Ryan Murphy’s Netflix anthology series about infamous serial killers remains, if you’ll pardon the obvious pun, a monster hit for the streaming giant. The third season of “Monster,” from Murphy and Ian Brennan, has just dropped on Netflix, and the star this time around is Charlie Hunnam — having traded his familiar, motorcycle-riding “Sons of Anarchy” character for the much creepier mantle of a Wisconsinite whose real-life grisly crimes inspired Hollywood villains like Norman Bates.
The full title of this new installment of Murphy’s franchise is “Monster: The Ed Gein Story.” And, in a testament to just how popular this controversial Netflix title is, it’s worth noting that it’s currently sitting at #1 on Netflix’s Top 10 TV shows chart for the U.S. following its release on Friday. “This is going to be the really human, tender, unflinching, no-holds-barred exploration of who Ed was and what he did,” Hunnam said, in an interview with Netflix’s Tudum, about his transformation into one of history’s most notorious killers.
Monster brings another disturbing true-crime story to Netflix
Netflix’s logline sums up the stakes: “Serial killer. Grave robber. Psycho. In the frozen fields of 1950s rural Wisconsin, Eddie Gein lived quietly on a decaying farm — hiding a house of horrors so gruesome it would redefine the American nightmare.” The real-life Gein was a serial killer who haunted fields in rural Wisconsin, not only murdering but also gruesomely “desecrating” his victims, according to Netflix.
Hunnam, who admits in his Tudum interview he was initially just curious to hear Murphy’s idea before taking on the role, ended up diving headfirst into the character. As part of his research and prep work, Hunnam listened to a recording of Gein made immediately following his arrest, using the tape to help him mimic the killer’s speech patterns and his generally unsettling aura. Laurie Metcalf also co-stars here as Gein’s mother, a relationship that really gets to the heart of Murphy’s anthology series: Are monsters made or born?
To understand why the “Monster” anthology is so controversial, though, here’s a good Reddit thread that gets into why some people find the series distasteful. As one poster opines, “I just assume if it involves true crime on Netflix that it’s the worst type of tawdry tabloid drama trash.” As of this writing, the new season is also the lowest-rated of the three so far on Rotten Tomatoes, with the critics’ and audience scores having fallen from 57% and 82%, respectively, in Season 1 to 29% and 53%, respectively, this time around. “‘Monster’ season 3 only elicits unpleasantries – boredom, frustration, confusion, disgust,” a Screen Rant reviewer laments. “This isn’t just a botched series; it’s perverse & senseless.”
