Hollywood’s Obsession with Murder — and What It Says About Us
Courtesy of Reza Hasannia
It’s no secret that Hollywood loves a good murder. From classic noir to true-crime documentaries, serial killer biopics, and prestige limited series, the entertainment industry has long capitalized on our collective fascination with violence, tragedy, and the darker corners of the human psyche.
But what does that say about us — the audience? Why do we continue to watch, analyze, and even glamorize killers and their stories?
The Allure of Darkness
Murder stories allow us to stare into the abyss from a safe distance. They feed our curiosity about human nature — especially the parts we don’t understand or want to confront.
When we watch a show about a serial killer, we aren’t just observing them; we’re studying them. We’re asking, how does someone get to this point? What makes a person capable of such horror?
This psychological distance is comforting. It lets us believe there’s a clear line between them and us — even though, on a subconscious level, we know that line is much thinner than we’d like to admit.
Hollywood understands that tension perfectly. It packages our fear and fascination into neatly edited, bingeable stories.
Enter: The Ed Gein Effect
No name encapsulates Hollywood’s long-standing obsession with murder quite like Ed Gein.
Gein’s crimes in the 1950s — grave robbing, body mutilation, and murder — were so grotesque that they spawned not just news headlines, but an entire subgenre of horror.
He became the blueprint for icons like Norman Bates (Psycho), Leatherface (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), and Buffalo Bill (The Silence of the Lambs).
And now, decades later, Hollywood still can’t look away. The recent Monsters: The Ed Gein Story proves that his legacy has transcended crime — it’s become cultural mythology.
But this continued retelling reveals something uncomfortable: we aren’t just fascinated by Gein as a killer. We’re fascinated by what he represents — the blurred line between the ordinary and the monstrous.
He was the small-town neighbor no one suspected. The man who blended in. That’s the real horror.
The Mirror We Don’t Want to Face
Hollywood’s obsession with murder isn’t simply about shock value or storytelling — it’s a mirror.
We project our fears, desires, and questions about morality onto these stories because they reflect something we all recognize: the capacity for darkness that exists within human nature.
There’s also a strange sense of justice embedded in it. Watching killers caught, punished, or analyzed allows us to momentarily restore balance to a world that often feels chaotic. It’s a psychological reset — a reassurance that evil can be understood, named, and stopped.
But the irony is that Hollywood rarely lets it stay that simple. The longer we linger on the details, the more we start empathizing with the killer’s loneliness, trauma, or desperation. It humanizes the inhumane — and that’s where the moral unease sets in.
True Crime as Entertainment
Platforms like Netflix and YouTube have turned real-life horror into prime-time entertainment. Documentaries about serial killers trend alongside reality TV and cooking shows.
We listen to true-crime podcasts on commutes, watch dramatizations of real murders, and dissect the psychology of criminals like they’re fictional characters.
The result? A culture that simultaneously condemns and consumes violence — where trauma becomes content, and tragedy becomes storytelling currency.
Hollywood knows the formula works:
A shocking crime + human vulnerability + stylized production = ratings gold.
But as viewers, we have to ask: Are we watching to understand — or to feel something?
Why We Keep Watching
In a way, murder stories allow us to process our own fears about mortality, morality, and control. They turn chaos into narrative.
We may not admit it, but we find comfort in knowing that every horrific act has a beginning, middle, and end — that even the most inexplicable evil can be contained within a script, a season, or a story arc.
It’s how we make sense of the senseless.
The Takeaway
Hollywood’s obsession with murder isn’t just about profit or storytelling — it’s a reflection of us. Of our collective desire to explore what lies beneath the surface of humanity, and our need to confront the darkness without being consumed by it.
Ed Gein might have terrified the world, but what keeps his story alive isn’t just what he did — it’s what he revealed: that the monsters we fear most often look a lot like us.
My Final Thoughts
As creators, we have to ask ourselves — what’s our responsibility when retelling these stories? Are we educating, exploiting, or exploring?
Because every time Hollywood revives another killer’s story, it’s not just reanimating their crimes. It’s reanimating the part of society that can’t look away. Happy Halloween — and may your nightmares stay safely on screen.
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