Gein.

Spooky season is here. What better way to spend the time of autumn than watching gory horror. The latest installment of the Monster franchise is one such offering.

This installment focuses on Ed Gein, also known as the Butcher of Plainfield. Charlie Hunnam lost himself in this role and did a tremendous job becoming the mild mannered, meek serial killer. His voice change alone should warrant him serious attention in the awards sphere. However, the bones of the rest of it were weak and brittle.

When you look at Gein’s story, there are two things that are intriguing: the depraved gore and the mother-son dynamic. They did away with the mother-son dynamic by the first episode. When you look at the rest, there isn’t much there to sustain eight episodes.

The incessant fictionalization didn’t help much either. You can expect liberties with any such project, but this was something else. A ham radio conversation between Gein and the Bitch of Buchenwald’s? Between Gein and Christine Jorgensen? Ridiculous.

I found there to be good parts, but the bad outweighed it. Too many liberties and too little focus on the root cause of Gein’s evil.

Grade: D+