Anthony Perkins’ son furious with Monster series: Ed Gein

Director Osgood Perkins, son of the legendary interpreter of Norman Bates, a character inspired by Ed Gein, does not appreciate at all that Netflix and Ryan Murphy have brought his father to the screen.

Filmmaker Osgood Perkins, son of the legendary Anthony Perkins, did not mince his words regarding the new Netflix series Monster: Ed Gein.

In a recent interview with TMZ, the director of Longlegs expressed his anger and disgust with the way the series depicts his father and more generally, with this type of series featuring real serial killers.

“I definitely don’t want to go near that thing,” he says, accusing the platform of having transformed true crime into “glamorous and supposedly profound content”, deploring the way in which the “lords of algorithms” now shape popular culture.

Going further, he criticizes the entire genre:

“True crime has become increasingly devoid of context. The Netflixization of real pain — those authentic human experiences stemming from tragic events — is clearly playing on the wrong side.”

In Monster: Ed Gein, we actually see Anthony Perkins played by Joey Pollari. The series briefly focuses on the filming of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, while evoking the actor’s intimate torments, torn between his role as a fictional murderer and his own homosexuality, which he had to hide in Hollywood. Ryan Murphy then draws a parallel between this heavy secret and the dual personality of Ed Gein, who allegedly convinced Hitchcock to hire him.

Anthony Perkins, married to Berry Berenson (Osgood’s mother), remained discreet about his private life until his death in 1992, at age 60, from AIDS.