By Kayla Cobb
Copyright thewrap
Netflix is exploring the serial killer who would forever change pop culture in the first trailer for “Monster: The Ed Gein Story.” The drama from Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan will premiere all episodes on the platform Oct. 3.
The third season of “Monster” will star Charlie Hunnam (“Sons of Anarchy”) as Gein. Laurie Metcalf (“Lady Bird,” “The Conners”) will play Gein’s mother Augusta, and Tom Hollander (“Feud: Capote vs. The Swans”) will play legendary horror director Alfred Hitchcock. Suzanna Son, Vicky Krieps, Olivia Williams, Lesley Manville, Addison Rae, Joey Pollari, Charlie Hall, Tyler Jacob Moore, Mimi Kennedy, Will Brill and Robin Weigert also star in the Netflix original.
“Eddie, you’re a mess,” Metcalf as Augusta says in the first trailer as Hunnam’s Ed Gein smiles hauntingly and sinks his hands into what seems to be a bucket of milk. “Only a mother could love you.”
But the trailer doesn’t ramp up into true horror until it shows Ed dancing in a dress. As he sways and shuffles, there’s a knock on the door, causing him to turn around and reveal he’s wearing his mother’s face as a mask. It only becomes more terrifying from there. “Monster” then drifts between shots of Ed stretching flesh and scenes that seem plucked out of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “The Silence of the Lambs.”
“You’re the one who can’t look away,” Ed says. Watch the trailer above.
Before there was “Psycho,” “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” or “The Silence of the Lambs,” there was Ed Gein. After his mother’s death in 1945, Gein largely stayed to himself on his family’s farm. It wasn’t until nearly a decade later that authorities uncovered the horrors that were taking place on that property. Gein exhumed corpses from local gravesites and made keepsakes like lampshades and chair coverings out of their flesh and bones. He also told police he was trying to construct a “woman suit” so that he could become his mother. Then there were the murders.
Gein confessed to killing tavern owner Mary Hogan in 1954 as well as hardware store owner Bernice Worden in 1957. It’s also been suspected that Gein killed his brother Henry.
He was eventually found guilty of first degree murder but was found unfit to stand trial because he was legally insane. Gein was confined to a mental health facility and died of lung cancer in 1984. But it was his string of crimes that inspired Robert Bloch’s 1959 suspense novel “Psycho,” which led to Alfred Hitchcock’s cinematic masterpiece of the same name.
In addition to creating the series, Murphy and Brennan executive produce. Other EPs include Max Winkler, Eric Kovtun, Scott Robertson, Nissa Diederich, Louise Shore, Carl Franklin and Hunnam. Brennan will direct the third and fourth episodes, and Winkler will direct the first two as well as the remaining four. Brennan also writes the series.
