Monster

There are two monsters is this heartbreaking and compelling story, but they are not Erik (Cooper Koch) and Lyle (Nicholas Alexander Chavez), they are Jose (Javier Bardem) and Kitty (Chloë Savigny).

I don't want to delve too deeply into the legal aspects of this case, because this is not a documentary, but a dramatic series. However, let me start by saying, if Erik and Lyle had been Erika and Lyla-two daughters-they would never have spent a day in jail. That's not to say that Erik and Lyle were blameless, but the mitigating circumstances were so overwhelming and compelling that they should have been sentenced to voluntary manslaughter with a 10 year sentence.

Then there is Dominic Dunne (Nathan Lane) a despicable man who trafficked in gossip and celebrity cocktail parties. He was sort of a straight Truman Capote.

I want to highlight Episode 5 'The Hurt Man.' There are only two characters in the entire scene: Leslie Abramson (Ari Gaynor) and Erik. Director Michael Upendahl places the camera about 12 feet away from the table where the two are seated. Abramson with her back to the camera (we never see her face) and Lyle facing. Slowly, imperceptibly, the camera pushes in on Erik until it passes Abramson and ends with a close up of Erik as he explains the title of the episode. Riveting!

Cooper Koch does a tremendous job throughout, but especially in that episode. Nicholas Chavez is also terrific as Lyle. Javier Bardem and Chloë Savigny are outstanding as Jose and Kitty.

This is a solid true crime show with brilliant acting. Especially Evan Peters does an awesome job. It's exciting to see the horrible story of JD staged so carefully. Would have been an 8 but the last two episodes focus too much on JDs neighbour Glenda Cleveland. She surely suffered a lot when JDs crimes were discovered but 15 people had been killed whose friends and families certainly suffered a lot more. I think those people deserve more attention than a lady that indeed did a good job but was not involved in the matter so much. That's why the last episodes are a little bit slow moving. All in all worth a watch.

My 8/10 rating is for the first two seasons (covering Jeffrey Dahmer and the Menendez Brothers respectively), but my rating for season 3 (covering the life and crimes of Ed Gein) would have to be more like 4/10 - the decline in quality is huge.

The first episode of season 3 is excellent, even if it rushes through numerous aspects of Gein's story (e.g. His brother Henry), but after that point it's like a drop off a massive cliff. Season 3's main problem is the total fabrication of entire characters and plotlines - such as the babysitter storyline, but the biggest one concerns Adeline, who absolutely did not exist. Her inclusion re-writes numerous events and even some of the foundational psychological pillars of Ed Gein himself (e.g. Abject isolation, a lack of female relationships beyond his overbearing mother, and of increasing sexual dysfunction).

The desecration of Bernice Worden's character - as in, who the real victim was - also somes as a shocking embellishment. Quite frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if some sort of legal action was to be taken by the family of Worden for such a scathing depiction of the last person to suffer at the hands of Ed Gein.

Enveloping the various famous films that have been inspired by Gein's story is a neat idea, but the execution is quite sloppy. There is more reliance on recreating scenes from the films (e.g. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) than on understanding what inspired which film and why: in regards to the aforementioned 1974 Tobe Hooper film, the clear inspiration was the 'house of horrors' aspect of Gein's crimes (furniture made out of human remains etc) - and NOT a chainsaw, which has no connection to Gein's story at all. Meanwhile, the time spent looking into Anthony Perkins' experience making Psycho (1960) feels similarly disjointed. The revealing of Gein's crimes to the American public was more of a watershed moment in the post-war crumbling of the national psyche, prefiguring many years of socio-political turmoil and serial murder - but such a thought barely enters into the conversation put forth by Ian Brennan and Ryan Murphy.

I've no idea what on Earth the showmakers were thinking with this third season, moreso when you consider how well-made the previous two seasons were. With plenty of story to tell from the true history of Ed Gein there was no need to add in so much made-up rubbish.

I'm reading a lot of these reviews and it seems like the point of season 3 went over a lot of your heads. The majority of things that happen when Ed is on screen is in his head. It's the fanciful creation that he made up. What we're seeing on screen is the delusions of a schizophrenic mind which is why it is so jangled and weird and off-putting and not anywhere close to the truth. If you remember this as you're watching the series it'll come off as much better. You're not going to get the honest truth from Ed's perspective because he didn't see it the way we see it. The only stuff that portrays as accurate is when we switch to the movies that were inspired by Ed's life. The scenes with Hitchcock and Psycho and Texas chainsaw massacres creation. Those are the truest parts. Ed was inspired by war photos he saw in world war II in the Nazi camps and Toby Hopper and Hitchcock were inspired by what Ed actually did in real life to create what they did.

Now that we got that out of the way I just want to say that Charlie hunnam's performance is amazing although I do worry about what he had to do to get in a mental state to portray this character. He definitely needs an Emmy nomination.

The only reason this didn't get a higher rating for me was the very last episode with the various other serial killers. It's one thing to show Ed gein's crazy mind and the things he thought of but it's another thing to exploit the crimes that Ted Bundy and Richard Speck did for views and voyeurism. Plus both of their stories were pretty much untrue in their relation to Ed gein. Maybe this is just another example of him making this stuff up in his mind?

I want to star off by saying Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer story (what a ridiculous title) is a very tough watch. I grew up about 30min from Milwaukee and even though I was a little kid when he was arrested I still remember this story being a huge, especially around here. How he was able to get away with what he did for as long as he did is very troubling. The police dropped the ball time and time again and lots of innocent lives were lost because of it. Evan Peters deserves every bit of recognition he's getting from this series, he was brilliant. The rest of the cast is good too but it's Peters who makes this show what it is.