Netflix’s Monster: the Ed Gein Story | Review

Netflix’s Monster: The Ed Gein Story Could’ve Been an Emmy Monster… Until It Started Trying to Be Three Different Shows at Once

Netflix and Ryan Murphy’s Monster: The Ed Gein Story arrives with a built-in advantage: Ed Gein’s psychology is already terrifying without any extra “creative” garnish. He’s one of the most infamous American killers, his crimes helped inspire horror staples like Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and the show knows the mind is the real horror — Charlie Hunnam has said the series is more interested in “why” than gore-for-gore’s sake.

That approach almost makes this the strongest Monster season yet. Almost.

Right when the series has enough psychological fuel to fly, it swerves hard into out-of-place side quests — Nazis, Holocaust imagery, and a “transgender surgery” thread that’s framed through a spectral/imagined figure — until the show’s tone starts feeling like a playlist on shuffle.

What the Series Gets Right

The show’s best moments are the ones that focus on Gein’s inner world: isolation, his relationship with his mother, and the way fantasy and reality blur. That’s also how the writers justify the series’ “unreliable” texture — Entertainment Weekly notes the show uses his schizophrenia diagnosis as a way to keep the viewer uncertain about what’s real versus distorted.

Laurie Metcalf as Augusta Gein is a masterclass in “love” that curdles into control. In interviews, Metcalf and the production describe pushing into the strange intimacy and cruelty of that mother/son bond — and it’s some of the most compelling work in the season.

The series doesn’t just do “true crime”; it repeatedly reminds you that Gein became a template — for media, for horror cinema, for America’s obsession with the monstrous. That part lands.

What It Gets Wrong (or at least… wildly overstates)

The show plays very fast and loose with facts. Multiple outlets’ “fact vs. fiction” breakdowns point out substantial invention — especially around relationships, timelines, and events the record simply doesn’t support.

Here’s the thing: dramatic license is fine, but when you’re using real victims and real crimes, the more you invent, the more you risk turning the story into stylized fan-fiction instead of a serious character study. Even the public backlash has centered on the season feeling “disturbing and weird” and historically sloppy.

The Nazi/Holocaust Side Plot: “Why is this in my Ed Gein show?”

One of the most controversial creative choices is the show’s inclusion of Ilse Koch, a real Nazi war criminal sometimes called the “Beast of Buchenwald,” played by Vicky Krieps.

To be fair, there is commentary from true-crime researchers that Gein consumed detective magazines that referenced WWII atrocities and camp imagery — so the seed of “he was exposed to this material” is not totally out of nowhere.

However, the series doesn’t just nod at influence; it turns it into a recurring, stylized obsession, and that’s where it starts feeling like the writers are trying to bolt a “bigger” historical thesis onto a story that already has enough horror baked in. Result: the show’s psychology gets diluted by spectacle.

The “Danish Woman / Transgender Surgery” Thread: Real person, weird framing

In terms of why it feels off: the show uses a trans figure as part of Gein’s internal mythology, and the execution can feel like provocation more than insight.

Important accuracy note: the real person the show draws from is Christine Jorgensen — an American celebrity who became famous in the early 1950’s after gender-affirming surgery in Denmark. However, Gein was not a man trapped in a woman’s body, or felt he was a woman, or any of that — he was mentally ill and wore the skin of dead women that reminded him of his dead mother.

Where it goes sideways is that the show positions this thread as another “personality/vision” element — so instead of clarifying Gein’s pathology (gender dysphoria vs. fetish vs. delusion vs. media fixation), it becomes another surreal side-plot competing for attention. That’s not just messy — it risks reducing a real trans pioneer into a spooky narrative device.

The Political Undertones: Loud enough to hear, not clean enough to land

Monster seasons are never apolitical, and this one leans into broader themes: America’s appetite for horror, institutional failure, religious control, and the way “monsters” are manufactured through isolation and myth.

That could be great — if the show trusted its core thesis. Instead, the Nazi and Jorgensen threads can feel like the writers are trying to stack additional “meaning” on top of meaning… until the message becomes clutter.

The Take: It Didn’t Need the Nonsensical Fluff

Here’s the frustrating part: the psychology and mental health narrative was already strong enough to carry the entire limited series. Hunnam and Metcalf are doing real work. The premise is inherently compelling. The atmosphere is there.

This could’ve been an Emmy-season juggernaut with a tighter spine, let the horror be human, not ornamental. Instead, the show sometimes feels like it’s trying to win three awards at once: “Best Acting,” “Most Shocking,” and “Most Thinkpiece.” Ironically, the more it reaches, the less it lands.

A high-performing, prestige-leaning limited series with incredible acting and a strong psychological core — undercut by side plots that feel like they wandered in from a different show.