Netflix Teases Chilling First Look at Charlie Hunnam’s Ed Gein in ‘Monster: The Ed Gein Story’

Netflix just unleashed a first look at Ryan Murphy‘s next Monster.

Monster: The Ed Gein Story, which the streaming service announced will be released on Oct. 3, will take viewers to rural Wisconsin in the 1950s, where they will meet Ed Gein, played by Charlie Hunnam.

“In the frozen fields of 1950s rural Wisconsin, a friendly, mild-mannered recluse named Eddie Gein lived quietly on a decaying farm – hiding a house of horrors so gruesome it would redefine the American nightmare,” Netflix’s description reads. Driven by isolation, psychosis, and an all-consuming obsession with his mother, Gein’s perverse crimes birthed a new kind of monster that would haunt Hollywood for decades.”

According to the streamer, “Gein’s acabre legacy gave birth to fictional monsters born in his image and ignited a cultural obsession with the criminally deviant,” inspiring films such as Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and The Silence of the Lambs.

“Ed Gein didn’t just influence a genre — he became the blueprint for modern horror,” the description notes.

Hunnam is joined onscreen by Tom Hollander, Laurie Metcalf, and Suzanna Son, as well as Vicky Krieps, Olivia Williams, Lesley Manville, Joey Pollari, Charlie Hall, Tyler Jacob Moore, Mimi Kennedy, Will Brill, and Robin Weigert.

This marks Murphy’s third Monster installment, following 2022’s Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story and 2024’s MONSTERS: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. Another season of Monster surrounding Lizzie Borden is in the works, and according to Netflix, is set to star Ella Beatty. Production on the next season is slated to kick off this fall.

As for The Ed Gein Story, which consists of eight episodes, Murphy told Gavin Newsom on the July 20 episode of the This is Gavin Newsom podcast that this season “really is sort of a story about mental health and awareness,” as he explained that Gein “was a person who was mentally ill, who was an undiagnosed schizophrenic his entire life,” but was not diagnosed until after he was arrested, per Collider.

“That’s what I love about telling those sorts of stories. I’m not in it for the blood. I’m not in it for the gore. I’m in it for like, ‘Well, was he made or was he born that way?’ I think that that story of Ed Gein is both — he was born that way and made that way,” he said.