Charlie Hunnam Transforms For Netflix’s ‘Monster: The Ed Gein Story’

Season 3 of Netflix’s Monster (from co-creators Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan) dropped on October 3rd, and this time the anthology is tackling the story of Ed Gein, the infamous Wisconsin murderer known for grave robbing and body desecration (he turned human remains into objects like lampshades, bowls, and masks) in the 1950s.

Lead actor Charlie Hunnam underwent a complete transformation to step into his role as Gein, reportedly losing as much as 30 pounds to embody his character, but the series finds its spark in the psychological approach to its subject—how did Gein become the “Monster” that inspired horror film legends like Norman Bates, Leatherface, Buffalo Bill and others?

Was it his isolated upbringing, his fraught relationship with his mother? The series takes some creative liberties here, depicting Gein killing his own brother, who in real life died in a brush fire on the family’s property, and whose death was ruled accidental.

The tie-in to film culture even includes fictional portrayals of Alfred Hitchcock (Tom Hollander) and his wife/collaborator Alma Reville (Olivia Williams). We also see Nazi war criminal Ilse Koch as another speculative/fictionalized inclusion.

It’s an interesting approach to breaking down one of the most influential archetypal film characters who has embedded himself in the collective psyche of American pop culture.

While Gein was never proven to have used a chainsaw in his crimes, the series blurs the lines between real life and mythology by evoking visuals from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Psycho, and Silence of the Lambs. Somewhere along the way the terrifying horror of true crime gives way to the even more disturbing fear of fiction.