Charlie Hunnam stars in chilling trailer for Netflix’s Monster: The Ed Gein Story alongside Addison Rae
The series comes from Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, the creative team behind Monster: Dahmer and Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story
By Callum Wells
Charlie Hunnam leads the latest installment of Netflix’s Monster anthology in The Ed Gein Story, with Addison Rae also joining the cast.
The actor, known for Sons of Anarchy and The Gentlemen, takes on the role of Ed Gein – the murderer and grave robber whose 1950s crimes in Plainfield, Wisconsin earned him the nickname “the Butcher of Plainfield”. His shocking acts of exhuming corpses and fashioning trophies from human remains went on to inspire horror classics including Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Silence of the Lambs.
The series comes from Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, the creative team behind Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story and Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. After chronicling those headline-grabbing cases, Murphy and Brennan now turn their attention to Gein in this third season.
“I’ve never worked on a production that felt so intentional in every piece” – Addison Rae on her involvement
Rae plays Evelyn, a babysitter said to be one of Gein’s victims. She is seen tied to a chair in one scene while Humman stands naked, covering his modesty with his hands.
Speaking about the project, the TikTok star turned actor described herself as a “big fan” of Hunnam, adding: “I’ve never worked on a production that felt so intentional in every piece. And I think that is really inspiring to be around.”
The newly released trailer teases the disturbing tone of the series. Laurie Metcalf appears as Gein’s mother Augusta, while Hunnam is seen wearing the faces of victims before breaking the fourth wall to declare: “You’re the one who can’t look away”.
Hunnam shed 30 pounds to reflect the killer’s slight frame
Co-creator Brennan, who wrote every episode, told Tudum: “It’s really mind-blowing how influential one strange man in the middle of Wisconsin in a barn can be. That’s just the world we live in, that he lit this fuse that just continued popping off and set in motion this continuous topping of really intense, bizarre, strange imagery.”
To embody Gein, Hunnam immersed himself in the case and shed 30 pounds to reflect the killer’s slight frame. “I spent a lot of time thinking about where his energy was, that he’s not particularly confident or, like, front-foot type of energy,” he explained. “How to not take up a lot of space, not to be sort of front and center and too confident in my physicality was really important.”
Monster: The Ed Gein Story arrives on Netflix on 3 October.