The latest installment of Ryan Murphy’s Monster franchise might initially focus on the 1950s Wisconsin-based serial killer Ed Gein, but the Netflix series extends beyond Gein’s immediate atrocities and into the Hollywood horror stories he inspired. One of those films is the classic Alfred Hitchcock thriller Psycho, which borrows Gein’s obsession with his mother to fuel the main character Norman Bates, who was played by actor Anthony Perkins.
Fictionalized versions of Hitchcock and Perkins appear in Monster: The Ed Gein Story, and the series also contends with Perkins’s real life and how the role of Norman Bates affected both his career and his psyche. Ahead, we’ll unpack what the true-crime drama got right about Perkins and what liberties it took in its portrayal.
