The "Monster" anthology series on Netflix has carved out a notorious niche in the true-crime genre since its debut, transforming infamous American killers into twisted antiheroes under the glossy production values of showrunner Ryan Murphy’s orbit. Its first season, "Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story" (2022), drew massive viewership—over 856 million hours watched in its first month—despite backlash for humanizing a cannibalistic murderer and retraumatizing survivors. Season 2, "Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story — The Menendez Brothers" (2024), shifted to the fratricidal siblings, earning praise for its psychological depth but criticism for glamorizing privilege-fueled patricide. Now, with Season 3—"Monster: The Ed Gein Story"—creator Ian Brennan steps out solo, sans Murphy’s bombastic flair, to exhume Ed Gein, the Wisconsin ghoul whose 1957 arrest for grave-robbing and murder ignited a macabre spark in horror cinema. Gein’s gruesome handiwork—fashioning lampshades and clothing from human skin—inspired icons like Alfred Hitchcock’s *Psycho* (1960), Tobe Hooper’s *The Texas Chain Saw Massacre* (1974), and Jonathan Demme’s *The Silence of the Lambs* (1991). Yet, in Brennan’s hands, this cultural corpse is less a resurrection than a Frankensteinian mishmash, stitched together with exploitative threads that prioritize shock over substance, epitomizing Hollywood’s voracious appetite for capitalizing on real-life atrocities. From the outset, the season’s ambition to weave Gein’s sparse biography (officially linked to just two murders and desecrations of over 40 graves) into a sprawling tapestry of horror history unravels into narrative quicksand. Episodes lurch from Gein (portrayed by Charlie Hunnam) luxuriating in pilfered lingerie to hallucinatory detours featuring Ilse Koch, the infamous "Witch of Buchenwald" (played with chilling detachment by Vicky Krieps), then abruptly to Hitchcock (a grotesque, over-grimmed Tom Hollander) plotting *Psycho*'s shower scene, before mocking fans of *Mindhunter* in a sneering meta-jab. This fragmented fever dream isn’t just disjointed—it’s a cynical ploy to elicit sympathy for the unrepentant, a tactic that rang hollow in the Dahmer season and clangs like a rusty shovel here. Gein’s devout, domineering mother (a fleeting presence, dead by Episode 2) and absent father get short shrift, sidelining the formative abuse that arguably fueled his psychosis in favor of lurid inventions: unchecked necrophilia, a phantom girlfriend puppeteering his perversions, and an inflated body count that historians would scoff at. It’s as if the writers, allergic to restraint, exhumed every tabloid rumor to pad the runtime, turning a cautionary tale of rural isolation into a parade of prurience. Hunnam’s casting as the soft-spoken, shovel-wielding farmhand was eyebrow-raising from the jump—his rugged Sons of Anarchy charisma feels neutered, reduced to wide-eyed timidity that evokes less a midwestern monster than a hapless everyman in a bad dream. He strains visibly, mumbling through scenes of domestic drudgery and nocturnal excavations, but never ignites the screen; it’s a performance as restrained as Gein’s documented reticence, which makes for stultifying viewing. Bright spots flicker briefly: Lesley Manville’s steely turn as a no-nonsense investigator injects rare gravitas, and Joey Pollari’s uncanny embodiment of a haunted Anthony Perkins—Norman Bates' real-life vessel—steals every frame he’s in, a poignant nod to the performer’s own scarred psyche. Elsewhere, the show leans on Gein’s "visions" (a crutch for CGI gore and celebrity cameos) and wild dramatic liberties, like a bowdlerized Perkins bio and a caricatured Buffalo Bill guarding Gein’s "legacy" in some ethereal killer Valhalla. The result? A slog that’s equal parts tedious, queasy, and outright repulsive—viewers may gag on the procedural inaccuracies or recoil from the glib moralizing that pins societal violence on "greedy filmmakers," even as Netflix gleefully peddles the very sensationalism it decries. This is peak cringe, the kind that lingers like grave dirt under your nails: a series so enamored with its own edginess that it forgets why Gein’s story endures—not as fodder for fan service, but as a stark mirror to America’s underbelly of repression and rot. And yet, with streaming metrics reportedly soaring (early buzz pegs it at 700 million hours in Week 1), Netflix smells blood in the water. True-crime has ballooned into a $10 billion industry by 2025, feasting on the paradox of our fascination: we devour these tales under the guise of "understanding evil," but it’s the platforms that profit most, algorithmically amplifying outrage for endless sequels. "Monster" doesn’t just retell Gein’s horrors; it commodifies them, auctioning off his skin-suits to the highest bidder in viewer hours. In an era where AI deepfakes blur fact and fiction further, and podcasters like Joe Rogan debate "what if" Gein scenarios for clicks, this season underscores a grim truth: violence isn’t just capitalized on—it’s franchised, ensuring the monsters never truly die, only get rebooted for the next binge. Skip it unless you’re in the mood for a masterclass in ethical necrophilia; your sanity (and stomach) will thank you.