September 17, 2024

Heartthrob Charlie Hunnam as Ed Gein? Bananas or brilliant?

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I've been thinking about Fifty Shades of Grey today. Even if you're not a fan of the soft-BDSM trilogy and its film adaptations, you might recall that the extremely British actor Charlie Hunnam was initially cast as the titular Christian Grey, then famously dropped out of the project. The issue was Hunnam's schedule, not Grey's vague sadism. But when I got a press release this morning that announced that Hunnam had just been cast as Ed Gein — the inspiration behind both Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I was reminded anew that an actor's life is very strange. One day you're an American billionaire who's into bondage, the next day you're an American grave robber and cannibal.

As opposed to doing a gentle rewrite of the media alert, as my esteemed colleagues in the entertainment trades must, I'll just tell you what it said.

• Tonight, at the Los Angeles Premiere of Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, Ryan Murphy announced  that  the next ‘Monster’ anthology will focus on Ed Gein.

• Charlie Hunnam as the titular character.

• Production begins next month.

• More information to come.

Sarah and I have talked about Gein on The Docket — specifically, we've hashed through why his case provides such ground for obsession. The mentally ill Wisconsin man confessed to killing two women in the late 1950s, but the details that cemented him as a national obsession were the revelations that he'd made a habit of exhuming remains from local cemeteries and fashioning keepsakes and apparel from the corpses.

If you're suddenly thinking about the photos inside 1989 bestseller Edward Gein: America's Most Bizarre Murderer, you're not alone. Robert H. Gollmar's book is out of print, with used copies going for an impressively high price. (Sarah has told me more than once that her bookstore, Exhibit B, cannot keep it in stock.) But some 35 years later, I still recall Gollmar's ability to balance the standard-for-the-era "look at this batshit case" narrative and images with a surprisingly humanizing look at the roots of Gein's illness, including his isolated and fervently religious family and a father with substance use disorder.

By the end of Gollmar's book, I wasn't scared of Gein, I was just sad. Gein was abused, damaged, and unwell; that toxic combination ultimately made him dangerous.

There's no glamour to Gein, even if you're the kind of person who conflates real life killers with pop culture icons. That's why I'm surprised that it's he, of all people, that Murphy has chosen for a Netflix series that's already drawn criticism for how it turns its subjects into stars.

Gein isn't Ted Bundy, all charm and good looks as he talks his way into your home. He's not even Jeffrey Dahmer, skulking cinematically in the background at the crowded 1980s gay bar. There's something pathetic about Gein, something uncomfortable and lonely and gross. I struggle to see how Murphy's trademark sleek flashiness can accurately communicate the Gein-ness of it all.

I also struggle to see what attracted Hunnam, a legitimately charismatic and attractive man, to the role. Gein is neither, though Sarah pointed out that they do share a certain bone structure. That's not necessarily a gating factor, as Charlize Theron proved brilliantly in Monster. But Theron had a lot more to work with when it came to Aileen Wuornos, from both a narrative and case perspective.

I guess what I'm saying is that I am already dreading the prospect of spending six, seven, or eight hours watching the Sons of Anarchy guy — in ugly man prosthetics and makeup — trying to figure out the best way to attach human skulls to his bedposts, or making a belt out of women's nipples, or putting nine human vulvae into a shoe box.

This isn't hyperbole, dude did this stuff. And now Ryan Murphy is making a TV show with an incredibly good looking superstar playing the vulva shoebox guy. Maybe I am getting too old for this shit? Maybe I just expect more from the genre in 2024? Or maybe I will be proven delightfully wrong, and this will be the project that will convince people that men who chop women's bodies up are sad, weak worms instead of captivating objects of fun. One sure can hope.