Monster (2022)

The Ed Gein Story does an effective job of introducing audiences to a serial killer many people may not know about, but one that has had a ton of influence on horror films from Psycho to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

An ambitious gamble of a meta-conversation about screened real-life horrors that’s heavy on gore but very light on emotional or intellectual heft.

The idea of making a “Monster” about how violence ripples through pop culture, changing form as it moves, is admirably ambitious, but just out of the reach of writer Ian Brennan and director Max Winkler, who flirt with interesting themes and commentary but are really just more interested in the gross stuff. And there’s so much gross stuff.

“The Ed Gein Story” falls apart because it lacks a central focus. At the core of the narrative is the abusive and hyper-religious relationship between Ed and Augusta. However, Augusta is only vaguely present in the show after the first episode.

Netflix’s Monster: The Ed Gein Story is unsurprisingly provocative and, at times, tasteless.

“Ill-advised” is, in fact, the best way to describe the entirety of Monster: The Ed Gein Story. .... Laurie Metcalf is innocent, delivering a delightfully unhinged performance as Augusta Gein.

Narrative chaos and thematic hypocrisies aside, Monster: The Ed Gein Story has some of the same attributes as its predecessors, though it has no single episodes as good as “The Hurt Man” or “Silenced.” It barely has episodes. It does, however, have acting in all-caps and bold-type.

Monster: The Ed Gein Story is as pulpy and sloppy as the comics that Ed reads, a product of sensationalism, rage bait, and misinformation.

This isn't just a completely botched series; it's senseless, perverse, and exists outside the realm of narrative entertainment because there's absolutely no one to root for and nothing for viewers to walk away with.

It is nothing but a voyeuristic pandering to the basest instincts of viewers.

On and on this goes, becoming ever more depraved, a wallow in sickness that leaves you feeling hollow, nauseated. Still, let’s give it its due: it might have just offered, finally, the last word on Ed Gein.

It’s far too messy to serve as a compelling antidote for what came before. In the end, it’s just more — and more for the sake of more is the last thing anyone needs. “Ed Gein” seems to know as much, and yet it can’t stop itself from peddling the same sleaze it claims to hate.

Hunnam portrays the character with a lurching awkwardness and a tinny, Kermit-esque voice—which the actor says was inspired by a recording of the real-life Gein—which nonetheless never manages to sound authentic. .... At a certain point, Monster’s grotesqueness becomes almost laughably predictable—imagine the most questionably salacious thing that could happen next in any given scene and it will inevitably come true, the camera leering in close-up to capture every perverse detail.