Ed Gein, le boucher

True story of Ed Gein who, in the 1950s, killed women or dug up their corpses and...well, just guess! Gein was the inspiration for "Psycho".

This is a factual account of what happened. There is an earlier film (1972) called "Deranged" which basically told the same story. "Deranged" is a very good, very scary and extremely gruesome movie which played fast and loose with some of the facts. This one sticks to them. It's nowhere near as sick as the earlier film and isn't even that violent or bloody (except for a scene at the end), but it made me feel uneasy. Steve Railsback's excellent performance helps. You see the madness behind his mild-mannered exterior. Also there's a solid supporting cast and some good, spooky direction. The low budget does show (some of the sets look incredibly cheap) but the film does work.

Not for the screamish or weak of stomach.

Ed Gein - (Special pre-release preview) USA/2001/18. Dir. Chuck Parello.

Hailed as the inspiration for many of Hollywood's greatest murderers, Ed Gein was a real-life serial killer operating in 1950's Wisconsin. We were treated to a special pre-release preview of this forthcoming biopic. Many may have been left with a strange sense of déjà vu.

'Psycho', the novel upon which Hitchcock's classic horror is based was inspired by the activities of the reclusive farmer, with the author Robert Bloch living just fifty miles from the town of Plainfield where Gein lived. The domineering mother character is consequently a big part of both films, as she instructs her wayward son to kill from beyond the grave. The skin wearing antics of 'Buffalo Bill' in Jonathan Demme's `The Silence of the Lambs' (based on the Robert Harris novel) were also a part of the twisted Gein routine as his butchered and ate his way through his victims, spreading fear through small-town America.

`The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' and `American Psycho' also owe a debt to this true tale, which demonstrates the full extremes of human depravity. Such was the myth attached to this story that it is surprising that no one has tried to bring it to the big screen before. The character of `Psycho's' Norman Bates is undoubtedly far better known than his real-life inspiration but director Chuck Parello takes a brave step and tackles the monster head on.

Ed Gein's shy existence from abused child to grave robber and murderer are carefully charted, with his obsession for anatomy and his mother always in the background. Whether completely truthful or not, the film portrays Gein as more of a misguided bumpkin than a cold-blooded maniac. The opening shows apparently authentic news footage from the time, with neighbours expressing their shock that such a `nice, quiet young man like Ed' could be involved in such horrific crimes. This adds a touch of realism to the proceedings, but the remainder from childhood through killings to capture is standard fare, with few surprises en route.

Considered as a film about an unhappy and perverted man, the movie is so-so, perhaps a bit more. A boy and his brother grow up on a dismal farm. Their father is brutal, their mother religious and caring but stern too. Always, when they show weakness, there is the shadow of the allegation of femininity hanging in the background. Older boy leaves home as soon as decorum allows.

The father disappears from their lives and the mother, domineering and clinging, takes over Ed Gein's life. She dies painfully. Ed goes mad. Mother appears in hallucinations, telling Ed what to do, scolding him if he hesitates, prompting him to acts most of us might vomit at the mere thought of.

But you know what? This is way, way ahead of the usual sorts of slasher movies, the kind that have turned into self parodies. Railsback was executive producer and cast himself in the principal role, and he's good too, although his mangled Southern mumble is a bit difficult to square with the actual Wisconsin setting of the events. Railsback underplays Gein's psychosis just enough. Gein isn't a loony loner, as he might have been. He's a slow-moving gloomy looking guy who dresses like a sloppy rube (you can almost smell his unwashed overalls) but he's reasonable in public, seems to have his wits about him. He makes the right kinds of comments, more or less, at the times they are called for. Overhearing a conversation between a saleswoman and a customer who has heart disease, he wishes her well on her forthcoming operation, a nice gesture that anyone with claims to normality might make. Railsback makes him quiet, slightly awkward, and gives him a constant shy smile in front of others. It's a fine portrayal of schizophrenia, better than Russel Crowe's in "A Beautiful Mind." Gein is just about perfect, a shambling walk (almost on tip toe), a stare that lasts far too long, the unfunny joke he tells that makes him laugh out loud while others gawk, the half-baked religious ideas, a daily cycle that seems all non sequitur. He gets the necessary chores done, buys antifreeze and goes shopping. Not the way you and I might -- he lives on nothing but canned pork and beans (and some other things) -- but he gets the job done. He hangs out from time to time in a depressingly dark rural saloon, where he sits one or two stools away from the few other customers. The others know him, and some, like the bartender, are kind and sympathetic to him, while some make jokes about him. That's his public face. Rather a dull lonely man, a sad man really who has never recovered from his mother's death, someone who needs looking after and will never get it.

His home, however -- well, that's a different matter entirely. As a police officer once said about Son of Sam's residence, "the inside of his house looks like the inside of his head." It's a remote and non-productive place, falling apart on the outside, the lock missing from the front door, old tires and bedsprings in the yard. That's just the outside. The inside is even worse. Horrible, in fact. About the single most depressing dump I can remember seeing on screen in recent years. Little light seems to enter. And what the light shows us we'd rather not see. The man seems never to have thrown out any piece of junk he's come into possession of. Old newspapers stacked in corners. Dirty dishes. An unmade bed that any prison could improve upon.

Gein was frankly nuts, no question about it. But, as I understand it, he murdered only two people, both of them middle-aged ladies who treated him in a motherly fashion. Of course the house had body parts all over it but these were from dug-up corpses. The man ate out of bowls made from that part of the skull called the calvarium, and so did his few guests. But naturally he had few guests. He made a few dollars babysitting two boys at his place but when one of them wandered into his bedroom -- the bedroom with the shrunken heads on the walls and the rats on the floor -- he ushered the kids to the door and politely and firmly told them not to come back. "I guess a man needs his privacy," he tells them.

The two murders are horrifying in a non-sensational way. Both women are shot without expecting it to happen. One doesn't die immediately and protests when her punctured body is dragged out to Gein's truck to be taken to his cellar and dressed like a hog. But, although the scenes are graphic and realistic, they are not at all sensationalized. No preliminary threats, no bondage or torture, no screaming, no maniacal whacking with axes or bashing in of heads with maces. It's all the more frightening for its matter-of-fact tone. And there is one scene in which Gein, a raving lunatic, dances out of his front door into the moonlight, dressed in long johns and human skin, a merkin fixed to his groin, banging pots and pans and whooping with God only knows what rotten pot of exaltations. It's far more shocking than anything in "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer," although the two have the senselessness of random murders in common.

You want to be scared? This true story, this production, ought to do the job. You'll be locking your doors at night.

Ed Gein, appropriately titled, follows the life of murderer and cannibal Ed Gein. And what a lovely story it is. Ed and his dead mother have been the centerpiece for many movies. Of all the films based on Gein (Psycho, TCM, Silence of the Lambs), this may be the most reality based. However, it is also the dullest. I'm not saying it's a boring film. On the contrary it's very interesting. But when compared to those other films, it just seems lacking. There's not much gore and you don't really get to see him kill anyone. So why invest time with the film you ask. Because of Steve Railsback. Railsback performs wonderfully as the demented momma's boy. It's a joy to just sit back and watch him act. His last lines of the film are especially disturbing. This is the best of the current serial killer film craze that I have seen thus far however I do prefer the 70's film Deranged as a much creepier representation of Ed Gein's life.

How well I remember the radio broadcast on the day Gein's house of horrors was found. Because of public sensibilities, the grisly depredations could only be hinted at, which of course left the rest to over-ripe imaginations like mine. It was like the shell of Ozzie & Harriet America had suddenly been ripped, exposing something maybe beyond imagination. In terms of serial killers, Gein is far from the worst, only two confirmed murders though there could have been more. In terms of sheer dementia, however, it would be hard to surpass the fiendish Wisconsin farmer and grave robber. No wonder writer Bloch took an immediate interest, soon followed by moviemaker Hitchcock and his dark masterpiece.

The movie, I think, captures much of the banality of Gein's evil. On the outside he's a rather dull, disheveled sort, blending into the seedy rural background of run-down shops, clapboard houses, and shiny deer rifles. Actor Railsback low-keys it the whole way, only a smirk suggesting something happening on the inside. Clearly, the inner Gein only comes to life when wearing a woman's skin, literally. The problem, of course, is mother. The movie blends in her visual presence (Snodgress) at those times when the demented Gein gets an angry lecture. Seems Mom is some kind of religious nut in which loose women, the road to hell, and backward son combine into one venemous package. For Ed, there's no escape. She haunts him, and us, at every turn. The effect is both unsettling and revealing, showing that Gein's really only half-present at any one time, except maybe when he's frolicking as a woman.

Thankfully, the movie refuses to prettify anything. It also looks like actual b&w footage from Nov., 1957, appears now and again, lending some authenticity to the weirdness. Anyway, I suspect this film comes about as close to Gein's actual pathology as any of the many others. And what the narrative may lack in melodrama, it makes up for in morbid fascination.