Netflix opened the month of October with a new season of its anthology series Monster.
This time it dives into the chilling life of one of the most notorious killers in the history of the United States.
The figure who inspired iconic horror works such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Silence of the Lambs, and Psycho turns this choice into a clever marketing move, but also into a fascinating opportunity to explore the cultural roots of the genre and examine how these stories were born out of a horrifying real reality.
The third season arrives after two particularly successful seasons.
The first became a global phenomenon with more than a billion viewing hours and received numerous award nominations.
The second did not recreate the same achievement but reignited public discussion around the case and even led to renewed legal proceedings, which were ultimately rejected decades after the original crimes.
In the current season, the creators return to the roots of raw horror.
While the previous season focused mainly on social and media aspects, here the series dives back into the distorted mind of a real serial killer.
The series describes shocking acts carried out during the nineteen forties and fifties, including murders, grave robbing, the creation of furniture and household items from skin and bones, and the preservation of skulls.
These acts directly inspired Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and in an interesting move, both films become an integral part of the narrative itself.
The creators choose to weave the killer’s story together with the creation process of Psycho and with the figure of its director, creating a cinematic layer that adds a cultural dimension to the trilogy. Through this perspective, the central message of the season is delivered, that real horror does not hide in monsters, but in human beings themselves.
In one scene, it is stated that after witnessing unimaginable evil on a massive scale, classic monsters were no longer enough, and a new monster was found, one that is human.
Still, this season may be the least successful link in the trilogy.
The attempt to combine several timelines, including the killer’s life, the making of Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the story of the actor associated with Psycho, and even multiple references to a notorious figure from Nazi history, creates a burden that blurs the story.
Visually, the season is impressive and ambitious, but at times too scattered and confused, trying to say everything and in doing so losing its sharp edge.
Some of the confusion stems from the creative freedom taken in shaping the reality around the killer. Since only two murders attributed to him were definitively solved, the creators allow themselves to fill in the gaps with imagination, relying on the fact that he suffered from schizophrenia.
The result is a distorted world in which the boundary between reality and hallucination is not entirely clear, leaving a constant sense of doubt about what truly happened.
This season is an interesting but not always focused attempt to re examine the concept of evil through the lenses of culture, cinema, and society.
It touches on some of the darkest points of human society and on our attraction to horror, blood, and monsters.
It does so in a less precise manner than before, yet the abundance of characters and references to other killers and cinematic classics succeeds in emphasizing the lasting influence of this figure on the world of horror, on those who followed in reality, and on the cinematic impact of these acts.
Even as the weakest season so far, it leaves behind thought provoking material and a reminder that the real monsters in this world, as always, wear completely human faces.