Alfred Hitchcock, the legendary British filmmaker, was given the label “the Master of Suspense” in the 1940s, in the wake of hits like Suspicion and Notorious. It would prove an apt moniker in the final third of his career, where his greatest works – Rear Window, Vertigo, Psycho – had a revolutionary impact on cinema. Since then, he has been frequently imitated but never bettered – and, slowly but surely, the culture has moved away from suspense and towards gratification. Enter, then, Ryan Murphy: the master of gratification.
Back in 2011, Murphy was best known to audiences as the creator of acerbic dark comedy Nip/Tuck who had made an unexpected segue into the world of high-school a cappella with Glee. But then he began work on American Horror Story, an anthology show in which a troupe of returning actors tackle different themes from the genre’s canon. Since then, he has given full vent to his icky instincts, the apotheosis of which is his Monster franchise. The first series followed notorious cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer, while the follow-up sparked huge interest in the parricidal Menendez brothers. Now the show returns with Monster: the Ed Gein Story, a detailed look at the life and legacy of Ed Gein (Charlie Hunnam), sometimes called “the Godfather of Serial Killers”. Gein was convicted of just two murders but the grim revelations of the investigation – bowls made from human skulls, masks fashioned from faces, a lampshade rendered from skin – have turned him into the ur-monster.
