Charlie Hunnam Says Netflix's Monster Doesn't Sensationalize Ed Gein — It Asks Who the Real Monsters Are

Netflix just rolled out 'Monster: The Ed Gein Story,' and the response has been... not great. The big sticking point: a whole lot of invention. Viewers and critics are calling out the show for bending Gein's actual life into something that better mirrors the movies and urban legends his crimes inspired. Think less messy truth, more campy remix.

Hunnam says the show is not chasing shock

Charlie Hunnam plays Gein, and he is pushing back on the idea that the series is exploitative. In an interview with EW, he argued the team was trying to approach the material with restraint and sincerity, not gore-for-clicks.

'I never felt like we were sensationalizing it. I never felt on set that we did anything gratuitous or for shock impact. It was all in order to try to tell this story as honestly as we could... What I would hope and feel really confident in is that it was a very sincere exploration of the human condition and why this boy did what he did.'

He also floats a bigger question about where the real 'monster' lives: in Gein himself, in the filmmakers who mined his story for thrills, or in us for watching. He points to Gein's isolation and likely untreated mental illness as part of the picture, then widens the frame to the pop culture machine his crimes helped fuel.

'Is Ed Gein the monster of this show, or is Hitchcock the monster of the show? Or are we the monster of the show because we are watching it?'

Here is where the show loses the plot

This is where it gets ironic. The series keeps bringing up those philosophical questions, but it rarely sits with them. Instead, it leans into a campy tone and piles on fabrications that barely resemble the known record of Gein's life and crimes. It is not just filling in gaps; it is remixing facts to echo later horror touchstones that were only loosely inspired by him.

• The show portrays Gein as an irresistible ladies man and even has him chasing people with a chainsaw. Neither of those things happened; they are inventions created for the series.

That choice — the retrofitting of Gein's story to match the mythology of the movies he inspired — is exactly what critics are calling out. The result plays more like a stylized riff than a grounded account, which undercuts the thoughtful conversation the show says it wants to have.

'Monster: The Ed Gein Story' is now streaming on Netflix.