Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy and Monster: The Ed Gein Story are true crime polar opposites

Every time a TV show dramatizes a grisly true crime story, it faces a dilemma. Is it possible to retell a tragedy without exploiting the victims and their families? Not only that, but can you recreate these deaths without sensationalizing, or even glorifying, the killer responsible?

These questions have created a genre that’s at war with itself, one that’s aware of both its ethical dubiousness and the fact that viewers will gobble it up to sate their true crime fascination. This October has offered up two shows that take extremely different approaches to solving this quandary: Netflix’s Monster: The Ed Gein Story and Peacock’s Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy.

The former continues the formula that Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan established in other installments of their Monster anthology series: a mix of salacious reenactments and ham-fisted commentary about America’s fascination with true crime. The latter, though, takes a much more careful tack to the question of true crime media as inherently exploitative, forgoing onscreen murders entirely in favor of a victim-centric approach.

Devil in Disguise and The Ed Gein Story differ when it comes to onscreen violence.

Michael Chernus in “Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy.”
Credit: Brooke Palmer / Peacock

The Ed Gein Story offers exactly what viewers have come to expect from a Murphy and Brennan true crime project, which is to say that it does not shy away from onscreen violence. Bloody chainsaw massacres and hammer torture are among the atrocities on display, but they’re far from the only ones. The Ed Gein Story also adds more unsavory details, including a scene of Gein (Charlie Hunnam) engaging in necrophilia. (Although there was real-life speculation that Gein was a necrophiliac, Gein himself denied these charges.) The result is a parade of graphic atrocities conjured up for cheap shock value, upsetting and exhausting in equal measure.

While the violence in The Ed Gein Story is as in-your-face as can be, Devil in Disguise avoids showing any of Gacy’s murders in the first place. Gacy (Michael Chernus) will occasionally describe his actions, but the actual images of his crimes loom offscreen. The effect is twofold: On the one hand, the show is respecting Gacy’s victims by not recreating their deaths. On the other, the implied violence leaves audiences to imagine what befell Gacy’s victims, and the effect is more chilling than any onscreen rehashing of victims’ trauma.

Instead of showcasing Gacy’s murders, Devil in Disguise turns the spotlight on his victims, hoping to flesh out knowledge of their lives beyond just their deaths. Most episodes are named after these young men and feature flashbacks leading up to their meeting with Gacy. Episode 2, “Johnny,” centers on John Szyc (Levi Shelton), a gay high schooler trying to figure out how to come out to his parents. Episode 5, “Billy and Dale,” highlights two Chicago sex workers (Brayden Raqueño and Max Mattern).

There are a variety of stories on display, but for the police investigating these missing persons cases, they paint every victim with the same brush: “troubled.” Due to their queerness, their jobs as sex workers, or their prior run-ins with law enforcement, people like John, Billy, and Dale aren’t priorities for police, allowing Gacy to get away with murder for years. Devil in Disguise showcases these prejudices with the same unflinching emphasis that other true crime shows may place on murder scenes.

It’s worth noting that the first installment of Monster, Dahmer, attempted a somewhat similar approach to Devil in Disguise. It highlighted police prejudice against Dahmer’s (Evan Peters) victims, and Netflix even claimed the series would “give the victims a voice.” Yet the show did not consult victims’ families at any point before, during, or after production, going so far as to recreate court scenes portraying still-living family members of Dahmer’s victims without even the courtesy of a heads-up. The online backlash was severe.

Devil in Disguise and The Ed Gein Story have vastly different opinions of their audiences.

Charlie Hunnam in “Monster: The Ed Gein Story.”
Credit: Netflix

As Devil in Disguise hones in on police prejudice, The Ed Gein Story clumsily tries to make a point of its own: that the people watching are the real monsters.

The series examines not just Gein’s crimes, but also how they inspired legendary films like Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and The Silence of the Lambs. In doing this, The Ed Gein Story hopes to interrogate American audiences’ desire for fictional violence, even as they turn away from real-life atrocities.

“You’re the one who can’t look away,” Gein tells viewers in a fourth-wall break, implicating us in his acts.

Yet The Ed Gein Story‘s indictment of its own viewers falls flat as the show fails to consider its own place in the true crime ecosystem. It’s perfectly content to draw connections between Gein and other pieces of media — including a wildly offensive parallel between Gein and Psycho actor Anthony Perkins (Joey Pollari) — but never looks inward at how it, too, is sensationalizing violence for audience consumption. “How dare you keep watching,” The Ed Gein Story scolds viewers, all while Murphy and Brennan prepare to churn out a fourth season of Monster. It’s eight episodes of sanctimony without self-awareness.

While The Ed Gein Story loathes its audiences for watching its nastiness (even as it serves up its gore on a human skin platter), Devil in Disguise appeals to audience compassion. The show knows that the Gacy name will inevitably draw viewers, which is why it opts to shed new light on Gacy’s victims and their families, as opposed to delivering bloody shocks. Each episode ends with a link to a website that delves into how the issues that made Gacy’s victims vulnerable persist today, and what the viewer can do to take action. The site, which is in partnership with GLAAD, Covenant House, the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, and Equimundo, also offers resources like the Trevor Project Crisis Hotline and an anti-LGBTQ+ bill tracker.

Devil in Disguise is by no means a perfect true crime drama. Occasionally, it falls into the Monster trap of sensationalizing Gacy’s story, such as a macabre sequence that juxtaposes him picking up young men with him donning his clown makeup. However, that’s the only time Devil in Disguise actually shows any of Gacy’s clowning, whereas you know a show like Monster would have leaned far harder into the killer clown angle.

That level of excess has defined true crime dramatizations for years now, but Devil in Disguise suggests a different and much-needed new route forward for the genre: restraint.

Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy is now streaming on Peacock.