Netflix's Ed Gein Series Sparks Ethics Debate

Netflix released Monster: The Ed Gein Story (season 3) on Oct. 3, 2025, starring Charlie Hunnam and produced by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan. The dramatization recounts Gein’s confessed murders of Mary Hogan (1954) and Bernice Worden (1957), years of grave robbing and grisly keepsakes recovered from his Plainfield farm, and traces how his crimes inspired films such as Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Silence of the Lambs. Reviewers and viewers have criticized the season’s graphic, speculative scenes—including early depictions of masturbation in women’s underwear, naked scenes with his mother, and suggested links to Nazi imagery—and several outlets have catalogued inaccuracies and creative liberties. The series follows earlier controversial Monster seasons (Jeffrey Dahmer, the Menendez brothers) that drew objections from victims’ families and others for sensationalism and historical distortion. At the same time, archival materials, including newly public 1957 voice recordings used in a companion docuseries, and touring artifacts have resurfaced, complicating public understanding and renewing ethical debates about true-crime entertainment.