Created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, the limited series has honed in on a signature hue for each of its installments: in Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, a dirty yellow shade mirrors the moral decay of its central serial killer; Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story utilized a cool blue that contrasted with its sunny Los Angeles setting; and in the latest entry, Monster: The Ed Gein Story, a sinister green infiltrates its killer’s world. 

“Whenever I do anything, I always have a general first concept meeting with all of the department heads. What I like to do is talk about, ‘This is the reason why I want to make this, this is what it’s about, this is the feeling of it and the light of it,’ ” says Murphy of the visual language of the Monster anthology. “We always spend a full year designing the show. Every season has a color, it has a tone. It’s very time-consuming, but fun.”

The third season focuses on Ed Gein, played by Charlie Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy), who haunted the frozen fields of rural Wisconsin, killing and desecrating the bodies of multiple women throughout the 1950s, and whose crimes would go on to inspire all-time classic horror films including Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and The Silence of the Lambs. The eerie green of the season permeates Gein’s obsessions and victims, like in the women’s underwear he lusts after, and the hardware store staffed by Bernice Worden (Lesley Manville), an older woman who shows kindness for Gein before becoming one of his victims.