A criminologist has weighed in on Charlie Hunnam's unsettling six-word comment from the Monster: The Ed Gein Story trailer.
The latest installment in Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s Monster anthology, following Emmy-nominated seasons on Jeffrey Dahmer and the Menendez brothers, dives into the twisted life of Gein, the reclusive Wisconsin killer who inspired Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and The Silence of the Lambs.
In a recent interview on This Morning, criminologist Professor David Wilson unpacked why viewers remain captivated by true crime stories like Monster, and called the show “fascinating” for how it forces us to examine our own obsessions.
Hunnam's six-word comment
Wilson points out that in the trailer, Hunnam's character breaks the fourth wall by saying to the audience: “It’s you who can’t look away."
“I just thought, what an amazing take,” the professional said. “What the series is doing - [it’s asking], ‘why are you so obsessed with this kind of material?’”
Wilson suggested the popular show veers closer to horror than crime, not just in content but in emotional impact. “We might say this is true horror, rather than true crime, but it is dealing with a real person who behaved in quite an extraordinary way,” he explained.
He added that the genre’s appeal may stem from a desire to understand and distance ourselves from such extreme behavior. “I think people like to look at these kinds of extreme behaviors because they want themselves to know that they are different from what it is that they see. And they also want to know, ‘if it is happening, what can we do to stop it?’”
He described the audience’s fixation as reflective: “It’s holding a mirror up to society, and [saying] why are you so fascinated with this?”
What’s Real And What’s Hollywood?
While the Netflix series delves into Gein’s disturbing legacy, some experts warn that much of the content fueling viewers’ curiosity is based on myth, not fact.
Chloë Manon, co-owner of The Graveface Museum in Savannah, cautions that many widely circulated images of Gein’s so-called “creations” are fake. “A lot of it’s just mocked-up evidence,” she said. “People are basing things off films, not facts.”
She explained that nearly all of the physical evidence collected from Gein’s property was ultimately destroyed. “It was burned, it was incinerated, or it was buried,” she said.
The exception was a single item housed at her museum: a keychain containing a lock of human hair and scalp, tagged with Gein’s name, address, and curiously, the address of a Shell service station across from victim Bernice Worden’s hardware store.
Blurring the Line Between Fact and Fear
Manon’s criticism highlights the often blurry boundary between dramatization and documentation. “So they obtained this illegal evidence, and they weren't able to use it in the courtroom,” she explained. “It was inadmissible. So he was charged for the murder of Bernice, found not guilty by reason of insanity, and went back to the psychiatric ward.”
The rest of the so-called “evidence” commonly seen online and in media is, according to her, made-up for dramatic effect - a critique that casts a shadow over the genre's accuracy.
The public’s appetite for stories like Monster shows no sign of fading, but the warnings from experts like Wilson and Manon serve as reminders to look deeper at our own motivations and the line between storytelling and truth.