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| Images courtesy of Netflix |
Ryan Murphy and his team of creatives return for the third entry in the Monster series on Netflix. This year's show centers on the macabre tale of The Butcher of Plainfield, Ed Gein.
As with most of Murphy's other work, this latest entry is a fictionalized revisionist history lesson that should be taken with a grain of salt. Monster: The Ed Gein Story glamorizes and shows too much empathy for the killer and carnivore of human flesh. Instead of telling Gein's life story, we're clobbered over the head with Nazi imagery, needless side stories, and fantastical interweaving of iconic horror scenes. It just doesn't work.
Ever since Murphy came on the scene with his Nip/Tuck, his works have always been exploitative and focused on the worst of society. The Ed Gein Story is another over sexualized and overtly graphic telling of real-life incidents that doesn't have much basis in reality whatsoever. At times, this project rides the edge of being insulting to its audience, expecting them to grasp onto a story that's a 100 percent fully fabricated endeavor. Murphy and team try to squeeze their audience into submission with 8 episodes that spend their run time on untrue sub-plots and graphic kills that never happened.
It's understood that Gein was the inspiration for Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Silence of the Lambs. Interjecting bits about the production of those films into this short run event series doesn't work whatsoever. It steals away precious time and makes the overall project seem unfocused and without any real direction. Gein certainly had an effect on the world of horror, but the way it's presented is without creative merit or purpose. It feels very, "oh, look what we did".
Sure, Charlie Hunnam's acting here is one of the best things he's ever done. And the support cast all make this a fun watch for dramatics. But, Monster: The Ed Gein Story mirrors the worst elements of American Horror Story. If you're here for brutality, gore and necrophilia, this one may help kick off the Halloween season for you. But, much like the later seasons of AHS, the 8 episode tale of Ed Gein is woefully unfocused and barren of a soul. Most of what's here is for shock value versus actual plotting.
The production values are there. And the acting is superb, but their negligence for facts is appalling, if not totally devoid of class. This season of Monster is the worst so far and a miscalculated step for Netflix and Murphy as a whole. True crime fans will take issue with the liberties taken with this fictional story arc.
-CG