Ryan Murphy’s latest true crime series, Monster: The Ed Gein Story, is dominating Netflix right now. The show has climbed to No. 1 on Netflix’s weekly TV chart, pulling in 20.7 million views between October 13 and 19. This marks a strong first full week, following its earlier success of 12.2 million views in its first four days.
The series follows the same storytelling style as Murphy’s previous Monster instalments, The Jeffrey Dahmer Story and The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. While it started off with similar momentum, The Ed Gein Story is showing slightly slower engagement. During its opening weekend, it averaged around 4.1 million daily views, but that dropped to 2.9 million per day in the following week.
When compared to past seasons, Dahmer remains the franchise’s biggest hit, averaging about 4.4 million daily views throughout its first week and eventually ranking No. 4 on Netflix’s all-time most popular list. The Ed Gein Story currently seems to be performing closer to The Menendez Story, which averaged 2.8 million daily views. Though it’s still trending high, experts say it’s unlikely to reach Dahmer-level popularity unless there’s a major boost in viewership soon.
Part of the slowdown may be due to the time of year. With the festive season approaching, audiences are gravitating toward lighter, holiday-themed content. Is It Cake? Halloween landed in second place with 5.7 million views, followed by the Victoria Beckham docuseries in third with 5.6 million views.
Elsewhere on Netflix, the heartfelt dramedy Boots, based on Greg Cope White’s memoir The Pink Marine, debuted more quietly with 4.7 million views. The series tells the story of a gay teen who joins the U.S. Marine Corps in 1990, hiding his sexuality to fit in.
Over on the movie charts, The Woman in Cabin 10 led the week with 21.2 million views after premiering on Friday. The animated K-pop action film Demon Hunters stayed strong in its 17th week with 17.8 million views, despite a 30% drop since August. The true crime documentary My Father the BTK Killer rounded out the top three with 5.7 million views.
Overall, Monster: The Ed Gein Story has cemented itself as one of Netflix’s top shows of the month, proving that audiences still have a deep fascination with Murphy’s dark, psychological storytelling.