twists history, parades horror iconography like a cheap cosplay convention, and ends with Ed Gein being welcomed into heaven like some misunderstood saint — and you don’t see what’s wrong with that? That’s not ignorance, that’s willful blindness.

And it stings because I used to respect Hunnam as an actor. I liked him. Now? I don’t even know. How am I supposed to respect someone who not only chose to embody Gein but then doubled down defending the indefensible? It feels like a betrayal — like he’s saying, “Relax, it’s all fine,” while the rest of us are screaming, “No, it’s not.”


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💣 Why This Isn’t a Review, It’s a Warning 🚨

Here’s the deal: the show glamorizes Gein and rips off the horror movies he inspired, instead of sticking to the actual case.

The Chainsaw Dance 🪓 – Ed never even touched a chainsaw. But hey, let’s have him do Leatherface cosplay. Genius.

Henry’s Death Rewrite 🔥 – Instead of a fire, they make Ed kill his own brother. Zero evidence of this.

The “Greatest Hits” Problem 🎬 – They shove Psycho, Chainsaw, and Lambs tropes into Gein’s story like it’s a crossover event. Except… he never did those things.

Victim Erasure ⚰️ – The real people he hurt get reduced to cameos so Netflix can make Ed into an “icon.”


This isn’t “documentary dramatization.” This is slasher fan fiction.


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❌ Pros and Cons

Pros:

Uh… Netflix spent money on sets?


Cons:

Historically inaccurate to the point of parody.

Attractive casting glamorizes Gein.

Scenes ripped wholesale from horror movies.

Third act is pure slasher nonsense.

Victims erased, killer fetishized.

Murphy’s aesthetic > actual truth.

Almost if not, everything is just fanfiction In this show.

Also the show is really fixated, in being like ohh, it’s not ed gein’s fault. It’s that we didn’t give him medication in time. We accidentally create the monster. He’s just a harmless all that has schizophrenia. Give me a break, oh, but it gets worse.They they try to paint the transgender community into a bad light by saying. Because you’re trans and have to hide it. Means you get murderous intentions.But then the show backtracks down the last two episodes. Cuz, it’s like they realize how harmful that is. It’s like, yeah, no shit, but why the hell would you do it in the first place?

Also to quote charlie hunum, what he said he said that ed june was yeah. He does a monster stuff, but he’s he’s very gentle. Ohh, yes, my bad you’re right again. Just was just so gentle. Yeah, you’re right. That was, that’s, that’s what we need to pay attention to, sighhhh

🔴 Major Inaccuracies in the Netflix Ed Gein Show

1. Henry’s Death

Reality: Henry (Ed’s brother) died in a brush fire accident in 1944. No evidence Ed killed him.

Show: Ed deliberately murders Henry, turning him into a “first victim.” Completely fabricated.



2. Augusta Gein’s Death (His Mother)

Reality: She died of a stroke in 1945. Ed lived with her corpse for a while, preserving the house like a shrine.

Show: She collapses outside, gets a funeral, then Ed digs her up that same night. Entire “grave dig” scene is pure drama.



3. Chainsaw Murders

Reality: Ed never used a chainsaw in his crimes. His murders (Bernice Worden and Mary Hogan) were with a rifle.

Show: They give him a chainsaw kill in the woods, complete with him wearing a woman’s face as a mask. This is directly lifted from Texas Chainsaw Massacre.



4. The Leatherface Dance

Reality: Never happened.

Show: They literally have him do the Leatherface “chainsaw dance” from the 1974 film and intercut it with footage from the actual movie.



5. Victim Count

Reality: Confirmed two murder victims. Most of his “work” was grave-robbing.

Show: They inflate the body count, stage elaborate kills, and make him seem like a roaming slasher villain.



6. The Shower Scene (Psycho)

Reality: Norman Bates and Psycho were inspired loosely by Ed’s psychology, but he never had a “shower scene.”

Show: They recreate Psycho’s shower murder shot-for-shot, splicing Hitchcock footage in.



7. The “Greatest Hits” Mashup

Reality: Gein’s case inspired films like Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Silence of the Lambs.

Show: They roll all three influences into the show itself — giving Ed Hannibal Lecter vibes, Leatherface cosplay, and Norman Bates’ “mommy issues” — as if he was those characters. It’s fiction dressed up as biography.



8. Romanticized Casting

Reality: Ed Gein was a reclusive, awkward, sickly man.

Show: They cast Charlie Hunnam, a conventionally attractive Hollywood actor, turning Gein into a “tragic brooding antihero.”



9. Tone of the Ending

Reality: Ed was declared insane, institutionalized, and lived the rest of his life quietly in a hospital.

Show: The finale turns him into this tortured legend, almost martyr-like, as if he’s a cultural icon rather than a murderer and grave-robber.





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🟡 Smaller (But Still Wrong) Dramatizations

They invent entire “friendships” and side characters for Ed that never existed.

The show leans into the “maybe he was abused too” angle, heavily dramatizing his childhood without evidence.

The caretaker/cop who “investigates” him is fictionalized into a foil character for dramatic tension.



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💭 Final Thoughts

This isn’t true crime. It’s not history. It’s not even respectful horror. It’s Ryan Murphy glamorizing a grave-robbing creep while erasing his victims.

The worst part? People are still watching. Still giving this thing attention. That’s why we now have a “Monster Universe.”

So yeah — don’t watch it. Don’t support this. Don’t give Netflix the excuse to keep making these “sob story serial killers.” this show is beyond disrespectful, but granted thats accurate for this franchise. God this show pissed me off, I hate it.


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⭐ Rating

0/10 – historically wrong, morally offensive, and boring on top of it.


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⚠️ Spoilers (if you even care)

Mom’s Death Rewrite – She collapses outside, has a funeral, Ed digs her up that night. Reality? Stroke. He preserved her in the house. Already fake. Now, we’re just making up stuff at this point.

Chainsaw Kill in the Woods – Ed murders two guys with a chainsaw while wearing a face mask. He never did this. Not once. Pure fan-service.

The Shower Scene 🚿 – They literally recreate Psycho’s shower scene, splicing in actual Hitchcock footage. Subtlety = zero.

Henry’s Death Retconned – Real life: fire accident. Show: Ed kills him because “evil.”

The Ending Mess – The finale is a mashup of Gein as tragic figure, horror icon, and misunderstood antihero. Basically Netflix saying “look at all the movies he inspired!” instead of, you know, telling the truth.

Ohh, by the way, did I forget to mention that the show portrays the old harmful trope of you being transgender or gay must mean you’re going to become a killer, fuck off. Thats beyond offensive.

🤦‍♂️ Sympathy for the Devil?

As if the grotesque “heaven ending” wasn’t enough, the show spends its last two episodes bending over backwards to excuse Gein’s crimes. One nurse actually looks him in the eye and says, “I feel for you, Gein. I truly do. Hospitals used to be about showing sympathy to patients. If the doctors in the past had given you medication, you probably wouldn’t have ended up the way you were.”

Excuse me? That’s their big takeaway? Not the horror of what he did to real victims, not the trauma he inflicted, but a sad little “if only he had the right pills” hand-wave? It’s a slap in the face. This isn’t empathy — it’s rewriting history so a serial grave robber and murderer becomes a tragic victim of bad healthcare.

When you start putting words like that in the mouths of supporting characters, you’re not just crossing the line, you’re torching it. It’s manipulative, tone-deaf, and honestly disgusting.

😡 The Ending – A Glorified Monster’s Sendoff

And then we get to the finale — oh boy. If you thought this show had already crossed the line, buckle up. Ed Gein dies in prison and instead of cutting to black, or ending with some kind of reflection on the victims, the show decides to stage the most tasteless victory lap I’ve ever seen.

We watch him ascend into some kind of twisted heaven. He’s greeted by ghostly nurses, who literally dance around him in celebration. He’s paraded like he’s earned sainthood for all the horrors he committed. And the cherry on this rotten cake? His mother appears at the top of a glowing staircase, waiting to embrace him. She congratulates him, actually telling him he “made a name for himself in the name of Gein” and that he “did great.”

Let me repeat that: the showrunners decided to end by showing Ed Gein rewarded in the afterlife — not condemned, not forgotten, but celebrated. It’s framed like a warped happily-ever-after, and it spits directly in the face of every single victim whose body he desecrated.

If this isn’t glamorizing a killer, then what is? It’s not “humanizing.” It’s not “artistic.” It’s exploitation dressed up as surreal symbolism. And it proves once and for all that this series has no interest in empathy, truth, or even taste — just shock value and grotesque spectacle. Go fuck off you terrible director.

I also hate the final scene in this show, where a group of kids are trying to rob. Ed geins gravestone, and then the ghosts of the people that fiction took inspiration from him started showing up, and then Ed Gein dressed up as leather face shows up with a chainsaw and chases. One of the kids into the truck while he does that. Iconic letterFace dance and charlieHunum said this show wasn’t tasteless at all b.S.



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This version is nastier, rantier, and more in your tone — sarcastic, angry, mocking the absurdities, while hammering the point that it’s exploitation, not accuracy.