Ed Gein, the reclusive Wisconsin handyman whose macabre obsessions shocked the nation in the 1950s, has resurfaced in the public eye through Ryan Murphy's new Netflix series, Monster: The Ed Gein Story, which dropped on October 3, 2025. Gein, born in 1906 to a domineering mother and an alcoholic father, grew up in isolation on a remote farm near Plainfield. His life took a grotesque turn after his brother Henry's mysterious death in 1944—a brush fire that claimed Henry's life while the two were fighting the blaze. Officials ruled it accidental, but whispers persist that Gein, then 38, might have murdered his sibling to escape family pressures. Indeed, the series delves into this suspicion, portraying Gein's fraught relationship with Henry as a powder keg.
Gein's confirmed crimes were fewer than the legends suggest, yet horrifying enough. He admitted to killing two women: tavern owner Mary Hogan in 1954 and hardware store clerk Bernice Worden in 1957, whose disappearance prompted her son to alert police. That led deputies to Gein's squalid farmhouse, where they uncovered a nightmare—human bones fashioned into utensils, a lampshade of skin, and masks from faces. Gein confessed to just these two murders, though he robbed graves for body parts and was linked, unproven, to the 1953 disappearance of teenager Evelyn Hartley. No girlfriend named Adeline Watkins appears in records; that seems a dramatic flourish for the screen. Gein wasn't deemed a serial killer by legal standards—only two killings—but his atrocities inspired icons like Norman Bates in Hitchcock's Psycho and Leatherface in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
The Netflix adaptation stars Charlie Hunnam as the soft-spoken yet sinister Gein, capturing his eerie, halting voice that some question in authenticity—did he really talk like that, or is it amplified for effect? Laurie Metcalf embodies the tyrannical mother Augusta, whose religious fervor warped Gein's psyche. Tom Hollander plays Alfred Hitchcock, weaving in how Gein's tale influenced cinema, with Olivia Williams as Alma Reville and Lesley Manville as victim Worden. Other cast members, including Addison Rae in a supporting role, add layers to this tale of isolation and madness. Critics note the series' blend of fact and speculation, much like Murphy's Dahmer entry, though some decry its sensationalism.
Gein spent his final years in mental institutions, dying in 1984 at 77 from respiratory failure, his farm long razed. How did such a quiet man harbor such darkness? The question lingers, inviting us to ponder the thin line between ordinary evil and the monsters we create in stories.