Ed Gein

Chuck Parello
2000

This abysmal throwaway effort is a sad biopic on America's most interesting maniac. Fellow ghouls out there probably know all about Gein, and how he provided partial inspiration for "Silence of the Lambs," "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," and Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho." Parello's film is amateur hour all around, with crappy production values, hammy acting, and unnecessary low-budget CGI effects. The flat/dull cinematography lacks any sort of inspiration (let alone style), and is aesthetically more reminiscent of an episode of "The Gilmore Girls," than a horror flick. I do appreciate the stock footage that bookends the film with Plainfield, Wisconsin residents interviewed about their community monster, and the actual Gein, looking benign as milk, being lead around in handcuffs. Gein's reputation as one of America's most insidious serial killers has always interested me considering he only actually killed two women, and made most of his macabre arts and crafts projects from materials dug out of the local graveyard. The picture does a disappointing job of depicting farmer Gein's chamber of horrors with the matter-of-fact discovery of skullcap soupbowls and salted noses. It's a an emotionless and distant finale, in which the seemingly uninterested tone makes the props look even more like latex flesh and resin bone than the ghastly crimes deserve. I'm a little curious if 2007's "Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield," starring Kane Hodder (Jason Voorhees!) is any better, though something tells me it's not.