From deep dives into the notorious killer to explorations of Psycho and the Holocaust, learn the real history behind Ryan Murphy’s Netflix hit
Producer Ryan Murphy loves to blur the line between fact and fiction, and there’s no shortage of that in his most recent entry, Monster: The Ed Gein Story. Ostensibly, the eight-part Netflix show is about Gein (played by Charlie Hunnam), a small-town Wisconsin farmer who was discovered in 1957 to have killed at least two women, grave-robbed several others, and used their remains to make grotesque clothing and decor for his home. His story became national news, and even after he was sent to an institution for the criminally insane for the rest of his life, it inspired young writers and filmmakers to create the archetype for modern horror: the monster hidden among us. In Monster, Murphy explores this idea by including dramatized scenes of the making of some of these films, including Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Silence of the Lambs. He also includes the fantasies Gein might have had about Ilse Koch, a Nazi who was accused of using the skin of her death camp victims to make lampshades and bind books.
And like any good true crime series, the show leaves viewers wanting to know more. So, instead of spending hours scrolling and searching the web, we’ve curated seven podcasts that delve into the stories explored in Monster: The Ed Gein Story.
-
The Compendium Podcast: Ed Gein: Monster, Murderer, and the Real Story Behind Hollywood’s Nightmares
For a story like that of Ed Gein, whose crimes have become so deeply ingrained in American culture that they can sometimes be hard to see, it’s beneficial to have an outsider’s perspective. The Compendium Podcast is a little newer than a lot of the podcasts on this list — it launched in 2023 — but it’s done a good job establishing itself among a growing number of nerdy British buddy podcasts (check out The Rest Is History if you want the OG) by publishing well researched deep dives on everything from Ocean Gate and Heavens Gate to Princess Diana and Roald Dahl. In this episode, co-host Adam Cox walks the listener through the story, while co-host Kyle Risi offers reactions on Gein, his crimes, and the films he inspired.
-
Last Podcast on the Left: Ed Gein
Last Podcast on the Left is one of the longest-running comedy-true crime shows out there (quite possibly the only one). The hosts’ casual rapport can sometimes feel at odds with the seriousness of the crimes that they’re discussing, but the schtick of the show — one friend explaining a crime to a group of friends, a now-common premise they helped establish back in 2011 — works well with a crime like Gein’s, where there’s so much myth and rumor to discuss. Some points in this three-part series can feel a little dated (it was made in 2015, after all), but overall, it’s a detailed, deep dive into a complicated subject made by a group of podcasters at the top of their game.
-
You’re Wrong About: Ed Gein and Slasher Movies
For this episode of the excellent series You’re Wrong About, co-hosts Sarah Marshall and Michael Hobbes not only give a nice dive into Gein’s story, but use it as a jumping-off point to discuss horror cinema. Going down the rabbit hole on topics like America’s mid-century obsession with Freud, how 1970s horror films reflected changing opinions of the Vietnam War, and the transphobic message at the heart of Silence of the Lambs, it opens up new lines of thought in Monster’s other story: that of Gein’s affect on American art. (If you’re curious about the themes explored in Monster’s final episode, you might also check out You’re Wrong About: Mindhunting where Marshall dives into the world of criminal profiling.)
-
Unspooled: Psycho
Unspooled, hosted by actor Paul Scheer (The League, Black Monday) and L.A. Times film critic Amy Nicholson, launched in 2018, initially working its way through the American Film Institute’s 100 best films of all time. Though they’ve long since branched out, on that original list was Psycho, clocking in at number 14. In this episode, Scheer and Nicholson only briefly touch on Gein himself, instead focusing more on a critical exploration of the film. But their discussions of the film — along with an interview with Alexandre O. Philippe, director of 78/52: Hitchcock’s Shower Scene, a documentary entirely about that cinematic murder — reveal how important this work was in the history of film.
-
Inside Psycho
Wonder’s eight-part series Inside Psycho, which came out in 2017, follows the formula of a lot of that podcast production company’s early shows: Told chronologically, with a cinematic, omnipotent perspective, it goes through the production of the film, from inspiration through its effect on Psycho director Alfred Hitchcock’s life and career. Although only the first episode focuses on Gein himself, the podcast delves into the nitty-gritty of how writer Robert Bloch used his knowledge of the case to write his novel, Psycho, and the adaptation took on Hitchcock and the film’s star, Anthony Perkins. Murphy took a lot of liberties in his dramatization of this in Monster, but this podcast gets closer to the truth.
-
The Holocaust History Podcast: The Trials of Ilse Koch with Tomaz Jardim
Hosted by historian Dr. Waitman Wade Beorn, The Holocaust History Podcast is a serious and sobering look at the Nazi regime during World War II. In this episode, he sits down with fellow historian Dr. Tomaz Jardim, author of Ilse Koch on Trial: Making the ‘Bitch of Buchenwald,’ to separate truth from fiction around this larger-than-life Nazi villain. While they take care to remind the listener that Koch was a full-blown Nazi who was morally complicit in the atrocities, they get past the layers of the caricature she became after the war, particularly the allegations that she used the skin of Jewish victims to make lampshades and bind books. That cartoonish figure is what Gein would have read about — and what Murphy shows in Monster — but they show that hers was a more mundane evil, and one shared by many wives of the Nazis in power.
-
Morbid: Ed Gein
What’s a podcast list without a couple of women who call their beloved fans “Weirdos” and chat about true crime? Sisters Alaina Urquhart and Ash Kelley host this long-running podcast, breaking Gein’s story into three parts: His life and upbringing (they have particularly harsh words for his mom); his crimes and capture; and his life after conviction and legacy. Unlike some other chatty podcast series, Urquhart and Kelley go through the story with empathy and care, and often cite their sources. Like many of the podcasts on this list, they rely heavily on Harold Schechter’s 1989 book Deviant: The Shocking and True Story of Ed Gein, the Original Psycho.
