Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield

Ever since he played a goon in Lone Wolf McQuade, actor/stuntman Kane Hodder has been busy. His film, Hatchet, got all the publicity last year, but he still makes a couple of more films every year. He should have skipped this one.

Hodder seems to be the king of the slashers. he has played Jason Voorhees from 1988's Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988) to Jason X (2001). He is working on a new film that appears to be a Halloween remake. He is very much what I would call the serial killer type with his methodical, expressionless thirst for blood.

However, there wasn't much blood in this movie and very little action occurred on camera. It felt as if I was watching an episode of real law enforcement on A&E.

I won't put the blame entirely on Hodder's shoulders, as the rest of the actors didn't contribute much either.

Michael Berryman (The Hills Have Eyes, The Devil's Rejects) just ran his mouth until Gein shut him up. Adrienne Frantz ("The Bold and the Beautiful") was cute. Veteran actress ("Three's Company") and Penthouse Pet, Priscilla Barnes did a credible job. I am sure there are other horror favorites, but they all just seemed to run through their roles.

I was interested in seeing this film, because I was hoping to see a reenactment of the actual story that inspired so many of the all time classic horror movies, but what we got was a low budget spin on the acts of Ed Gein, not the story of Ed Gein. Kane is a large presence, but Ed wasn't. He flew bellow the radar because he was quiet, slow, and unnoticed, yet this movie shows him as a bully? I also wanted to know why they stuck Michael Berryman's character in the movie? Ed Gein didn't have help digging up body's, and the truth would have been much more twisted then the fictional situation. It may be a silly observation, but we know that the Gein house was basically a rats nest, and only the room his mother lived in was clean, yet there's an early scene where Ed's in the hall, and the carpet looked like it had never been left longer then an hour, without cleaning. I didn't hate the movie, but it was just another spin on a true serial killer, yet somehow they decided the truth wasn't as good as the fiction? It's worth a watch, but not if you want a true account of the gruesome truth of Ed Geins rampage.

I stopped watching this film half way through. It was just terrible! Boring, contrived subplots. A complete lack of the pathos seen in Norman Bates, Buffalo Bill, or Steve Railsback's portrayal of Ed Gein. A movie doesn't have to be historically accurate, but the true story of Ed Gein is so much more interesting than this third-rate melodrama that was completely made up for no good reason! Ed Gein as portrayed by Kane Hodder is a cartoon sadist. The attempts to show the trauma inflicted on him by his mother are just weak exercises in recycled style. And this movie wanted to be stylish, but it even screwed that up. Fortunately, there is a better film of this story. 2001's Ed Gein told the story efficiently, and offered a few real chills as we watched a sick man not in control of himself. Steve Railsback, who played Ed Gein that time, was already famous for memorably portraying another famous serial killer: Charles Manson. His Ed had pathos. His film is the one to see. Avoid this mess.

I have watched this movie quite bemused. I am not sure whether it was attempting to be a horror gore fest in a Rob Zombie type affair or an exploration of real events.

In either case it missed its mark. It's not particularly historically accurate with characters being chopped and changed for the sake of the story.

The performances were neither compelling nor bad.

For me, I would have preferred a more psychological approach and this film could easily have gone down this route without spoiling the overall effect.

***May contain spoilers***

I had very high expectations for this film, based on the trailer. I knew a bit about the real Ed Gein, so I figured this was a medium-budget Hollywood version of the real events. Man was I wrong.

First, the writing apparently came from an eight-grader who barely knew anything about Ed's history and cranked out the script in about 20 minutes. The movie completely passes over the most interesting facets of Ed and his relationship with his mother (not to mention what the real police found in his house) and decides to focus primarily on the young deputy who looks like he just wandered onto the set. Likewise, all of the male characters seem to be ad-libbing their dialog throughout the entire movie. I'm not exaggerating.

Don't even get me started with the historical goofs in this movie. Seriously, who the hell directed this? This movie is supposed to take place around 1957, but the cops are carrying modern side-handled batons, some of the stuff in the hardware store look like they came from Lowes, and when the cop gets to a payphone he dials 9-1-1 (didn't exist back then). Also, Ed was a small guy, scary like Anthony Perkins' character in Psycho (who was supposedly based on real-life Ed), not this burly dude who ended up looking way too much like the bad guy in Men In Black.

Another thing that really bugged me was the appearance that the makers of this film shot the whole thing in an abandoned, 3 building set. Because of the "clever" camera angles, you never see any actual town, and the interior of the sets looked like old, long-abandoned shacks. Pop a cash register on a saw-horse and bam!--instant hardware store.

I'm usually pretty forgiving of low-budget horror films, but this one just begs for it. All you had to do was include most of the real events (even embellish them!), pay five good actors instead of 15 crappy ones, and for Pete's sake take 5 minutes and think about the time period once in a while. My advice: Google Ed Gein, you'll be far more entertained.