ED GEIN AND HIS EFFECT ON THE HORROR GENRE

                                    

Ed Gein is seen as one of the most weird and bizarre killers of the 20^th century. Geins crimes were so shocking that such films as Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Silence of the Lambs are all based on his life.

                                          
                                          History of Edward Theodore Gein 

He was born in August 1906 into a small farming community called Plainfield in Wisconsin U.S.A.  He lived a quiet life with his brother, Henry, his  alcoholic father George and his dominant mother, Augusta. Augusta pushed the idea of the immorality of sex on both her sons. She discouraged them from any contact with women. Augusta operated the small family grocery store and eventually purchased a farm on the outskirts of another small town, Plainfield, which became the Gein family’s permanent home. Augusta moved to this quiet location to prevent outsiders from influencing her sons. Ed only left the premises to go to school and Augusta blocked any attempt he made to pursue friendships. Besides school, he spent most of his time doing chores on the farm.  His father died in 1940 and then 4 years later his brother was killed trying to stop a forest fire (which always seemed suspicious to local police). Shortly after Henrys death Augusta suffered a stroke then another in 1945 which she died from.

                                             

 This left Ed (now 39) alone and traumatized and lost. Ed had become uncertain of his masculinity and began to develop an interest in the anatomy of women and over time this interest became more of an obsession. Then Ed decided to start grave-robbing which he had read about in comics like ‘Tales of the Crypt’.  He would keep an eye  in local papers for when someone had died, then go to the cemetery the night they were buried so when he dug the grave it would seem like there was no foul play. The corpses he dug up he would experiment on. He would dissect the body and keep some parts like the head, sex organs, liver, heart and intestines. He would also skin the bodies and make clothing more famously his female suit, which he would wear around the house. Furniture like lamps where also made with skin and bones.

                                     

                                   Murder on the brain…                                                                                                                               Ed became bored with his lifeless bodies and human taxidermy and then in December 1954 he murdered  Mary Hogan.  Mary Hogan was a 51 year old divorcee who ran the local ‘Hogan’s Tavern’ at Pine-Grove which was approximately 6 miles from the Gein farmhouse. Mary was similar in build and resembled Ed’s mother quite a lot. She was alone in the tavern when Ed arrived, he shot her with a revolver , placed her in the back of his truck and drove her back to his house. The police were unable to find any clues to Mary’s disappearance, although Ed was a suspect at one point. So the case was left open, that was until November 16, 1957. Bernice Worden was a woman in her fifties (also very similar in build and looks to that of Augusta). She Ran a local hardware. There Ed shot Bernice with a .22 rifle that he had taken from the rack in store, and then he drove the body home in the hardware’s truck. Some of the sources I’ve read have also mentioned that he took the cash register containing $41. But not because he wanted the money, he later told police that he was simply interested in its mechanics.                                                           Not long after this, was Ed caught out. After a big hunch that he was involved, local police asked Ed for a few words and before they got a chance to question him Ed explained how someone was trying to frame him for Worden’s death. So as you could well imagine, local police and Deputy Frank Worden (Bernice’s son) went to the Gein farmhouse…..later to be known as ‘The House of Horror’s’!                                                                       Here they found some of Ed’s collectables and handy-work……

Ed after being arrested undergoing court hearings.

·         Comic books of all descriptions

·         A collection of chewing gum

·         A belt made from human nipples

·         All kinds of furniture made from bones and skin (chairs, lamps, etc)

·         Female genitalia, one of which noted to be painted silver

·         Human skullcaps, apparently in use as soup bowls

·         A vest crafted from the skin of a woman’s torso

·         Dismembered body parts of Mary Hogan

·         Bernice Worden’s headless body hung upside down in the barn, with a long chainsaw gash running through it

·         And in a cardboard box in the house……Her corpse’s missing head

                    Gein farmhouse.................................................Woren's body and head             

 Gein was ultimately found guilty of murder by reason of insanity. He was put in various criminal psychiatric institutions, including the Central State Hospital in Wisconsin and the Mendota Mental Health Institute, where he died of respiratory failure on July 26, 1984, at age 77. Ed was a model patient throughout these years.

                           Ed Gein's Rippling effect

Ed’s story inspired many writers and filmmakers. Horror writer Robert Bloch based the story about deranged ‘mama’s boy’ Norman Bates on Ed Gein. In 1960, Alfred Hitchcock immortalized Bloch's pulp chiller, "Psycho", into a cinematic masterpiece. Ed and the character Norman Bates have quite a lot in common. Both the novel and Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film adaptation explain that Bates suffers severe emotional abuse as a child at the hands of his mother, Norma, who preaches to him that sexual intercourse is sinful and that all women (except herself) are whores. Ring any bells? Also later in the film (spoiler alert) we see that Norman is pretending to be his mother or has a split personality between himself and Norma. When in reality Norma is in a closed off room rotting in her bed. We can also see resemblances when Norman dresses up as his mother in the shocking shower scene.

               Norman Bates................................And himself 'crossdressing'...............................Norma

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was made in1974. It as a film doesn’t have quite as many similarities as Psycho does with Ed Gein, however the house decorated with human artifacts resembles the Gein farmhouse. Leatherface wears the mask made of human skin, just the way Ed Gein did, and hangs up his victims on meat hooks, the same way Ed Gein’s victim Bernice Worden was murdered. And of course the chainsaw, which Gein used to gut her hanging corpse. Also I can see slight similarities with Ed and Leatherface. In the film we feel sorry for Leatherface (not a whole lot though) because all his family treat him badly, the father beats him and repeatedly calls him an ‘idiot’. Like Ed, who you could say was mistreated by his overpowering mother Augusta, and was seen as a simple minded man by all who knew him.

Leatherface

Gein's fondness for wearing human flesh resurfaced again in 1991 as inspiration for the character Buffalo Bill in Jonathan Demme's "Silence of the Lambs", the homosexual psycho killer so named because he liked to "skin his humps". Bill, in one of the more famous parts of the movie is seen sitting down naked sewing a skin suit. Also it has been said that Gein was a cannibal, which could be pawned off to the idea of being inspiration for Hannibal Lecter, but as far as I can see through research….It was never really proven. The only real basis for this idea is that he stored organs etc in his fridge and in jars and used skull bowls to eat from. Some people just assumed he was keeping them fresh for his dinner!

Poster                                                   Hannibal Lecter                                        Buffalo Bill

  

"Deranged” and “ED GEIN”(the movie) are two films directly based on the life of Ed, although after further research it seems that both films veered from the facts to make the story of Ed more thrilling. “Three On A Meathook " is another film said to be based on the antics of his life. In this 1973 movie four girls go on a weekend trip to a lake, they start to have car problems on their way home and meet a local young man who takes them back to his farm where he lives with his father. Needless to say that some of the girls end up hanging naked on meat hooks which is the exact same way Bernice Warden was found in Geins farmhouse.

Some of the many movies Ed Gein inspired.

                                            

 Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Silence of The Lambs to name a few can all be traced back to Ed Gein in one way or another. These films as separate entities have influenced other movies alike. Psycho’s infamous shower stabbing scene alone is said to have kick started the movie lovers longing for horror. And because of this cult horror film I think it could be argued that Psycho initiated the craze of ’slasher’ movies. Gein is seen by many horror buffs as the  prototype for the modern day serial killer movie, and a vast amount of the horror films we’ve seen or are soon to see have been touched by the rippling effect of Ed Gein.                                                                                                                          So should we thank Ed?

References:

Cannibals & Evil Cult Killers.................by Ray Black............Publisher Futura

Deviant..................by Harold Schechters

www.imdb.com

www.trutv.com

Texas Chainsaw Massacre DVD special features.......'The real Texas Chainsaw Masscre'