Ed Gein may not be America\u2019s most infamous serial killer \u2014 he\u2019s eclipsed by the likes of Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer in the public imagination \u2014 but his macabre crimes were fodder for several classic horror movies that are permanently imprinted on American minds.<\/p>\n
Gein, a Midwestern farmer pushed by personal tragedy into pathological criminality, is the focus of the third season of \u201cMonster,\u201d Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan\u2019s crime anthology series. The show\u2019s debut season centered on Dahmer (played by Evan Peters) and its sophomore season focused on the Menendez brothers (Nicholas Alexander Chavez and Cooper Koch).<\/p>\n
Charlie Hunnam leads the show\u2019s third installment, \u201cMonster: The Ed Gein Story,\u201d premiering Friday on Netflix, as the titular \u201cButcher of Plainfield.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSerial killer. Grave robber. Psycho. In the frozen fields of 1950s rural Wisconsin, a friendly, mild-mannered recluse named Eddie Gein lived quietly on a decaying farm \u2014 hiding a house of horrors so gruesome it would redefine the American nightmare,\u201d reads the show\u2019s official logline.<\/p>\n
\u201cDriven by isolation, psychosis and an all-consuming obsession with his mother, Gein\u2019s perverse crimes birthed a new kind of monster that would haunt Hollywood for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gein\u2019s enmeshment with his mother inspired the character Norman Bates, the bumbling motelier and murderer of Alfred Hitchcock\u2019s \u201cPsycho\u201d (1960). The killer\u2019s habit of fashioning costumes and furniture out of human skin is shared by his fictional counterparts Buffalo Bill (\u201cThe Silence of the Lambs\u201d) and Leatherface (\u201cThe Texas Chain Saw Massacre.\u201d)<\/p>\n
But who was the real Ed Gein, and what moved him to commit the crimes that have fascinated horror directors for decades?<\/p>\n
Born in 1906, Gein was raised on an isolated farm in Plainfield, Wis., by an alcoholic father and an ultrareligious mother, whom he adored and defended until her death in 1945.<\/p>\n
In \u201cEd Gein,\u201d a 2001 film based closely on Gein\u2019s life, the killer\u2019s mother teaches her sons that all women (except her) are promiscuous evildoers and restricts her sons\u2019 contact with the outside world. While Gein\u2019s father\u2019s abuse is explicit, his mother\u2019s is insidious \u2014 and arguably more deleterious to the young Gein.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the film portrays him, Ed Gein never had a chance,\u201d former Times critic Kevin Thomas wrote in 2001.<\/p>\n
In his 1989 true crime book \u201cDeviant,\u201d Harold Schechter characterizes the young Gein as a social outcast, resentful of almost everyone but his mother.<\/p>\n
\u201cCut off from all social contacts, completely separated from the life of the community, condemned to an existence of crushing poverty in a remote and desolate region with two tormented and inimical parents, Eddie \u2014 never emotionally strong to begin with \u2014 was retreating farther and farther into a private world of fantasy,\u201d Schechter writes.<\/p>\n
Gein\u2019s father George died in 1940 of heart failure. Gein\u2019s older brother Henry died four years later, reportedly from the same cause \u2014 though many believe Henry was actually Gein\u2019s first victim. Then in 1945, the death of Gein\u2019s mother Augusta reportedly triggered the soon-to-be killer\u2019s spiral into psychosis.<\/p>\n
The 2023 docuseries \u201cPsycho: The Lost Tapes of Ed Gein\u201d features medical records from 1957, the year Gein, then 51, was arrested. According to these records, Gein began grave digging in the aftermath of his mother\u2019s death. He often took the bodies back to his shed; other times, he mutilated the bodies at their grave sites.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen questioned as to his reasons for doing this, he stated that he thought it was because he wanted a remembrance of his mother,\u201d the records read. Gein also confessed that, \u201cfor a period of time after his mother\u2019s death, he felt that he could arouse the dead by an act of will power. He claimed to have tried to arouse his dead mother by an act of will power and was disappointed when he was unsuccessful.\u201d<\/p>\n
The corpses proved to be insufficient surrogates for Gein, who later devolved into murdering middle-aged women who reminded him of his mother. His first victim, 51-year-old tavern owner Mary Hogan, disappeared in 1954, and his second, 58-year-old hardware store owner Bernice Worden, was killed in 1957.<\/p>\n
As chronicled in \u201cPsycho: The Lost Tapes of Ed Gein,\u201d Worden\u2019s son Frank alerted authorities to her disappearance after he found shell casings and a trail of blood at their family hardware store. He also found a receipt for antifreeze, which Gein had inquired about the day before Worden went missing.<\/p>\n
Upon entering Gein\u2019s farm shed, authorities found Worden\u2019s naked corpse hanging and mutilated \u201clike some game animal that\u2019s been dressed out after the kill,\u201d \u201cDeviant\u201d author Schechter said in the documentary. They also found human skulls fashioned into soup bowls; lampshades and costumes made from human skin; and mutilated female body parts, among other nightmare fuel.<\/p>\n
In a recording made on the night of Gein\u2019s arrest and finally unearthed in 2023 \u2014 the same ones Hunnam used to inform his voice as Gein for \u201cMonster\u201d \u2014 the killer described his gruesome acts as \u201ctaken from reading about news magazines and them things. Taking the flesh off, like a head hunter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Forensic psychiatrist N.G. Berrill, who was interviewed in the Gein docuseries, said Gein was likely referencing midcentury pulp magazines that laid out the atrocities carried out by the Nazis during World War II. Ilse Koch, the wife of a Nazi commander, had a lampshade made from the skin of murdered inmates.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact is, when you see all the bodies piled up and you see people as disposable, you understand that people were experimented with, if you\u2019re inclined emotionally or psychologically to that type of thinking, even if you don\u2019t want to admit it, it grabs your attention in sort of the wrong way,\u201d Berrill said.<\/p>\n
Gein ultimately confessed to murdering Hogan and Worden and robbing more than 40 graves, though he denied cannibalism and necrophilia claims. While initially convicted of first-degree murder in Worden\u2019s death, he was eventually declared not guilty by reason of insanity \u2014 diagnosed as schizophrenic \u2014 and was institutionalized until his death due to complications from cancer in 1984.<\/p>\n
Gein\u2019s crimes shocked his community and the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a kind of meek, unremarkable man who could have been your neighbor. And there\u2019s something eerie about that, that is disruptive to our collective ideas of, \u2018What is a monster?\u2019\u201d said Jooyoung Lee, a serial homicide researcher at the University of Toronto, in \u201cPsycho: The Lost Tapes of Ed Gein.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some people\u2019s fascination with Gein even verged into fandom, according to Hamish McAlpine, producer of the 2000 film \u201cEd Gein.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cApparently there are 182 websites devoted to Ed Gein,\u201d McAlpine told The Times in 2001. \u201cThere is even an Ed Gein fan club. You can buy Ed Gein memorabilia. You can buy a bust of Ed Gein, Ed Gein ashtrays and even Ed Gein calendars.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gein\u2019s simmering psychosis coupled with the barbarity of his crimes made him an ideal horror archetype.<\/p>\n
Gein was the inspiration for Robert Bloch\u2019s novel \u201cPsycho,\u201d which Alfred Hitchcock adapted into the 1960 film of the same name. In Hitchcock\u2019s movie, Bates, like Gein, exhibits severe attachment to his mother. Bates murders his victims due to a form of dissociative identity disorder that drives him according to her will.<\/p>\n
\u201cA boy\u2019s best friend is his mother,\u201d Bates famously says in the film.<\/p>\n
Gein is among the serial killers who \u201cThe Silence of the Lambs\u201d (1991) director Jonathan Demme said inspired his film\u2019s villain Buffalo Bill, who, like Gein, skinned his victims.<\/p>\n
That killer quirk also made its way into \u201cThe Texas Chain Saw Massacre,\u201d which sees the chainsaw-wielding Leatherface sporting a mask made of human flesh. The indie horror film\u2019s director, Tobe Hooper, said that as a child he heard Gein\u2019s story from his relatives who lived in Wisconsin.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey told us the story about this man who lived in the next town from them, about 27 miles or so, who was digging up graves and using the bones and skin in his house,\u201d Hooper said in a 2015 interview with director Barend de Voogd.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was all I knew about it. They didn\u2019t mention his name,\u201d Hooper said. \u201cBut to me he was like a real boogeyman. That stayed in my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ed Gein’s crimes have left a lasting impact on American horror culture, inspiring some of the most iconic horror movies of all time. His story serves as a reminder of the darker aspects of human nature and the devastating consequences of untreated mental illness. As we continue to be fascinated by his crimes, it’s essential to remember the real people behind the horror stories and the importance of addressing mental health issues before they escalate into tragedy.<\/p>\n
Q: Who was Ed Gein?
\nA: Ed Gein was an American serial killer and body snatcher who gained notoriety for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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