Let’s talk this new Ed Gein Netflix Series that Ryan Murphy is getting ready to release. I’m not even going to ramble on about Murphy because that’s a whole separate barrel of monkeys.
But before we get too much into it, I want to get this out of the way: I am not some pearl-clutching church lady mad about horror. I’m a spooky bitch. I love haunted houses, cursed objects, ghost stories, slashers, true crime rabbit holes and all the dark documentaries that make people side eye me at brunch. Horror is my love language.
Which is exactly why I need to say this: Ryan Murphy and Netflix turning Ed Gein into prestige TV with Charlie Hunnam as the lead is not horror. It’s not true crime. It’s exploitation. And it’s gross.
Ed Gein Netflix Spin:
Missing the Point, Again
Here’s their own description of the Ed Gein Netflix series:
“Serial killer. Grave robber. Psycho. In the frozen fields of 1950s rural Wisconsin, a friendly, mild-mannered recluse named Eddie Gein lived quietly on a decaying farm – hiding a house of horrors so gruesome it would redefine the American nightmare.”
Ooooh spooky, right? Except notice who’s missing. Bernice Worden. Mary Hogan. The women he actually murdered. Their names are gone. Their lives erased. Again.
Instead, we get Gein described as “friendly” and “mild-mannered” like he’s some misunderstood weirdo with a tragic backstory. That’s not scary from a horror perspective or a human perspective. Why do we do this? Why do we need a sexy serial killer? Like, just take a moment and go what in the actual fuck?
And here’s the thing, Netflix already pulled this trick with Dahmer. Critics called that series out for the exact same problem. Kayla Cobb at Decider praised it for reframing crime drama as systemic failure, but Caroline Framke at Variety nailed the contradiction: the show “can’t rise to its own ambition… without becoming exploitative in and of itself.” Malik Peay at the Los Angeles Times said it straight: Dahmer was just the “commercialization of tragedy.”
Even Dan Fienberg at The Hollywood Reporter pointed out that the one episode that actually worked (“Silenced”) succeeded only because it centered the life of Tony Hughes, a Black, deaf, gay man who’d otherwise have been erased from history. Imagine that, the best episode of the series was the one that put a victim’s humanity front and center instead of glamorizing the killer.
So yeah, Netflix knows the criticism. They’ve heard it before. And now with the Ed Gein Netflix promos plastered everywhere, they’re proving they’ve learned nothing.
Charlie Hunnam in a Butcher’s Apron
Casting Charlie Hunnam as Ed Gein is a strategic choice, at best. Hunnam is hot, he has a fanbase and Netflix knows exactly what they’re doing. They’ve turned a murderer who made soup bowls out of skulls into a man who still has Tumblr girlies fanning themselves.
And that’s the part that makes my skin crawl. Because this isn’t about telling the story. This is about making the monster marketable.
Why aren’t we tired of that as horror, true crime loving people?
The “Blueprint for Horror” Excuse
Netflix actually calls Gein “the blueprint for modern horror.”
Sure, Norman Bates, Leatherface and Buffalo Bill all owe their DNA to him. But let’s be clear: that doesn’t mean we need ten prestige episodes of the actual crimes. That’s not honoring horror. That’s fetishizing violence against women and calling it “inspiration.” I think it’s perfectly okay to model a fictional character on a true crime story because that’s purely fiction but it’s insane to think that we need this story told over ten episodes.
I don’t need to watch a prosthetic nipple belt get lovingly recreated by a costume designer to understand Gein’s impact on the genre. We already got that lesson from Psycho and everyone knows it.
Murphy’s Monster Problem
Murphy’s Monster anthology isn’t about truth, accountability or even good horror. It’s about packaging real violence as bingeable content. Dahmer retraumatized families who begged him not to make it. The Menendez season turned murderers into heartthrobs with great hair and created a whole rally around getting them released which has now turned into such a media circus.
Even with Ryan Murphy weaving this new narrative, when the parole board interviewed the Menendez brothers, it was found that Erik Menendez was hardly a model citizen, even in jail. He’d been involved in prison fights, possessing a cell phone and smuggling drugs. Why are we not focused in on the atrocious facts about these real life people who are now featured in a series called Monsters?
So now we’re going to do it with Gein. Ryan Murphy takes this as an opportunity to double (triple?) down on all of this since this is season three.
Murphy has always pushed the boundaries of television, since the release and success of American Horror Story, and he knows exactly how grotesque the Ed Gein Netflix story this will get. He’s banking on us to watch anyway. But why are we watching it? At what point do we just go… how about no?
This is where I draw my spooky little line in the sand: horror is about fear, catharsis, imagination. True crime is about accountability and victims’ stories. Murphy’s Monster isn’t either of those things. It’s serial-killer cosplay with better lighting.
Love Horror? Demand Better.
The Ed Gein Netflix Story isn’t that
I’ll say it again: I am not anti-horror. Horror is my jam. True crime is my jam. I live for the macabre and writing this, while simultaneously trying to find a mini vintage stroller for my creepy doll who has her face caved in.
But Ed Gein didn’t “inspire art.” He murdered women. He desecrated graves. He wore people’s skin. And if the logline for your show manages to erase all that humanity while turning the killer into a tortured antihero, you’re just exploiting horror for a dollar.
So if you love spooky shit like I do, demand more from the genre. Support horror that challenges systems of power, lifts up survivors and actually tells new stories. Don’t fall for “The Ed Gein Netflix Prestige Rebrand” because we don’t need it. We never did.
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