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Everyone is obsessed with true crime these days, but, there are undoubtedly a select few watches that are even too much for us to handle - and that sentiment doesn't ring truer than for a new Netflix show that's left everyone asking: "What the f***?"
Following highly-successful dramatisations of the crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer and the Menendez Brothers, Ryan Murphy's Monster is back for its third season, and this time, all eyes are on Ed Gein.
Charlie Hunnam (best known for Sons Of Anarchy and Green Street) is stepping into the role of the serial killer for the eight-episode thriller, following the life of the 'Butcher of Plainfield' and the grisly horror movies he went on to inspire.
At time of writing, Monster: The Ed Gein Story is at number one in the Netflix charts.
Netflix and Murphy have spared no detail either, with the gruesome new show branded "disturbing" by viewers who have been left wincing at their TV screens.
One viewer branded the show "sick and twisted":
"It's so gruesome", another penned.
Others admitted they had to "close their eyes" to watch it.
Who was Ed Gein?
Wikipedia
“Serial killer. Grave robber. Psycho. 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,” the show's plot 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.”
Born in 1906, Gein grew up on an isolated farm in Wisconsin with his alcoholic father and ultra-religious mother - and when she died in 1945, it's thought he was triggered into a psychosis that left him utterly obsessed with her.
He then began digging up graves and mutilating corpses, often turning the lifeless bodies into furniture on display in his home.
In the show, we see it play out as a skull bowl Gein would eat from religiously, and a chair made from human skin. He also kept the rotting corpse of 'Mother' in her bedroom, so he could talk to her as though she were still alive.
It's thought the inspiration for the heinous acts came from Nazi war criminal, Ilse Koch.
When that was no longer enough for him, he set out to murder middle-aged women who reminded him of his mother, including 51-year-old tavern owner, Mary Hogan, and 58-year-old hardware store owner, Bernice Worden.
Gein died in a psychiatric hospital at age 77 in 1984, and was buried in Plainfield, Wisconsin - the same location as the house where his crimes took place. His gravestone was later stolen in 2000 and never replaced.
Did Ed Gein help to catch Ted Bundy?
In the show, we see Gein seemingly help the FBI capture fellow serial killer, Ted Bundy, during his later years in a psychiatric unit.
However, it most definitely didn't happen in real life, and is rather a dramatisation created by Netflix.
Gein's involvement in Ted Bundy's case is likely a figment of the serial killer's imagination.
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