The chilling truth of whether Ed Gein was born evil, or made into a monster

Ryan Murphy’s new Netflix series Monster: The Ed Gein Story doesn’t just tell the story of one of America’s most disturbing killers — it asks something much darker: Who’s really the monster here? Because depending on how you look at it, there are a few options.

Credit: Netflix

As the story of Wisconsin murderer and grave robber Ed Gein (played by Charlie Hunnam) unfolds, the lines between reality and the stories inspired by his crimes start to blur. Figures like Alfred Hitchcock (Tom Hollander) show up in the show, reminding us that Gein didn’t just terrify his hometown — he shaped decades of horror films. That inclusion, Murphy and co-creator Ian Brennan say, is key to understanding their take on the story. The media that Gein consumed, they argue, helped feed the twisted fantasies that defined his crimes.

“The interesting thing about the show is the thesis statement of every season is: Are monsters born or are they made?” co-creator Ryan Murphy asks in an interview with Netflix’s Tudum. “And I think in Ed’s case, it’s probably a little of both.”

Hudson Oz as Henry Gein in ‘Monster: The Ed Gein Story’.
Credit: Netflix

Charlie Hunnam, who plays Gein, agrees that it’s not that simple: “Who was the monster? This poor boy who was abused his whole life then left in total isolation, suffering from undiagnosed mental illness? Or the legion of people who sensationalized his life for entertainment and arguably darkened the American psyche and the global psyche in the process?”

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The show digs deep into every part of Ed’s life. His abusive relationship with his mother Augusta Gein (Laurie Metcalf), his obsession with Nazi war criminals, the horrific crimes he committed against the women of Plainfield, and finally, his incarceration and diagnosis.

“He really contained these multitudes of tone and subject matter,” Brennan says. “We left no stone unturned. We really painted as big of a picture as we possibly could have.”

Ed Gein’s mother Augusta
Credit: Netflix

Murphy clearly places some of the blame on Augusta, whose strict control and resentment shaped everything about Ed.

“He was this bizarre guy that lived in his own world, in his own reality, in total isolation with only one other point of contact,” Hunnam says. “And so everything in his life was sort of made up, was a work of his own creation.”

Even Ed’s voice in the series connects back to that relationship: “It was an affectation, it was what Ed thought that his mother wanted him to be. It wasn’t an authentic voice that lived in him. It was this persona, it was this character that he was playing because his mother desperately wanted a daughter, and she was given a son. In her more hostile, vile moments, she would tell him, ‘I should have castrated you at birth.’”

By the end, Monster: The Ed Gein Story doesn’t give a clean answer. Instead, it suggests that the real horror might not just be Ed’s crimes — but what created him, and how the world has kept his story alive ever since.

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Featured image credit: Netflix