Ed Gein, the reclusive Wisconsin farmer whose name evokes some of the darkest chapters in American crime history, is back in the spotlight with Netflix's latest true-crime drama. The series, titled Monster: The Ed Gein Story, dropped today, October 3, 2025, plunging viewers into the macabre world of a man whose acts of grave-robbing and murder shocked the nation in the 1950s. It's the third installment in Ryan Murphy's anthology, following tales of Dahmer and Menendez, and stars Charlie Hunnam as the troubled Gein.
Born in 1906 to a domineering mother named Augusta, Gein grew up in isolation on a rundown farm near Plainfield, Wisconsin. His father died early, leaving him under Augusta's iron-fisted religious zealotry, which twisted his psyche in profound ways. After her death in 1945, Gein spiraled. He began exhuming corpses from local graveyards, crafting grotesque items from human skin and bones—shades, masks, even a suit. However, it's the killings that cemented his infamy. Gein confessed to murdering two women: tavern owner Mary Hogan in 1954, whose body vanished, and hardware store clerk Bernice Worden in 1957, whose decapitated corpse was found hanging in his shed. Authorities believed he killed only these two, though rumors swirled of more victims, unproven amid the chaos of his discoveries.
The arrest came swiftly after Worden's slaying, when police raided his home and uncovered horrors that rivaled any nightmare. Gein was deemed unfit for trial initially, spending years in a mental hospital before pleading no contest to murder in 1968. He died in 1984, but his legacy endured, fueling iconic horror. Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho drew from Gein's mother fixation for Norman Bates; Leatherface in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre echoed his cannibalistic undertones; even Buffalo Bill's skin suit in The Silence of the Lambs bore his mark. Indeed, Gein's story blurred the line between reality and fiction, birthing a subgenre of slasher terror.
Netflix's take, with Laurie Metcalf as the overbearing Augusta and cameos nodding to those filmmakers, promises a raw exploration. Yet, as the platform cashes in on serial killer fascination, one wonders if retelling these atrocities risks glorifying the grotesque—or simply reminding us of the fragile threads holding society together.