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 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.

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.