Monster: The Ed Gein Story — 5 Key Details on Release Date, Cast & Plot

Read this with the lights on…

The door is ajar. The farmhouse is quiet. And in the stillness, a new kind of dread takes root. Monster: The Ed Gein Story isn’t just another true-crime binge; it’s a cold breath on the back of your neck—a return to the moment American horror found its blueprint. If your pulse just ticked up, good. That tingle is the show doing its job before the first scene even plays.

When does Monster: The Ed Gein Story release?

Circle the date: October 3, 2025. That’s when Monster: The Ed Gein Story lands on Netflix, just in time to usher in Halloween season with a chilling, prestige-grade gut punch. This is the third installment in Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s Monster anthology, and Netflix has already shared a first look and details confirming the premiere date.

What is Monster: The Ed Gein Story about?

Set in 1950s rural Wisconsin, Monster: The Ed Gein Story traces the quiet, “polite” recluse whose crimes on a decaying Plainfield farm warped the nation’s imagination. The series follows how isolation, untreated mental illness, and an obsessive bond with his mother incubated the horrors later echoed in cinema’s most infamous villains. Expect a story about complicity as much as culpability—about how communities, institutions, and culture help create the “monsters” we later pretend arrived fully formed. Netflix’s overview frames the season as an origin point for modern horror, one whose shockwaves shaped Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and The Silence of the Lambs.

Who’s in the cast of Monster: The Ed Gein Story?

The casting is catnip for crime and cinephile audiences alike. Charlie Hunnam leads as Ed Gein, with Laurie Metcalf as Augusta Gein. Rounding out the ensemble: Tom Hollander, Suzanna Son, Vicky Krieps (as Ilse Koch), Olivia Williams (as Alma Reville), Joey Pollari (as Psycho star Anthony Perkins), Tyler Jacob Moore (Sheriff Schley), Charlie Hall (Deputy Worden), Will Brill (director Tobe Hooper), Mimi Kennedy (Dr. Mildred Newman), Robin Weigert (Enid Watkins), and Lesley Manville (Bernice Worden). It’s a lineup built to bridge true crime with the film history it inspired.

Previously on Netflix’s Monster Anthology

To appreciate why Monster: The Ed Gein Story matters, it helps to know where this franchise has been—and what it already dared to do on screen.

Season 1 — Dahmer: Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (2022)

The first chapter focused on the Milwaukee serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer but crucially shifted the lens toward the victims and those who tried to stop him, like neighbor Glenda Cleveland (Niecy Nash). Anchored by Evan Peters, the season dissected institutional failures—police indifference, societal blind spots—and avoided glamorizing its subject by centering the human cost. The show became a phenomenon, crossing 1 billion hours viewed on Netflix in its first 60 days—one of only a handful of titles to reach that milestone—while igniting debate about the ethics of true-crime dramatizations.

Season 2 — Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story (2024)

Season 2 reframed the notorious Beverly Hills parricide through multiple perspectives, following brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez as they stood trial for killing their parents in 1989. The series examined competing narratives—claims of long-term abuse versus accusations of greed—while placing the case inside a media circus that helped define 1990s tabloid television. It premiered on September 19, 2024, with a starry cast including Javier Bardem, Chloë Sevigny, Nicholas Alexander Chavez, Cooper Koch, and Nathan Lane. The anthology’s ethos—interrogating how culture manufactures “monsters”—was sharper than ever.

Why Monster: The Ed Gein Story is the franchise’s darkest mirror

Monster: The Ed Gein Story is different because Ed Gein is different. Unlike Dahmer or the Menendez case, Gein’s crimes didn’t just generate headlines—they fertilized an entire horror canon. By stepping into Plainfield’s frozen fields, the season connects true-crime detail to the architecture of fear in our movies: the domineering mother whose shadow falls across Psycho, the leather mask and bone-strewn lair that echo through Texas Chain Saw, the trophy-like relics that haunt Silence of the Lambs. When Monster: The Ed Gein Story maps these echoes, the season becomes more than a biographical drama—it becomes a cultural autopsy on how America learned to scare itself.

A meta-horror cast that winks at film history

Look closely at the roles and you’ll see the season’s meta design. Casting Joey Pollari as Anthony Perkins and Olivia Williams as Alma Reville (Hitchcock’s closest collaborator) signals that Monster: The Ed Gein Story won’t just catalog crimes; it will chart their cinematic afterlife. Will Brill portraying Tobe Hooper further underlines the show’s thesis: the road from crime scene to soundstage is both fascinating and unsettling. This is the Monster anthology bending back on itself, asking how storytelling choices—ours and theirs—shape what we fear.

Also Read: Top Movies for US and UK Audiences: 5 Unforgettable Must-Watch Films

The human question at the center

As with earlier seasons, expect Monster: The Ed Gein Story to probe the infrastructure of horror: the small-town silences, the neglected mental health warning signs, the institutions that look away until it’s too late. The show’s own summary hints at a core argument—monsters aren’t born; they’re made—which reframes the season as a study in responsibility more than depravity. That frame matters. It’s where empathy for victims and rigor about systems can coexist without turning the series into spectacle.

Want to read more? Click here

What to watch for when Monster: The Ed Gein Story drops

1) A cold-weather aesthetic that crawls under your skin

Rural Wisconsin in winter is perfect horror—long shadows, hollow barns, and the hush before everything breaks. Expect that atmosphere to work like an additional character, compressing every conversation and creaking floorboard.

2) Performances that cut through the lore

Charlie Hunnam has to thread an impossible needle: show us a man before he became a myth without softening what he did. Laurie Metcalf as Augusta Gein is a casting coup; maternal presence and menace in the same breath. Around them, a chorus of figures drawn from the crime’s cultural fallout—filmmakers, actors, and critics—builds a bridge from Plainfield to Hollywood.

3) A conversation about true-crime limits

Both earlier seasons sparked debate. Dahmer was undeniably popular but walked a tightrope with victim families and viewers who felt retraumatized by dramatization. Menendez pressed into the gray zone between abuse claims and motive. Monster: The Ed Gein Story will inherit that conversation—and, ideally, move it forward by focusing on agency, systems, and the real people affected long after the cameras stop.

Quick recap for new viewers (spoiler-lite)

• Dahmer (2022): A 10-episode season chronicling Dahmer’s murders between 1978 and 1991, framed through neighbors, families, and law enforcement missteps. Its cultural impact on Netflix was massive, surpassing 1B hours viewed. If you’re queasy, know that the show often cuts away and spends as much time with the aftershocks as the acts.
• Menendez (2024): A multi-POV courtroom and family drama that refuses to give you a single “definitive” narrative. It’s as much about media spectacle as it is about guilt and trauma, and it debuted September 19, 2024.

Also Read: Top 5 Classic Horror Movies That Still Terrify Audiences

Final take: why you’ll click “Play” on day one

Because Monster: The Ed Gein Story feels like the anthology arriving at its thesis statement. The first two seasons tested the format—one hyper-focused on institutional failure, the other on narrative perspective. This one threads both, then turns the camera on us, the audience that feeds modern horror. If the previous chapters asked how monsters operate, Monster: The Ed Gein Story asks how they spread.

So keep that door ajar. Let the cold in. On October 3, when Monster: The Ed Gein Story drops, you’ll want to be there the moment the screen goes black and the farmhouse starts whispering. And if your shoulders prickle while you read this, that’s your sign—the monster isn’t just out there. It’s in what we watch, what we share, and what we choose to remember.