Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield

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.

With a catchy title like the Butcher of Plainfield this Ed Gein variation and Kane Hodder playing him will no doubt fly off the shelves for a couple of weeks.Most viewers will be bored silly with this latest take on the life of Ed Gien.

The movie focuses on Ed's rampage and gives us a(few)glimpses into his Psycosis and dwelling in Plainfeild.Its these scenes that give the movie a much needed jolt.

What ruins this is the constant focus on other characters lives and focuses less on Eds.Big mistake here.

Kane Hodder is a strange choice to play Gein,but He does pull it off quite well,and deserves more acting credits than he gets these days.Prascilla Barnes and Micahel Barryman also show up.

3/10

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 agree with the first reviewer. The real Ed Gein was nothing like the one depicted in this movie. In the first place, the real Ed Gein was NOT aggressive. He was a shy, quiet man. The guy in this movie got mad real easy and when he got mad, he LUNGED at people. There was a scene where he went to the graveyard to dig up a body and the night watchman was there. All it took was a couple of lines and Ed got mad and killed him. That did NOT happen in real life. There are a lot of serial killer movies being made these days and quite frankly, NONE of them are accurate. Either the makers of the movie are lazy and don't research the real story enough, or they are calling themselves "spicing up" the movie for interest purposes. Whatever the reason, they just kill the story by adding a bunch of made up stuff. I think the worst one i've seen to date was the BTK Killer by Uli Lommel. Man talk about a waste of celluloid. That movie was so bad i will deliberately AVOID any Uli Lommel movies in the future.

This movie was really bad. First they didn't even follow the facts for it. Half of the movie was made up and it was more about the deputy whose mother was one of Ed Gein's victims. The acting was horrible, except for the guy playing Ed Gein, but its not hard to mess up playing a weird guy. though i think it was horrible i gave it a three because they started it off with actual crime photos. that was the best part of the movie. As soon as the introduction of the movie was finished the movie went downhill. The writer of this movie tried to spice it up, but it didn't need to be. The story of Ed Gein is interesting enough without falsifying information.