Who Was Ed Gein: The Disturbing True Story Behind Netflix's Chilling New Series

Netflix is taking its Monster anthology back to the well of real-life horror, and this time it is Ed Gein. Yes, that Ed Gein — the small-town grave robber whose crimes basically became the blueprint for half the genre.

What Monster is doing this season

Season three is titled 'Monster: The Ed Gein Story' and puts Charlie Hunnam in the lead. Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan are steering the ship again, but instead of just recreating headlines, the pitch here is a character study that does not flinch.

'I wanted to get as close as possible to who Ed was, to do him justice, and for this thing to feel authentic. This is going to be the really human, tender, unflinching, no-holds-barred exploration of who Ed was and what he did. But who he was being at the center of it, rather than what he did.'

That is Hunnam talking to Tudum, and it tracks with the show's angle: the person first, the monstrous acts second. Ambitious, considering the subject.

Why Ed Gein again? Because horror never stopped borrowing from him

Murphy and Brennan zeroed in on Gein because his crimes have echoed through pop culture in a big, uncomfortable way. He is the so-called godfather of serial killers in the genre, the real-world seed for characters like Norman Bates in Psycho, Leatherface in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs. As Brennan told Tudum, once they locked onto how outsized that influence is, the season wrote itself. The show is not just replaying the case; it is poking at the bigger question: how much of modern horror is built on one deeply broken man from rural Wisconsin? Consider it the series' 'influence factor' season.

The real story, minus the myth

Ed Gein was born Edward Theodore Gein in 1906 in La Crosse, Wisconsin. His father was an alcoholic; his mother drilled into him that women and sex were sinful. The family lived on an isolated farm. After his father died, Gein's older brother died under murky circumstances. Then in 1945, the one person he idolized — his mother — died of natural causes, and he was left alone on the farm.

Everything unraveled in November 1957. Police, investigating the disappearance of store clerk Bernice Worden, found her body at Gein's place — headless and gutted. He was tied to Worden and another local woman, Mary Hogan. Inside the house, authorities found a nightmare inventory: human skulls, along with furniture and clothing assembled from body parts and skin. In all, remains from 10 women were recovered. Gein told police he had dug up recently buried graves, targeting women who reminded him of his mother.

He was declared mentally unfit to stand trial and committed to a state hospital in Wisconsin. He spent the rest of his life in psychiatric care and died at 77 on July 26, 1984, at Mendota Mental Health Hospital from cancer-related complications. The case is often summed up as two murders despite the mountain of remains, which is part of why his legend looms so large.

The essentials

• Title and format: 'Monster: The Ed Gein Story,' season 3 of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan's anthology
• Cast: Charlie Hunnam leads; also Suzanna Son, Tom Hollander, Laurie Metcalf, Olivia Williams, Addison Rae, and more
• Hook: A human-first, no-holds-barred look at Gein and the massive ripple his crimes sent through horror
• Episodes: Eight
• Release: October 3 on Netflix

Fair warning: if the previous Monster seasons pushed boundaries, this one is playing with the original instruction manual for our collective nightmares. Not for the squeamish — but you probably knew that the second you saw the name.