1974 was fifteen years after Norman Bates terrorized audiences worldwide in Hitchcock's celebrated classic Psycho. 1974 was also the same year that another modern classic The Texas Chainsaw Massacre shocked audiences with its brutal no nonsense approach and twelve years before Hannibal Lecter entranced and chilled audiences in The Silence of the Lambs. All three films have one common thread whose name is Ed Gein - a man whose horrendous atrocities came to light in distant Plainsville, Wisconsin back in 1957.

Ed Gein has the dubious honour of being the man upon whom the abovementioned horror classics have been based. Gein was the quiet loner who appeared to be utterly "harmless" on the outside to his neighbours and tiny town community, yet within that "harmless" exterior was lurking one of the sickest serial killers of all time. Deranged is a film that has hardly been seen and has only just become widely available on video, riding on the Texas Chainsaw revival in England over the last couple of years. The film has a cold, documentary style approach that lends it a grim realism and the acting is uniformly strong good for an independent low budget shocker of its kind.

Events on screen are extremely grim and there is far more blood on display than there was in the infinitely better known Texas Chainsaw film. Perhaps the masterstroke was in the name itself; Texas Chainsaw Massacre - The very name conjures the most appalling images yet a name like Deranged suggests just another horror flick. This film lacks the frenetic pacing of post-Leatherface-attack Texas Chainsaw but is perhaps the grimmer of the two. Ed Gein was the serial killer in whose home was found human skulls made into cups and bowls, seats upholstered in human skin, lampshades made of skin and human heads dangling from the door. He was the man who paved the way for Hannibal the cannibals flesh eating exploits, he the one who cross dressed in a way that even Norman Bates couldn't dare. Gein was the man who made a body suit from human skin, complete with breasts and genitals, and wore it while dancing in the moonlight thumping his human bone of a drumstick on his taut human stomach skin drum.

The film is convincing and effective and has the ability to make ones skin crawl (unsurprisingly), especially keeping in mind that the on screen events are completely based on fact. Another plus point other than the acting is the fact that the film doesn't further sensationalize events on screen - which are ghastly enough not to need any sort of enhancement. It's more along the lines of the "new" wave of independent serial killer films represented by movies with a cold, semi documentary feel to them such as Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer. It is the films low budget grittiness that lends it the realism which makes the film difficult to watch at times. The other technique that the directors employ successfully is the use of a reporter who pops in akin to a newscaster to add the occasional commentary as Gein's madness spirals out of control. Considering how strong and unflinching the film is in the way it approaches its subject, the one thing that it perhaps shies away from (understandably) is Gein's predilection for necrophilia, though it is mentioned by name. Note also that this was one of the first films that Tom Savini is credited with in the gore effects department.

On the whole Deranged is an effective catalogue of Ed Gein's horrific crimes and deserves a much wider audience than it has been able to achieve thus far. Interesting to note how Texas Chainsaw became a huge success while this particular film just seemed to fall by the wayside despite its qualities. Perhaps it's just too grim and down beat, though Texas Chainsaw was hardly a picnic either!