America’s Favorite Hobby: Consuming Serial Killers
Let’s be honest. the U.S. has turned serial killers into celebrities.
There are Dahmer Halloween costumes. Etsy shops selling “true-crime aesthetic.” Entire podcasts that treat murder like a morning commute soundtrack. Somewhere along the way, murder became merch. And Hollywood keeps feeding the obsession.
After Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story broke Netflix records, a sequel was inevitable. Because nothing says “prestige TV” like repackaging real-life horror into an eight-part binge.
Enter Ed Gein - the Wisconsin grave robber whose crimes inspired Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and The Silence of the Lambs.
A man so disturbing that even imagining dramatizing him feels like a dare.
The Problem With Monster: The Ed Gein Story
The series looks and sounds expensive, yet it feels empty.
It mistakes discomfort for depth. Instead of exploring Gein’s psychology or the cultural sickness that birthed him, it serves slow-motion trauma under a sepia filter. Long silences. Bleak Midwest skies. That same low-frequency hum every prestige true-crime show loves.
Halfway through episode two, I realized I wasn’t fascinated. I wasn’t horrified. I was just tired.
And that’s new for me, the girl who once highlighted every case study in her criminology textbook.
Maybe It’s Not the Show. Maybe It’s Us
Let’s face it: Ed Gein was already terrifying.
We’ve dissected him for decades through pop culture’s greatest horror films. Maybe the problem isn’t Murphy’s show.
Maybe it’s us, the audience, finally hitting the wall of crime fatigue.
When every other docuseries promises a “never-before-seen deep dive into darkness,” what’s left to feel but numb?
We’re not learning anymore; we’re doom-scrolling darkness.
The Psychology of Boredom
True crime once gave us a sense of control and chaos made explainable.
But Monster: The Ed Gein Story offers no insight, no new angle. It’s horror on autopilot.
For the first time, I didn’t feel like I was studying the darkness.
I felt like I was participating in it, as if watching it made me part of the exploitation loop.
Maybe that’s the scariest realization of all.
The “Monster” Franchise Problem
After Dahmer, Murphy’s anthology promised to explore “the monsters of our time.”
But this feels more like a production line than a reflection. We’ve gone from exploring evil to recycling it.
Murphy’s trademark mix of satire and shock has turned into grayscale misery.
He used to make us question morality; now we’re just trudging through it.
So, Why Did This One Make Me Cringe?
Because there’s nothing left to learn, Ed Gein’s story isn’t new, shocking, or enlightening. It’s just there.
Maybe that’s the real horror now: not what Gein did, but how easily we consume it.
Like background noise for our curiosity, when true crime stops revealing truths and starts recycling trauma, the scariest monster left might be our own fascination.
Final Thought
I used to love understanding killers. Now I just want to understand why we keep needing them.
Monster: The Ed Gein Story isn’t bad because it’s disturbing; it’s bad because it’s empty.
And maybe that’s where we are as viewers: when even the darkest stories can’t make us feel anything, it’s time to turn off the TV.