As is the way with Ryan Murphy’s Monster series, fans flock to Netflix to watch his latest season. Based on infamous murder cases, the show has tackled Jeffrey Dahmer, Erik and Lyle Menendez, and now season 3 is centered on Ed Gein.
Gein is the kind of serial killer that many forget. But he is infamous for a reason. After all, his story did inspire creatives to make Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre after learning of what this man did. So if you want to head into the Ryan Murphy universe with a little bit of knowledge of Gein, here is what you need to know about the man.
Gein grew up in Plainfield, Wisconsin, where his crimes took place. He was known as the Butcher of Plainfield and the Plainfield Ghoul. When Gein was 48 years old, he claims to have killed his first victim, Mary Hogan and then said he killed hardware store owner Bernice Worden when he was 51 years old. Worden was Gein’s victim who got him caught.
If you’re wondering how this man is tied to stories like Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it is because he was a twisted man who was not only a serial killer but a body snatcher as well. He would create things out of human skin (the Leatherface of it all) and his deep love for his mother would go on to be the inspiration for Norman Bates.
While Gein was only found guilty of Worden’s murder and pled insanity so he spent the rest of his life in a mental institution. He was accused of at least 5 other murders as well as a string of missing people cases in Wisconsin. But his more deranged methods made him the infamous serial killer he’s known to be.
Why do we keep telling stories of these men?
Now that you know more about Gein, we have to ask ourselves an important question: Why do we constantly go back to the serial killers and not their victims? This is a common criticism of fictionalized tellings of these stories and it still is a problem. If anything, I need to spend no time at all with the killer themselves.
And yet time and time again, we are telling the story through their eyes and that’s not really something I think we need in 2025. Gein’s legacy has been documented in cinema for years. Thanks to Alfred Hitchcock, Tobe Hooper, and Kim Henke took Gein’s crimes and made them part of cinema history forever. And yet that isn’t enough? We still have to watch things through his eyes?
Arguably, I’m still working through the show and maybe I will change my tune but it is a criticism I have of the Monster series as a whole. It is very much on the side of those accused of murder and the only one it worked to help was the Menendez brothers and there were plenty of flaws with season 2 as well.
Ed Gein is not someone you should become fascinated by. I watch murder documentaries and learn about serial killers to keep myself safe because that is sadly the world we live in. At the end of the day, Ed Gein was confirmed to have murdered two women who had their lives cut short because of his actions. And let’s not get into the basket made of skin.
(featured image: Netflix)
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
