Ryan Murphy’s “Monster: The Ed Gein Story” turns true crime into art – and controversy. A haunting, divisive miniseries. Here’s our review. Few creators divide audiences like Ryan Murphy, and Monster: The Ed Gein Story is proof of that. The third entry in Netflix’s true-crime anthology revisits one of America’s most infamous killers, the man whose crimes inspired Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Silence of the Lambs. With its stylized violence and haunted-by-childhood-trauma tone, the series continues Murphy’s fascination with the roots of evil, but this time the balance between empathy and horror feels perilously thin.
A beautiful nightmare
Visually, Monster is impeccable. Every frame is meticulously lit and production-designed to the hilt, a beautiful carapace over unbearable subject matter. Yet that aesthetic perfection also distances us from the horror. The show moves restlessly between timelines – Gein’s upbringing, his crimes, and Hollywood’s later obsession with them – creating a rhythm that is hypnotic but fragmented. Instead of a clear psychological portrait, we get a hall of mirrors where fact, fiction, and film history blur into one unsettling reflection.
Charlie Hunnam’s haunting performance
Charlie Hunnam delivers one of the most fascinating performances of his career. His Ed Gein is broken, childlike, and terrifyingly serene, a man trapped inside his own delusion. It is a daring portrayal that evokes both disgust and pity, and it anchors the show whenever Murphy’s direction slips into excess. Around him, Niecy Nash-Betts, Tom Hollander and Chloë Sevigny add layers of menace and melancholy that keep the narrative charged.
A moral tightrope
Where Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story shocked with clinical precision, the Gein chapter feels more operatic and, for many, more troubling. By drawing empathy toward its subject, the series sometimes drifts close to romanticizing him. The exploration of Gein’s mental illness and toxic bond with his mother remains surface-level, used more as visual motif than psychological insight. The result, as many critics argue, is a season seduced by the very darkness it tries to condemn. Divisive yet impossible to ignore, it has become the streaming conversation of the moment.
What critics say about Monster: The Ed Gein Story
On Rotten Tomatoes, reactions are sharply divided. The Hollywood Reporter calls it “garish and morally uneasy,” while IndieWire praises it as “a mirror to our cultural fascination with evil.” Collider criticizes its stylized excess, yet almost every outlet agrees on one thing: Charlie Hunnam’s performance is exceptional – haunting, complex, and among the best of his career.
Monster: The Ed Gein Story – All the key details
Find out all the details of the series in our full profile article ► From Dahmer to Gein: Netflix’s Monster reaches its darkest chapter yet
By Milena Kasprzyk – originally posted in Polish on Netflixmania
