Sons of Anarchy star Charlie Hunnam gets cast as the real-life serial killer who The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was based on in Netflix’s Monster series

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It looks like Dahmer was just the beginning, as Netflix has announced that the third season of Ryan Murphy’s Monster anthology series has cast Charlie Hunnam in the lead role as one of America’s most prolific serial killers ever.

The streamer shared the news on Twitter, writing, "Charlie Hunnam will portray Ed Gein in the next season of Ryan Murphy's anthology series, Monster."

Fans of the show have been wondering which serial killer the third season would center on, with many suggesting that it could be John Wayne Gacy AKA The Killer Clown. However, now that Ed Gein and his horrific murdering rampage is the focus, we cannot even fathom what horrors lie ahead in the American Horror Story creator’s next season.

Also known as the Butcher of Plainfield, Ed Gein was one of America’s foulest serial killers who would make clothing and keepsakes out of human bones and skin from stolen dead bodies. However, it was found that in the ‘50s he was also responsible for killing two women and was working on building a suit out of female human skin so he could wear it and mimic his dead mother.

Gein’s acts have inspired many horror movies and villains such as Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Norman Bates in Psycho, and Buffalo Bill in The Silence of The Lambs, amongst many others. Murphy has also used Gein as inspiration in the past for the character Dr. Oliver Thredson in American Horror Story: Asylum.

News of a third season comes just days before the second season, titled Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, is due to premiere on the site. Season 2 looks at the true crime story of brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez, who famously murdered their parents in the ‘80s. The series stars Nicholas Chavez, Cooper Koch, Javier Bardem, and Chlo? Sevigny.

Monster kicked off in 2022 with Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, which relived infamous killer Jeffrey Dahmer’s murdering streak in ‘80s Milwaukee starring Evan Peters as the crazed cannibal. However, despite Peters winning multiple awards for the role, the series stirred up a lot of controversy based on the fear that the show was idolizing a sick killer. But the series has only grown in popularity, spurring on a second season and now evidently a third.

Hunnam is best known for portraying Jax Teller in the FX biker show Sons of Anarchy but more recently starred in Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen and Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon Part One. But despite his extensive history playing criminals and wrongdoers, this will be the first time audiences see Hunnam play a truly evil character.

The third season of Monsters, which remains untitled for the moment, does not yet have an official synopsis or wider cast list. Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story lands on Netflix on September 19, 2024.

For more, check out our list of the best Netflix shows, or keep up to date with upcoming TV shows.