My appreciation of Charlie Hunnam’s acting talents is the reason I decided to watch Monster – The Ed Gein Story. I watched it even though I’ve avoided the first two instalments of the anthology series, Monster – The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (2022) and Monsters – The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story (2024).

I ‘endured’ everything, albeit through my own fingers sometimes, including the scenes that were featured for shock value, because it’s Hunnam. Additionally, as someone who’s lived long enough to be aware of the darker facets of the human experience, there wasn’t plenty that shocked me.

The fact that Monster – The Ed Gein Story is a dramatisation rather than a documentary is part of the reason I was able to sit through all of it. Knowing that Hunnam was doing his best acting helped give me that distance from the reality of Gein’s depicted crimes. I say ‘depicted crimes’ because, as you can imagine, a number of the crimes/scenes are based on speculation/pure fabrication, for dramatic effect.

As for the matter of whether Monster – The Ed Gein Story is actually good, the acting is fantastic, all around. Hunnam is great, of course, and another highlight is Tom Hollander as Alfred Hitchcock.

What surprised me about the third instalment of the Monsters anthology series is that the show didn’t just focus on Gein’s tragic story over the years. Since Gein is known to have inspired many horror movies, including Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), and more, the show dips in and out of telling Gein’s story and showing us scenes of how the aforementioned classic horror films came to exist.

Admittedly, all the switching from Gein’s life to showing his impact on American culture results in a somewhat disjointed experience. Nevertheless, because I’m a movie fanatic and I’ve seen almost all the films featured, plus I happen to be a big fan of Hitchcock’s Psycho, I welcomed these diversions. watching them meant I wasn’t having to endure other harrowing scenes from Gein’s life, which, in the end, made the show a little easier to sit through.

It probably won’t surprise you to learn that I found the latter part of Monster – The Ed Gein Story very moving. Particularly that all-important conversation with the psychiatrist. My eyes certainly were not dry. No, sir/lady.

I’m not going to dare to tell you to watch this, unless you are very, VERY curious, of course.

Happy Film Loving,

G