All the horror films inspired by Ed Gein without you realising
Monster: The Ed Gein Story has only been out on Netflix for a few days now, following its release last week (3 October), and it's already skyrocketed to the No. 1 in Series Today spot in the UK.
Netflix viewers have already been stunned after hearing killer and grave robber Ed Gein's real voice, what the real-life characters from the series actually looked like, and the disturbing photos from Gein's actual home, but many are now just realising all the horror films that were inspired by the Butcher of Plainfield's gory crimes.
Now, series creator Ryan Murphy has already dubbed Gein 'one of the most influential people of the 20th century' while pointing out that 'people don’t know that much about him' despite the fact that he influenced some of horror's biggest blockbusters and cult additions to the genre decades after his death in 1984.
Remember this shower scene?
The Norman Bates character in Psycho is loosely based on Gein.
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While adapted to the screen by cinema icon Alfred Hitchcock in 1960, it was originally a novel written by Robert Bloch in 1959.
Both the film and the novel show parallels, including the presence of a domineering mother, necrophilic undertones, grave-robbing, and wearing mother’s clothing.
"Elsewhere… I have recounted the story of the grim case which shocked Wisconsin in 1957 and led me, the following year, to write a novel in which a seemingly normal and ordinary rural resident led a dual life as a psychotic murderer, unsuspected by his neighbours. I based my story on the situation rather than on any person, living or dead involved in the [Ed] Gein affair," Bloch explained.
From “The Backstory to Robert Bloch’s Psycho': “I’d discovered how closely the imaginary character I’d created resembled the real Ed Gein both in overt act and apparent motivation.”
Mother's ruin
Directors Alan Ormsby and Jeff Gillen put forward a fairly direct fictionalisation of Gein’s life with Deranged in 1974.
The protagonist is similarly raised by a religious mother and, after her death, he digs up her corpse, starts grave robbing and begins using human remains.
The film’s opening narration says: “Several years ago, I covered firsthand the incredible story you are about to see re-created in this motion picture … It is a human horror story of ghastly proportions …" which frames it as a recreation of true events, AKA Gein’s story.
However, while the plot does follow an unhinged farmer who turned into a murderous grave robber who is obsessed with the remains of his domineering mother, killing and collecting bodies in order to keep her company in the house that they shared together - it's important to note that several liberties were taken with what actually happened.
A 'chain' reaction
Leatherface’s face masks, which were made from human skin, and his grave-robbery/decor items in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) are directly inspired by Gein.
Director Tobe Hooper, who wrote the flick with Kim Henkel, both said they heard about Gein prior to making the film.
"I definitely studied Gein," Henkel said when discussing the inspiration for the film.
Skin suit obsession
The character Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs (1991), starring Anthony Hopkins, is partly a composite of the true story of Gein, specifically due to his skin-suit 'woman suit' practice.
According to Looper, Buffalo Bill takes inspiration from two more famous killers other than Gein.
"Ted Bundy's infamous methods were incorporated into Bill's kidnapping technique: He too wore a fake cast to feign disability, then used said cast to knock his victims out," the outlet reports.
"The third source of dark inspiration for Buffalo Bill was Gary Michael Heidnik, a Philadelphia nurse who had a penchant for kidnapping women and shackling them in his basement.
"These three real killers, alongside a few others, contribute to the terrifying composite that is Buffalo Bill."
A very maddening Mikkelsen
The 2013 series Hannibal, starring Mads Mikkelsen, is part of the Silence of the Lambs / Hannibal Lecter mythos rather than directly citing Gein.
With that said, though, it's clear that the Lecter / Buffalo Bill thread continues as Buffalo Bill’s character draws from Gein, so the Hannibal / Lecter films are related by extension.
"Run, rabbit, run!"
And, lastly, we've got Rob Zombie's gory 2003 horror-comedy, House of 1000 Corpses.
There are elements reminiscent of Gein's story with the skin obsession, twisted family unit, weird use of human remains and extremely macabre atmosphere.
Speaking to Ear of Newt, the director was told by the reporter that the film brought to mind the brutal horror/exploitation flicks of the ’70s, in particular The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
However, it's clear that Zombie doesn’t see his House as 'a love letter to Tobe Hooper’s 1974 take on the legend of real-life Wisconsin cannibal Ed Gein'.
"I never really looked at it that way, he said, before adding: "I mean, I just always really loved movies that had at the centre of them a really twisted family unit."
Monster: The Ed Gein Story is currently available to stream on Netflix.
Topics: Ed Gein, Explained, Netflix, TV And Film, True Crime, US News
Rhiannon Ingle