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Like it or not,Ed Geinwas the murderer who wrote the book on Hollywood’s depiction of the modern American serial killer inhorrorfilms. Gein only ever confessed to two murders, butit was his relationship with his own mother and his subsequent exploits that garnered a reputation so heinous it has inspired a long lineage of frightening films. Those have included generationalmovies likeThe Silence of the Lambs, which put the sadistic killer’s skin-tailoring behavior into bloody detail, but his influence on Hollywood reaches all the way back to Alfred Hitchcock.
While Gein’s murders may seem few when compared to more prolificmovie-inspiring killers like Jeffrey Dahmer, it was the fashion in whichGein turned human flesh into trophiesthat captivated the attention of a nation and its filmmakers. Gein also managed to escape capital punishment due to his adjudicated insanity, creating a theme that inspired characters like Hannibal Lecter, who were as notorious during their incarceration as during their killing sprees.
Ed Gein’s Butcher-Like Exploits Inspired Horror Filmmakers
The other major component of Gein’s popularity with filmmakers was his relationship with his mother. Augusta Gein lorded over her sons with the fury of the Old Testament, particularly if they violated her cardinal sin of talking to women. In Augusta’s mind, women were all promiscuous and instruments of the devil, and she instilled a hatred of women, particularly in her younger son Ed, who was completelyenraptured by this infamous matriarch. Ed Gein had an older brother, Henry, who turned on their mother after their father suffered a heart attack and passed away in 1940.
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Henry had a relationship outside their household and began to realize the way the brothers had been brainwashed bytheir mother’s daily Bible-thumping. Ed Gein was too loyal to their mother to be swayed, and many law enforcement agents have been convinced that Gein was responsible for his brother’s mysterious death, though it was never proven. In 1945, Ed’s mother would die, as well, from stroke complications. He had lost his only friend, and their complex and seemingly oedipal relationship began to have consequences on Gein’s psyche.
Why Gein’s Influence Was So Transcendent
While Ed Gein’s influence on Alfred Hitchcock’sPsychohas been a bit overblown, Robert Bloch, who wrote the book on which Hitchcock’s film was based, did live near Ed Gein andincorporated Gein’s complex maternal relationship into writing the Norman Bates character. This was well before Gein’s capture, however, which exposed much about the killer’s motivations for a future generation of filmmakers. Hitchcock emphasized the character’s mommy issues with “Mother” Bates, as well, in the film version. Both Gein, who lived only 40 miles from Bloch, and the story’s protagonist, Norman Bates, were solitary murderers in isolated rural locations. But the bone-collecting details of Gein’s history, whichPsychocouldn’t dare touch on in the ’60s, found its way into a new script in the ’70s.That wasThe Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Ed Gein’s nickname, the Butcher of Plainfield, came from his penchant for exhuming dead bodies and dressing those corpseslike a taxidermist would dress prey. Before Gein confessed to killing two women, tavern owner Mary Hogan in 1954 and hardware store owner Bernice Worden in 1957, he had some terrifying pastimes. Besides the two women’s decomposing bodies later found hidden in Gein’s barn were items fashioned out of human skin, including skin-leather chairs, a corset made from a woman’s torso, and belts made from human nipples. Most of these items were made by desecrating graves, others from Gein’s harvesting of his two known victims, though there has been speculation that Gein killed many more.
Gein’s Psychology-Inspired Novels and Adapted Screenplays
Silence of the Lambswas the first film to dive deep into the gory details of this flesh fetishism, when Jame Gumb,aka Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine), abducts his victims in order to fashion a life-size skin suit.Thomas Harris, who wrote theRed DragonandSilence of the Lambsnovels, researched Ed Geinand other killers to examine their motivations, replacing Gein’s obsessive maternal fixation with Buffalo Bill’s desire for gender reassignment.
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WhilePsychoandSilence of the Lambsfocused extensively on the psychological aspects of killers like Gein,Tobe Hooper’sThe Texas Chainsaw Massacremined the horrifyingly visceral realities of Gein’s twisted approach to craft. Like the terrifying mask made from a human face found in Gein’s barn, Leatherface inTexas Chainsawtook gore to another level. WhileLeatherface was more of a crazed hunter/killer than Gein, the gruesome contents of his house were modeled off the terrifying barn find, which Gein had somehow kept hidden from his family. By creating a set like that, Hooper made an “all bets are off” statement to his audience, and the device has been copied ad nauseam in horror cinema.
While Gein’s exploits never rose to the death counts of the modern mass shootings in America,the killer inserted himself in the American consciousness like few murderers have. That is owed almost entirely to three films, which are arguably the threemost influential horror filmsever made (if we are to includeSilencein the genre rather than as a thriller). One man’s penchant for killing, processing, and crafting human remains created such an impression on generational directors that they influenced over four decades' worth of horror films.The Silence of the Lambsis streaming onPrime Video.The Texas Chainsaw Massacreis streaming onTubi.Psychois streaming onNetflix.
