Netflix's Ed Gein series inspired by show creator's horrifying childhood experience

Netflix’s upcoming series about Ed Gein was inspired by a bizarre childhood event that creator Ryan Murphy experienced.

The series - the newest season of Netflix's anthology show Monster, which follows different killers’ lives - will focus on the horrific killer Ed Gein.

Gein killed two people in the 1950s and looted numerous corpses, turning bodies into furniture and making clothes out of skin and bones.

Whilst season one of Monster focused on Jeffrey Dahmer to controversial effect, and season two focused on the Menendez Brothers, Gein’s crimes will be portrayed by Charlie Hunnam.

Hunnam has spoken about how he visited Gein’s grave to cope with taking on the role, hoping that he would be happy with the job that they did in portraying him.

Murphy, however, has revealed the inspiration for the newest season, and it is a classic film which was inspired by Gein’s crimes.

One of the main points of marketing from Netflix has been the numerous iconic Hollywood serial killers to have been inspired by Gein, in particular, his bizarre relationship with his abusive mother and his ‘house of horrors’ made of skin.

Amongst these are Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Silence of the Lambs, and most notably Psycho.

The Alfred Hitchcock classic starring Anthony Perkins inspired a number of horror classics across the years, but the film itself drew heavily from Gein’s life.

The new season focuses on Ed Gein, who is played by Charlie Hunnam (Netflix)

Speaking about the upcoming series in a new profile with the New York Times, Ryan Murphy revealed that it all began when he was eight years old.

He was left to babysit his younger brother and, left as the man of the house, decided to put on a film, namely Psycho.

This went about as well as you can imagine an eight-year-old watching one of the scariest movies ever would go, with Murphy saying in the interview: “I went berserk. I screamed and cried, and I had to call my grandmother to come and help me.”

Murphy claims that he went to the library a few days later and discovered there that Psycho was, in actual fact, partially based on a real man, Ed Gein.

Horror movies like Psycho were partially based on the true life crimes of Ed Gein (Getty Images)

Speaking about the upcoming series and whether Gein has already had his day in the sun by inspiring numerous films, co-creator Ian Brennan said: “There are ugly things here, but they were all done by a man — by all accounts, a really strange, interesting man.”

Speaking about playing Gein, Hunnam said in the interview: “That terror of the darkness of this was replaced by a terror of feeling like this is going to be impossible.

“That just felt like the perfect place to be.”

Monster: The Ed Gein Story releases on Netflix on October 3.