User reviews

I was really looking forward to this mini series but am kind of disappointed. Actually hearing the bits of recordings of Ed answering questions was really the only parts of this worth watching. The first episode basically goes over everything and gives very few clips of his actual voice and you can hardly hear his voice but somehow you can hear the detective clearly. The second and third episodes were just like the first but with a few more audio clips. They have chopped the tapes and you'll hear one response and then in the next episode you'll find out it was actually the response to a different question and you don't really know if the answers they put up are from that actual conversation and I do not know why they would have mixed the recordings up like that. False accusations mentioned such as a perversion with his mother and a heart on the stove. I did not care for the podcast group they had as speakers. They were unnecessarily vulgar and making jokes, laughing and being disrespectful, childish and very inappropriate in their comments. Very few speakers with actual credibility, and half of them almost seemed to have a fascination with Ed Gein himself rather than the psychology behind his behavior. I felt like this could have been one film. Very repetitive and would have been better with less random discussion by irrelevant people and more of the true consistent recordings and actual photos or video recordings. Full of peoples different interpretations of who Gein was, disappointed.

Had to put a small review after two episodes as I can't understand the low rating. If you like true crime then this is a good watch. They're not telling you anything we don't already know as such, it's just much more detailed and a 'deep dive into Geins crimes, mindset and family history. Also the impact on this quiet backwater town in Wisconsin which is forever known as 'Geinsville'. You also get to hear Geins voice for first time which is interesting. Anyway so far so good for me.

*edit* now watched all 4 episodes and it did dip slightly. The first episode remains the best one by far. That been said its still worth your time and a broad take on both him, his crimes and the impact the crimes made on cinema.

Like a lot of these shocking docu-series, you realize the producers do all they can to stre-e-e-e-etch 90 minutes worth of material into four hours, and it really dilutes the finished product. The premise is a bit shaky, in that we're never told why these "lost tapes" have never been heard, not even by Gein's biographers. We're just supposed to accept that they are unearthed treasures. The tapes are somewhat interesting but anticlimactic because Gein doesn't have much to say. We hear from a few experts, a few interesting people who actually knew Ed Gein, a good cross section of contributors, and three sophomoric podcasters who, I guess are there for color but seem to think the whole topic is one big joke and end up dumbing down the documentary significantly. All the while, we see the same stock footage and hear the same audio clips over and over, even within the same episode. If all that superfluous filler had been trimmed it could have been an interesting and tight project. Not bad overall, but way too long.

This is yet another so called "documentary" that relies on over-the-top dramatization to present a topic that would be so much more interesting if the filmmakers respected their audience. Notice all of the sinister background music. Why not just call it a horror film? Not to mention there is misinformation, and certain common rumors are presented as though they were true. One example is with the alleged occurrence of a human heart being found on Gein's stove in a frying pan. This is simply not true. The heart was found in a plastic bag on the floor near the stove. When Gein speaks you can barely hear his voice and these moments in the show are few and far between. Rather than forking out money for MGM+ go on YouTube and find a real Ed Gein Interview for free.

There is some interesting information - but is it enough, and compelling enough to put up with the annoying older pontificating gentlemen and their monotone lazy tongue speak? Nope. I made it thru almost two episodes before I just could no longer take it. And then they intermittently throw in a couple of younger bloggers and commentors, who try to dredge up excitement for this "fantastic find ", but fall exceptionally short and then they look exactly as they are - a little too happy to be included in this pile of nonsense with no substance to add to the conversation. Not really worth watching.

I am basing this review solely off of the first episode! (I'm not going to go into any parts of the case) I've been intrigued by Ed Gein ever since I found out 3 of my favorite horror movies were based off of him i.e Silence of the Lambs, Psycho, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre! I have seen all of the other Ed Gein documentaries and specials but none of them hold a candle to this series! It is well produced, the reenactments aren't cheesy like the other documentaries you'd see on TV, and and the guest speakers come from different backgrounds. This doc is gritty and doesn't shy away from all the evidence and facts that happened (though some statements they make are based on conjecture like him possibly being a cannibal but in the documentary they explain their reasonings for coming to those conclusions). To be honest, if you know about Ed Gein and everything that happened around the case, I would wait til all 4 episodes are out use the free trial to MGM+ or pay 5.99 to binge watch this series but if you don't know anything and want to go in blindly, I would start watching them immediately! This case will certainly shock you (to say the least). The recordings themselves are not the best quality but again they've been buried since the 1950's (although I'm sure you can find the transcripts online). There's also a lot of photographs of the crime scene and of Ed himself that I have NEVER seen before. To hear this man's voice for the first time surprised me, it really makes this case much more real and grounded. The acts ups tapes are sprinkled throughout the documentary to keep you hooked. Ed Gein was an interesting specimens to say the least.

This could have been an interesting series listening to the tapes and revisiting some of horrors from the Geins case. Instead we have an overly produced mess with loud overly dramatic music that makes you feel like you're watching a low budget horror movie.

It seems more like an experiment to see if they could make a series with very limited new material. What we have shows that MGM thinks that dramatic music will hide how poorly researched and put together this docuseries is, repeated half truths that have been corrected over time are in here, the entire series feels lazy.

A frustrating and annoying watch.

The lost tapes didn't play a big part in the series. That being said, the documentary as a whole was great.

The Next Pod Cast on the Left crew were great as always. They are entertaining and knowledgeable.

The crime scene photos were shown to get a grasp of the true nature of what happened. I watch true crime all the time and after two episodes I had to take a break. It was gruesome to say the least. I learned far more about Ed Gein than I ever had. To see the body parts in boxes, the furniture made of human skin and to see the lady tied up like a deer and gutted was insane. If you can get past that, it's the best Ed Gein doc by far.

There are barely 10 questions heard from this said "tapes".

And they are the bad interrogation kind.

Investigator: "so you did this and that and such" Ed: yeah... I guess Investigator: And how did you feel when doing so. Did you feel this way and that, right?

Ed: yeah.

LET THE CRIMINALS EXPLAIN THEMSELVES.

How are we supposed to understand and get anything from their rotted brains if you just keep asking with the answers you want to get, just for them to give you a YES OR NO.

Useless investigators that don't get how conversations work shouldn't be doing the questioning.

If you just ask with an answer you're just putting the answer in their head and they will give you just that.

In this 2 EPISODES you don't get ANYTHING from Ed. You don't discover anything new. Everything is said by the "investigator" and all the guests which take part of most of the runtime.

And everything said has already been told and speculated a million times.

I don't know what was the point of any of this.

I wanted to like it and some parts were good but there's to much Speculations from bloggers and podcasters that say what they think happened without any prof that happened and it's been over 50 years so i assume that if it had merit it would be facts by now cause this is the most researched serial killer in history. It's hard to take it serious when the "experts" are 3 podcasters or someone that found about about Ed by mistake and than wrote a book. But if you can ignore that i would still recommend it because of the new tapes.and fotagedes it adds to the story that hasn't been known previously.

Ed Gein, often considered the prototypical serial killer before the concept gained widespread recognition, has left an indelible mark on popular culture. His gruesome actions have served as inspiration for numerous movies, shows, and books, most notably contributing to the creation of the Norman Bates archetype.

This series delves into Gein's early life, shedding light on his upbringing and the dynamics with his parents, with a particular focus on his relationship with his mother. However, the narrative takes a somewhat scattered approach, jumping from one intriguing event to another, interspersed with macabre commentary from various bloggers and fanboys. The excessive enthusiasm displayed by these individuals upon hearing Gein's long-lost voice recordings from police interviews can be a bit overwhelming.

Perhaps a more effective approach would have been a dramatization that carefully pieces together the story from its beginnings, allowing the events to unfold without the overshadowing influence of overly exuberant fan perspectives. Not worth it.

Because if you enjoy the horror genre as much as I do, you want to see this documentary. This is one of the best if not the best depiction explanation and exploration of Ed Gein that's currently available. No other documentary telling his story is going to provide you with his actual words in his voice. Yes his voice, for the first time in all of these years, this is the only documentary that's been able to allow you to hear the voice of the most impactful killer of all time. His influence will live in infamy. They have actual raw uncut footage, videos, documents pictures,letters etc. It's a 8.5.

This is the most pointlessly over-long thing i've ever tried to watch. The details of the story take about an hour to tell on their own, absolute max, but the whole first episode is just the same 4 people repeating in different ways "Was this guy nuts? In my opinion yeah, guy was totally absolutely nuts to the max that you can be nuts, if there was ever a guy more nuts than Gein I'd still only have Ed Gein as a frame of reference and I'd exclaim 'thats guys ED-GEIN-NUTS' and he'd reply "No, I'm actually more nuts" and I'd say "Prove it" and if he tried, it'd take his whole life,I'd never really believe him. Thats what i think about Ed Geins level of crazy" Its literally that stupid. I skipped most of this and i wish i'd skipped more, I regret everything about this being made. They literally got 3 guys from a podcast to sit down and give their opinions about the guy. Why?

If you can block out the 3 stooge podcast boys (Harry the Henderson & the Brokeback Mtn. Lib Bros.)..... you have a great documentary.

Not sure why the producers brought these 3 mom & dad basement dwellers on but they ruined what could have been a great doc series. I'm sure they regret it unless pf course there is some nepotistic reason which placed them on this show.

The other interviewees are each quite strong but the 3 dudes giggling about things like they are sharing microbrewerd beers outside Wrigley Field before they attend a pro-choice or pro-palestinian rally just trashes it for me.....

People out there honestly believe that in the last 66 years 'someone' 'unearths' a 'never - heard - before' recording of Ed Gein? Especially after 'Psycho?' People honestly think Alfred Hitchcock wouldn't have exploited that if it was real, really? All the supposed people on the 'tape' are long dead. Then people believe that an actual tape that is 66 years old and has not been stored properly {'unearthed'} is retrievable? No degradation, seriously? No pops, no hissing, no distortion, really? It would be dust if it was not stored in very specific perimeters. There is no authentic verification of these three voices. None. Digital conversion can do a lot, however there is even more it CANNOT do for a 66 year old 1/4" short reel, and that's IF it was in PRISTINE condition! It only took 7 minutes into the first episode to know this is a deep fake.

The facts are not even correct. Gein was a grave robber, there was no evidence to support anything outside of 2 murders. Gein was not a genius, and building him up to hero worship status that this mockumentary clearly does is almost worse than what he did, especially by the 'author'. It is clearly AI reading case notes and police reports 'in the style of law enforcement questioning a suspect circa 1957.' Dragnet is more authentic than this. Sadly there are too many people out there that will believe this is real. There is nothing new here except sick egos making money off a clinically diagnosed mentally ill 'human', 2 humans that were murdered and 9 human remains that were violated/ abuse of corpses {and all their family members' pain}. There is a reason the farm was burnt to the ground. How would you feel if it was your family member?

The "new recordings" are repeated over and over, the same few pictures are shown over and over. The tapes mostly have Gein say "yeah, I guess" and "I don't know really" (paraphrased). It's only interesting because it shows how much the interviewer himself is putting things in Gein's mouth. It's nice to see interviews of some of the people who met Gein or live or lived in the town, but all in all it's a waste of time.

Most baffling is how they used "AI" to animate some of the black and white photographs they have of Gein in prison, when they later see show actual filmed material. Silly. It ads nothing and only distracts.

Thought there was going to be some huge revelation or something? No, the only thing is this "tape"? I swear I've heard him interviewed before like 20 years ago in something I watched on him? Also it sounds fake and like it was made for a movie or something because the main detective talking sounds like a scripted old style voice ( like they all spoke in old movies} also ( I turned it off in like 15 minites because everyone talking sounded to upbeat/excited and it's like it's made for millenials. Even in that short time it erased all the really creepy, disturbing stuff I'd seen before because they treat the material like it's funny. And the main guy( who somehow got a hold of a tape that supposedly never existed has like zero credibility. I don't even know what I was expecting but not this and I'm tired of all the documentaries coming out on things that had been done before sand better!

I wanted to edit after googling a bit and finding out these tapes that were acquired by this James buddy had been in a safe for like 50 plus years and the person in possession of these tapes( they had in a safety deposit box? Why weren't they logged into evidence and how were they not lost if they've existed this long and why give them to some guy all this time later. Yeah lacks all credibility. Should say at the beginning a fake tape we made or what have you!

First off, the three podcasters in this are really, really annoying, laughing and joking around about Ed Gein's murders and laughing about the victims...

Let's just all admit that podcasting is not a genuine form of media when clowns like this are included in a documentary that has actual experts, from people in the town to the author of what's the quintessential Ed Gein biography...

Why these podcaster clowns are included is a mystery, but it's probably because the filmmakers felt that most young people can relate to young jokers, or something...

As for the titular interview tapes: they take about ten lines from Gein and try making a four-part doc with them, and that's a tall order...

With horror-movie music and a few shots making Gein look formidable, it's really the case of taking who's more a backwoods Barney Fife type than a Norman Bates or Buffalo Bill and making a contrived terrorizing study, which doesn't gel here at all...

However it's not a terrible documentary as you do learn some things about Gein... but learning/educating audiences isn't what passes for documentaries anymore...

For True Crime, books are always the best bet because there aren't any repetitive facts, opinions, speculations or photos, and best yet, no annoyingly childish podcasters.