It’s not just Netflix’s ‘Monster’: Serial killer Ed Gein’s crimes have inspired a slew of horror movie classics

• Ryan Murphy’s “Monster” series returns to Netflix Friday with “The Ed Gein Story.”
• Ed Gein’s 1957 arrest revealed gruesome murders that inspired horror classics.
• Gein’s story influenced films like “Psycho” and “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.”

The third season of Ryan Murphy’s “Monster” anthology series focuses on a serial killer whose startling crimes live up to the title.

In “Monster: The Ed Gein Story,” streaming on Netflix Friday, Charlie Hunnam plays Gein, the notorious serial killer and grave robber whose 1957 arrest led to the discovery of scenes at his home that were so gruesome, they became inspiration for a slew of famous horror movies in the ensuing decades.

The season marks the smash anthology series’ return to focusing on serial killers since season one’s “Dahmer;” season two instead focused on Lyle and Erik Menendez, who killed their parents.

Here’s everything to know about the real Ed Gein, his crimes, and how they inspired movies like “Psycho” and “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.”

Ed Gein’s house was filled with human remains and furniture made of body parts when he was arrested in 1957.

On November 16, 1957, Bernice Worden, a hardware store owner in Plainfield, Wisconsin, disappeared. In the store, police found an open cash register, blood stains on the floor, and a receipt Worden wrote for a sale of antifreeze to Ed Gein the night before.

Gein — who lived in a farmhouse on the outskirts of town, worked odd jobs, and grew up mostly isolated and under the overprotective watch of his mother until her death — was arrested that evening, and police found Worden’s body hanging upside down in Gein’s shed with her head decapitated.

But that was far from the only gruesome scene police would discover on Gein’s property.

While searching Gein’s house, they found body parts that had been made into furniture and housewares, like a lampshade, kitchen utensils, and a chair made of skin. Police would later learn Gein wore a mask made from the skin of one of his victims.

Gein, who the press dubbed the “Butcher of Plainfield” and the “Plainfield Ghoul,” later admitted to murdering two women, as well as exhuming numerous graves from a nearby cemetery to cut off body parts. In 1958, he pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity and was was deemed unfit to stand trial because he was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Ten years later, Gein was re-assessed, stood trial, and was found guilty of Worden’s death. However, he was also judged to be legally insane and was sent to a psychiatric hospital where he lived out the rest of his days. He died of cancer in 1984.

Gein’s crimes inspired a slew of horror movies, including ‘Psycho’

“Psycho” author Robert Bloch lived just 35 miles from Gein and was working on a story about a quiet man with a dark side when he heard the news of Gein. It was the inspiration Bloch needed to finish his twisted tale of a motel caretaker named Norman Bates, a mother-loving serial killer.

A year later, Alfred Hitchcock would become the master of suspense when he adapted the book for the big screen. Bringing the book’s shocking ending, the discovery of Bates’ mother’s mummified corpse, to the masses is a reason why “Psycho” is regarded as one of the all-time greatest horror movies.

Fourteen years later, director Tobe Hooper would be more on the nose with using Gein for his movie “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.” The villain in the movie, Leatherface, doesn’t just wear a skin mask, but also hangs his victims upside down.

Hitchcock, Hooper, and Anthony Perkins, who played Norman Bates in “Psycho,” will all be characters in the “Gein” series.

Elements of Gein’s story were also the inspiration for Buffalo Bill in 1988’s “The Silence of the Lambs,” the early 2000s Rob Zombie horror movies “House of 1000 Corpses” and “The Devil’s Rejects,” and the Patrick Bateman character in the 1991 novel and 2000 movie adaptation of “American Psycho.” Gein’s story was even made into a horror musical in 2010.

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