Monster - the ED GEIN story on Netflix

[ozarina]

Started this last night. It's beautifully filmed in parts but wow it takes you aback at certain bits. I didn't realise that the movie Psycho was based on this guy. It's not for the faint hearted.

@NewYorkSummer the portrayal of his second victim seems completely made up which is offensive to descendants I would imagine.

Maybe it's a commentary about how everything gets distorted, fiction becomes facts because it's repeated so often etc but something didn't work & I do feel it was gratuitous.

I thought the same but then I googled. Look at Ed Geins Wikipedia page. He was not a bad looking fella

Gein wasn’t too bad looking but Charlie is gorgeous. I saw him in the flesh years ago in my gym which was a lovely experience! But he looks too young to play Gein.

Has anyone come across a decent documentary on him? I don’t enjoy dramatised stories about true crime, but I’m not sure I’ve seen a good documentary on Ed Gein, there’s probably one on prime but they are generally penny dreadful level of information and horrendous voice overs.

I’m also a bit conflicted about how I feel about this having binged it all. I understand they were trying to show how influential these killings became in popular culture. But why was there that whole arc about Anthony Perkins coming out as gay? Missed the point they were trying to make completely.

Bit too much lingering over the female bodies than was really necessary too imho.

My heart leaped when I saw the Mindhunter guys turn up though. From a distance, it really looked like the original actors. Netflix mocking us after they cancelled the show, the meanies.

I started and watched Episode 1 but I just found it all too disturbing. I don’t know what it was because I love true crime but this was too creepy. The actor who plays him is amazing though . I may go back to it but I haven’t so far .

Agreed .

Binged it in two sittings. I thought it was beautifully filmed and very atmospheric. It was very hard to watch at times and some scenes were incredibly tense.
I thought Charlie Hunnams acting was excellent.

Wow, the Mindhunter guys were portrayed in it?

I did like the books by John Douglas. The interview he did with Gein was amazing to read.

But he looks just like him!!

Prosthetics !

Finished it now and yes you do feel some pity for someone who was abused to the extent he was. There are many monsters in this series from Alfred Hitchcock to Ed's mother. It's a very clever and sad story .

I thought the same he is gorgeous but in this omg I was like why him come on lol

Apparent he got attached to the character and when done he drove to Ed’s grave and said bye!!

Finished this at last! Enjoyable but dreadful! Feel it could have been condensed into 6 episodes as there was a lot of ' padding '. Thought provoking .

Is it true he had sexual attraction to his mum I heard loads I only on episode 3 14 mins left !

The aspect I didn’t like was how the series aligned Ed’s monstrosity with the Psycho actor’s ‘monstrosity’- being gay. The narrative was that no matter what the actor did, no matter how sadly repulsed he was by his own self, he couldn’t escape the way he was, he just was. Which is so dangerous and something I’ve seen many times before: using homosexuality as a comparison for deviancies as if to justify them. Like when people explain away immoral and illegal proclivities as being on some sort of sexuality spectrum. It only demonises anyone who happens to not be straight. So I was surprised and disappointed by that particular storyline. However I am only going off what I’m seeing in the episodes. I don’t know anything about the real life character the actor playing so I might have missed some major context.

At the end I felt sorry for him. How his mind had been splintered. What he did was horrific and grisly but there have been others who murdered far more people than him. I thought Charlie Hunnam was excellent and I read that he had heard tapes of Gein and also he chose that way of speaking as an affectation for his mother's approval. I had to rewatch some episodes to go back over some things to understand them.

I’m struggling to understand what’s happening in all honesty.

Do you know about the body snatching? I’ve only just got started so I don’t know if this has been covered in the TV show.

This made me laugh. DH and I frequently said what the hell are we watching 😆

The nod to Mindhunter in the last episode just made me miss that even more.

I think you have to have a certain knowledge to appreciate this in its entirety and I'm not being dismissive here of you.

As a certain age I can remember the furore that movies like Psycho , the Birds etc caused. It was a new horror genre away from Dracula etc. You can see the audiences being shocked and laughing at the same time. Hitchcock made you scared . You see these same effects used today still in movies. Hence the showing in here of all the movies that went to be made subsequently. eg Texas Chainsaw Massacre etc and also the murderers who referred to Ed Gein as being an influence on their life.

The Nazi references are weird in places but it is to show the influences the media at that time had on Ed Gein's mind and let's remember he lived a very isolated life because of his mother.

Sorry this is long but there are many types of monsters - his mother, Alfred Hitchcock could even be included in that term. Ed killed two women but it was the rest of the stuff that made him notorious. He was stuck away and left to rot dosed on pills as was the care of mental health at that time. Plus let's remember bits of this are literary licence .

I loved Mindhunter!

Well yes it is included...