Notorious serial killer Ed Gein is the subject of a new Netflix miniseries that has quickly shot to the top of the streaming service’s charts. Gein, who appeared in the headlines decades ago for the horrific crimes he committed in rural Plainfield, admitted to killing two women, but he was suspected of various other murders. The man gathered widespread notoriety after the authorities raided his home following the disappearance of a local hardware store owner and discovered that he had exhumed corpses from graveyards and fashioned furniture and clothing from the bones and skin.
Known as the Butcher of Plainfield and the Plainfield Ghoul, Gain was later found legally insane and remanded to a psychiatric institution. Over the years, versions of his story have appeared widely in popular culture via numerous appearances in movies, music, and literature. Gain is said to be the inspiration for many fictional movie serial killers, including Psycho’s Norman Bates. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’s Leatherface, The Silence of the Lambs’ Buffalo Bill, and Con Air’s Garland Green. Several TV shows are also inspired by him.
Here are 5 killer TV shows inspired by Ed Gein.
‘Mindhunter’ (2017 – 2019)
Executive produced by David Fincher and Charlize Theron, Mindhunter takes us back to the 1970s, where FBI agents Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) and Bill Tench (Holt McCallany) become the celebrated pioneers of criminal profiling in the bureau. Aided by the skilled psychologist Dr. Wendy Carr (Anna Torv), they interview imprisoned serial killers and use the acquired knowledge to prevent future crimes by like-minded individuals.
Gaining From the Minds of Criminals
Ed Gein never appears on the show, but he is cited as one of the notorious figures that helped shape the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit (BSU)’s approach to matters like gender identity, necrophilia, and trophy-taking. In Season 1, Holden and Bill mention the killer, emphasizing the need to understand men like him who are driven by delusion but are also plagued by mental health challenges.
Overall, Mindhunter — based on the 1995 true-crime book Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker — is slow-burning, but you’ll enjoy every minute. So powerful are the conversations with the killers — so concentrated in the psychological realization of remorse and arrogance — that we are unlikely to be shocked when Ed Kemper says that he “just wanted to see what it felt like to kill Grandma,” or if it made any sense for Montie Rissell to write a 461-page manuscript detailing his murders. David Fincher directed most of the episodes, so be guaranteed the highest quality as the crime drama digs into bureaucratic obstacles, ethical dilemmas, and the mental toll of the job.
‘American Horror Story: Asylum’ (2012)
Events in American Horror Story: Asylum primarily occur at the Briarcliff Manor, a 1960s mental institution run by the overbearing Sister Jude (Jessica Lange). Soon, journalist Lana Winters (Sarah Paulson) gets wrongfully committed while investigating the mysterious facility, and, as a ‘patient’, she uncovers a culture of abuse, bizarre experiments by Dr. Arden (James Cromwell), and the unchecked activities of a serial killer known as Bloody Face.
Throwing It All in There
The serial killer Dr. Oliver Thredson, aka “Bloody Face,” is directly inspired by Ed Gein. Celebrated psychiatrist by day and murderer by night, the villain has a habit of flaying women and uses their skin to make costumes and furniture. This mirrors Gein’s practice of robbing graves, skinning corpses, and designing household objects from human remains. Like Gein, Thredson is revealed to have had an Oedipus-like relationship with his mother. He spends much of the show looking for a “replacement mum” and beefing with women who fail to align with his fantasy.
Jessica Lang and Zachary Quinto are brilliant, but you’ll mostly appreciate how the show fuses grounded horror with complex elements like demonic possession, mental challenges, extraterrestrial abductions, and weird Nazi experiments. At first, it seems like the production team is biting more than it can chew, yet everything comes together coherently. No surprise when AHS: Asylum received a whopping 17 Emmy nominations.
‘Bates Motel’ (2013 – 2017)
A “prequel” to Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest movie, Psycho, Bates Motel (though set in modern times), covers the chilling Oedipus-like relationship between Norman Bates (Freddie Highmore) and his mother Norma (Vera Farmiga), before the events portrayed in the ‘60s horror. Additionally, the setting is a different fictional town (White Pine Bay, Oregon, as opposed to Fairvale, California), as was originally the case. Events in the A&E series begin in Arizona with the death of Norman’s harsh, distant, and unloving father, after which Norma buys the Seafairer motel so that she and her son can start a new life.
The Rise of Norman Bates
The character Norman Bates was loosely based on two key figures. First was Ed Gein, about whom author Robert Bloch later wrote a fictionalized account in the short story, “The Shambles of Ed Gein”, found in Crimes and Punishments: The Lost Bloch, Volume 3. Second, several people, including Noel Carter (wife of Lin Carter) and Bloch himself, have revealed that Bates was partly based on Calvin Beck, publisher of Castle of Frankenstein. However, Gein appears to have provided the dominant aspects of the characterization, considering the relationship both men have with their mothers.
Bates Motel lacks Psycho’s immediacy, but it’s a satisfying study of a mama-clutching adult who’d rather do what he is used to than cultivate his gift and face the deep-seated troubles that keep holding him back. Viewers who prefer villains rather than heroes have plenty to enjoy here. In the Hitchcock movie, Bates is about to become the most unhinged version when things start to unravel. A few people are onto the plot, and it isn’t long before the killer faces his destiny. Here, he has a lengthy five-season reign.
‘Clarice’ (2021)
Based on the best-selling ‘80s novel The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris, Clarice is set between the events of the 1991 Oscar-winning movie of the same name and its Ridley Scott-directed sequel, Hannibal. The spotlight is on the FBI agent Clarice Starling (Rebecca Breeds), who is still traumatized from her interactions with Hannibal Lecter. Assigned to a Violent Crimes Task Force, she maneuvers through political manipulation and misogyny while doing her best to stay sane.
No Longer a Rookie
Buffalo Bill, one of the criminals Clarice captured before the show began, is inspired by Ed Gein. The serial killer’s eagerness to create a “woman’s suit” from dead human skin is lifted directly from Ed Gein’s disgusting practice of creating keepsakes from human remains.
Is the show worth watching? Sure! Showrunners Jenny Lumet and Alex Kurtzman infuse it with bleak realism and several exclusive moments that don’t appear in the source material, resulting in a brutal, startling, and unforgettable tale. Rebecca Breeds is also perfect, casually, taking the overt menace out of such remarks as “I still hear the lambs sometimes… but it’s not their screams that haunt me… It’s the silence after.”
Here, Clarice also does her job more obsessively than she did in the movie, and after a string of bad luck, her fortunes revive only when she resolves to play dirty while dealing with the infantile Neanderthals. But you bet she’ll suffer a major crisis of conscience at some point. Worry not about the morality aspect of it all. The great care invested by the talented cast will impress you as the events build up to a powerful climax, making you feel genuinely concerned for the characters. The world would definitely have been better off if there had been more than one season of Clarice.
‘Monster: The Ed Gein Story’ (2025)
The Ed Gein Story digs into the infamous serial killer’s mind and life, with Charlie Hunnam in the lead role. The show (part of the larger Monster series) rides on creative liberties and incorporates meta commentary on society’s cultural obsession with true crime, examining how Gein’s crime shaped Hollywood and pop culture. Characters like Alfred Hitchcock and Nazi war criminal Ilse Koch thus appear.
Hunnam Flexes His Skills
Charlie Hunnam is mostly known for playing a biker gang leader in Sons of Anarchy, so his performance here caught everyone by surprise. The unusual high-pitched voice he adopts for the show is the first thing that catches you (no one knows how the real Gein sounded). It sure must take a lot of skill to consistently maintain that tone throughout several hours of filming. He deserves an Emmy nomination for sure.
Strong support comes from Suzanna Son and Laurie Metcalf, the mother who’s uncomfortably keen on ensuring her son avoids women at all costs, dubbing them evil. It’s worth noting that the iconic graphic Psycho shower scene is recreated in the show. Besides that, the cinematography is marvelous, something we can always expect in a high-budget production with a rural setting.