“A story of mental illness”: Co-creator Ian Brennan explains why Monster: The Ed Gein Story isn’t intended to be exploitative

Monster: The Ed Gein Story recently dropped on Netflix. Co-creator Ian Brennan has now called this installment “a story of mental illness,” as he suggests that it is not another exploitative true crime binge. According to Brennan, they tried to actually get under the skin of the Ed Gein case, digging into the twisted roots, not just rehashing the gory details for shock value.

The show hit Netflix on October 3, 2025, and it is the third chapter in Ryan Murphy and Brennan’s Monster franchise, after Dahmer and the Menendez brothers. This time, they are leaning into the psychological side of things. You get the full, uncomfortable tour: Gein’s isolation out in rural Wisconsin, his messed-up bond with his overbearing mom, and just how much his lonely, traumatic childhood warped him.

But Monster: The Ed Gein Story doesn’t just parade the horrors out for everyone to gawk at. While you will see the infamous grave robbing and murder, the creators are also asking bigger questions. Who is the real monster here? Is it the guy who did the crimes, or is it maybe us, the audience, and the people making money off retelling his story over and over?

Why Monster: The Ed Gein Story isn’t exploitative: Co-creator Ian Brennan’s perspective?

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Ian Brennan stated:

“This show is always trying to not be exploitative. It’s trying to actually show that you can pull back too much when you’re telling a macabre story. It’s important that you tell the whole story, even with the parts that are hard to watch. I don’t think this season’s sensational at all."

He continued:

I think it’s sensationally good, but it’s a real deep dive into a very strange and important touchstone of the 20th century. It just happened to be this very lonely, strange, mentally ill man in the middle of nowhere in Wisconsin who had this enormous cultural footprint that changed pop culture. Ed at its core is a story of mental illness.”

Brennan didn’t just stop at the surface-level analysis. He dug in, insisting it is equally vital to show the absolute chaos and horror of this guy’s “inner life,” not just the typical slasher-movie scenes. If we forget focusing on the body count for a second, it is about the relentless misery inside his head. That is the real horror show.

Brennan made it clear: Ed Gein’s brain just wasn’t built like everyone else’s. For Gein, those images, the dark, twisted ones, just clung to him, stuck on repeat, worrying at him day and night. He went on to add:

“It started with all the stuff that came out of the Holocaust, which Vicky’s [Krieps] character portrays so brilliantly, just the horrors of the banality of what happened in the Nazi concentration camps. And he couldn’t get it out of his head. This is the [season] that looks at the question most squarely of what happens when you see horrific things.”

Charlie Hunnam, the actor who portrayed the infamous serial killer in the show, added to Brennan’s perspective, saying:

“I never felt like we were sensationalizing it. I never felt on set that we did anything gratuitous or for shock impact. It was all in order to try to tell this story as honestly as we could.”

What is Monster: The Ed Gein Story about?

Monster: The Ed Gein Story is a dive into the heart of darkness that was 1950s rural Wisconsin. The Netflix series revolves around his isolated existence on the Plainfield farm. We also get to see Augusta, Ed’s mother, hovering like a twisted, Bible-thumping shadow over his every move.

The story starts with the death of Ed’s brother, Henry. The family is already a mess, but after Henry’s death, everything spirals. The show then leans hard into Ed’s mind, but it is not just for the shock factor. You get glimpses of a guy who is painfully vulnerable, almost childlike at times, but also so deeply disturbed that reality itself seems to slip through his fingers.

He is obsessed with women’s clothes, but it is not some cartoonish kink; but a sad, desperate attempt to connect with something he can’t even name. There is a sense that the violence, those infamous murders and grave-robbing sprees, are just what happens when all that loneliness and repression boils over.

Where the series really digs in, though, is with Ed’s relationship with Augusta. She is the kind of mother who could weaponize a Bible verse, making her love feel like a curse. Her death in 1945 doesn’t free Ed; it snaps the last tether to reality he had left. What follows is a descent into madness that is both horrifying and almost inevitable.

Monster: The Ed Gein Story doesn’t flinch from the grisly details, such as furniture stitched from skin, but it’s not just there to freak you out. There is an almost clinical fascination with the why of it all: What kind of loneliness, what kind of psychic damage, could drive someone to create a home out of literal nightmares?

Laurie Metcalf, playing Augusta, is flat-out riveting. She is both monstrous and heartbreakingly human. Then there is Adeline, a fleeting presence who floats into Ed’s orbit. She is the “what if,” the tiny, flickering possibility that something in Ed could have been different, if only someone had reached him.

Monster: The Ed Gein Story doesn’t just focus on Ed and his inner demons. It shows rural Wisconsin in the ‘50s as a suffocating place, where people keep to themselves, and the church is everywhere. Ed’s madness is tangled up with the world he lives in. The series uses this backdrop to ask questions about mental health, religion, and how a community can both shape and fail someone.

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Also Read: Monster: The Ed Gein Story parent guide – Is the Ryan Murphy anthology series suitable for kids?

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