Charlie Hunnam’s chilling transformation in Monster: The Ed Gein Story has captivated Netflix audiences and left many asking the same haunting question: Did the real Ed Gein kill his brother?
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 episode one, titled Mother!, Hunnam’s Gein is seen striking his brother Henry (played by Hudson Oz) in the head, while the two are hanging out in the barn on their family property.
He initially believed his brother was playing a prank - even seemingly hallucinating that Henry had got back up and spoke to him - but when he later returned to find Henry’s lifeless body in a pool of blood, the horror of his actions dawns on him.
Panicking over how his overbearing mother (Laurie Metcalf) will react, he drags the body to a brush pile, sets it on fire, and alerts authorities under the guise of a fire emergency.
Did Ed Gein kill his brother?
The series shows police discovering Henry’s body and ruling the cause of death as asphyxiation, likely from smoke inhalation. But fans are wondering - how much of this is real?
Turns out, quite a bit, as in real life, Henry's body was found on the family’s Plainfield farm following a brush fire, with officials citing heart failure or asphyxiation. No autopsy was performed.
However, in his book Deviant: The Shocking True Story of the Original “Psycho”, biographer Harold Schechter claimed Henry may have had bruises on his head - details that fueled suspicion, though Gein was never charged, Cosmopolitan reported.
While the true cause of Henry’s death remains uncertain, the show leans into the theory that Gein may have been involved, if not intentionally, then tragically.
Hunnam’s extreme transformation for the role
Behind the scenes, Hunnam took the role with disturbing seriousness. The 45-year-old Sons of Anarchy star lost nearly 30 pounds in just three weeks to mirror Gein’s gaunt frame and studied rare recordings to perfect his high-pitched voice.
More than just physical prep, Hunnam immersed himself mentally and emotionally in the role, staying in character for up to 16 hours a day on set, and even visiting Gein’s grave after production wrapped.
“There was an enormous amount of trepidation and fear initially,” he said during a Zoom interview on the day of the show’s release, per Forbes. “And then it was just trying to understand him, trying not to judge him, trying to find the truth and find the man behind the monster.”
That obsessive approach was supported by showrunner Ryan Murphy, who worked with the Gentleman actor and co-creator Ian Brennan to avoid "sensationalism" and instead explore what makes someone a “monster".
“What we did over and over throughout was ask ourselves why Ed did what he did. We definitely didn’t want to sensationalize this or make a show that was gratuitous or definitely not glorify what he did. It was really about, in the tradition of storytelling, trying to understand ourselves and say, like, ‘What makes a monster?’” Hunnam said.
The result is an unsettlingly human portrayal of Gein. While Gein lived as a mild-mannered recluse on a decrepit farm, the real-life serial killer's crimes were some of the most grotesque in American history, involving body mutilation and grave robbing.
The eight-episode series also stars Metcalf as Gein’s fanatically religious mother, Augusta, Suzanna Son as his only friend, and Tom Hollander as Alfred Hitchcock.
For Hunnam, embodying Gein wasn’t about sympathy - it was about obsession with honesty. “I had to understand him. That was the thing. I didn’t have to like him, but I had to try to find my own sense of the truth, of what I thought he was and who I thought he was, and then have the courage of conviction to be faithful to that," he said.
"And I ended up not feeling protective of Ed, but protective of my perception of who he was, and trying to tell the story as honestly as I could. And sometimes that felt dangerous. Sometimes I questioned, like, am I being overly empathetic? Am I being overly sympathetic? Is this, you know, is this honest? Is this true? And so that became my obsession, just trying to tell the story as truthfully as we possibly could," he added.
Monster: The Ed Gein Story is now streaming on Netflix.