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Ed
Gein (2001) |
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This film arrives at a time when the serial killer cycle appears to have run its course for the moment with its last celebrated hero Hannibal Lecter turning in a rather glib if sensationally bad taste appearance in the amazingly gratuitous Hannibal. The Scream's and I Know What You Did's and even the commendable Final Destination were teen fodder and too jokey to be considered as pure horror (though Destination fans will argue against that statement) and we surely came full circle with the arrival of the embarrassing Scary Movie films. Ed Gein is a film that managed to ruffle a few feathers and upset a few people upon its release earlier in the year - almost always a good omen when dealing with a horror film. This film is very much a remake of a film that was made in 1974 by the name of Deranged which was also about the horrific crimes that were committed by the outwardly harmless Ed Gein. This was the man who shocked the American nation when he was arrested in 1957 and his ghastly crimes began to slowly come to light. Gein's psychosis was driven by his demented domineering religious lunatic of a mother who managed to instil a deep rooted hatred of all women in his brain. When she died and left him alone, he lapsed into a cycle of shocking horror which ended with his sensational arrest. This was the man who inspired Norman Bates' cross dressing and the man who was the inspiration behind Leatherface's obscenity of a face and who paved the way for Hannibal the cannibal's well documented culinary tastes. Ed Gein was the man who created furniture and cutlery out of human bones, skin and body parts. The startling thing about Ed Gein was that he was often unable to lie about things he was going through…and indeed told his friends that the missing townspeople were lying at his place…but he was taken as being eccentric and simply laughed off. In fact the missing persons were all lying at his place, facing dismemberment or having already been carved up and made to join the hideous tea party of cadavers. The film follows almost exactly in the footsteps of Deranged though there is more graphic violence and more blood than in the older version which was also notable for its gore. Here the director uses flashback sequences from time to time to try to shed light on Gein's disturbed and tormented childhood and how his monstrous mother took possession of his mind early on in proceedings. Her Biblical ranting and vitriol against women of loose morals returns to haunt Ed when his mother is dead and buried. Now the same voice as in mother of Hitchcock's Psycho urges Gein on to commit one murder after another in the name of "doing God's work". Gein was finally apprehended, but not before he did some serious damage murdering at least 20 people and earning a dubious chapter all to himself in the annals of serial killinghistory. Ed Gein remains one of the major case studies of serial killers on record and this film is a fair account of the grim path that he undertook. Steve Railsback does a commendable job in the title role, switching between the moronic village idiot exterior to the charged up demented killer driven to the most horrendous atrocities by the cajoling voice of "mother". There is a fair amount of gore and splatter but nothing compared to the splatter featured in most video games aimed at teenagers these days. The film does well not to sensationalize a subject that is already sensational enough to begin with and director Parello is able to give his audience a good feel for how Gein's character begins to spiral totally out of control. A truly grim film reminiscent of the fairly recent Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer in that it presents its appalling subject in a very close up and unflinching manner. The acting is generally quite strong as is the material on view and it is advised that those people of a feint hearted nature might keep the smelling salts handy!
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