5 Iconic Horror Movies Inspired by the Real-Life Crimes of Monster Subject Ed Gein

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It started with 2022’s Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. Then came 2024’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. Now, Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan are returning with Monster: The Ed Gein Story, the third season of their Monster anthology series. This season focuses on Ed Gein, who was famously known as the “Butcher of Plainfield” and the “Plainfield Ghoul.”

Premiering Oct. 3 on Netflix, The Ed Gein Story features Charlie Hunnam as Ed Gein, a farmer from rural Wisconsin who admitted to killing two women, Bernice Worden and Mary Hogan, and disfiguring their bodies-along with remains he’d taken from graves. In 1957, when police searched Gein’s remote home in Plainview, they found Worden’s headless and gutted body in a shed, and a horrifying assortment of body parts and objects made from human remains. Gein said he committed these acts to recreate his deceased mother, Augusta Gein (played by Laurie Metcalf), and was legally declared insane. He lived out the rest of his life in a mental institution.

The deeply disturbing details of the Gein case horrified the nation and became the inspiration for some of Hollywood’s most notorious movie villains. Here are five classic horror films that drew inspiration from his story.

Psycho (1960)

Alfred Hitchcock’s influential psychological thriller, inspired by Robert Bloch’s 1959 novel of the same name, used Ed Gein’s disturbing relationship with his controlling and deeply religious mother as a basis for creating a uniquely frightening character: Norman Bates. Bates appears as a quiet, polite man, but hides a terrifying personality within. Similar to how Gein said his mother’s death led to his insanity and drove him to commit terrible acts in an attempt to *become* her, Norman’s unhealthy and obsessive love for his deceased mother, Norma, is shown to be the cause of his mental breakdown. He famously tells the ill-fated Marion Crane, in a memorable and unsettling line with a double meaning early in the film, “Well, a boy’s best friend is his mother.”

Deranged (1974)

Despite a few exaggerated parts, Jeff Gillen and Alan Ormsby’s low-budget film is often praised for being a fairly realistic portrayal of the Gein story. It centers on Ezra Cobb, a solitary farmer who begins robbing graves and committing murder after his overbearing mother passes away. The film is structured like a real-crime documentary, featuring a narrator who sometimes appears on screen to offer insights into Cobb’s disturbing actions.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

In the classic slasher film by director Tobe Hooper, the terrifying Leatherface’s habit of cutting off victims’ faces and wearing them as masks seems to have been influenced by the disturbing actions of Ed Gein. Furthermore, when the group of friends initially stumbles upon the Sawyer family’s horrifying home, Pam’s discovery of dismembered human remains and furniture crafted from skin and bones closely mirrors the shocking finds investigators made while searching Gein’s house. This connection is understandable, as Hooper himself stated that he heard stories about Gein’s gruesome deeds from his relatives while growing up in Wisconsin.

He recounted a story to Flashback Files in 2015 about a man who lived in a nearby town, roughly twenty-seven miles away. This man was reportedly digging up graves and keeping the bones and skin in his home. He described the man as a genuine boogeyman.

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Author Thomas Harris, who wrote the novel The Silence of the Lambs – the basis for Jonathan Demme’s Academy Award-winning film – apparently created the unsettling character of Buffalo Bill after studying the methods of three famous serial killers. He learned about them while attending a criminal psychology class led by John Douglas, a renowned FBI profiler who served as the inspiration for Jack Crawford, the head of the bureau in Silence. Douglas explained that Buffalo Bill’s disturbing urge to abduct, murder, and skin women to make a “woman suit” stemmed from Harris’s knowledge of Ed Gein.

According to Douglas, the character of “Bill” was inspired by three real-life killers. He explained in a 1999 Salon interview that one was Ted Bundy. Another was , a man from Plainview, Wisconsin, who committed several murders. Gein would also exhume bodies, skin them, and preserve the flesh in motor oil, creating he would then wear. Douglas also cited , a man from Philadelphia, who held women captive in a pit roughly five and a half feet deep.

House of 1000 Corpses (2003)

Director Rob Zombie, known for his music career, created a disturbing and memorable horror film-clearly influenced by The Texas Chain Saw Massacre-that follows four college students who accidentally encounter a twisted family living in the backwoods. This family, the Fireflys, enjoys inflicting pain, practicing satanic rituals, and even cannibalism. While the entire clan is dangerous, the most terrifying member is Otis B. Driftwood, a cruel killer who gets pleasure from wearing his victims’ skin as clothing and making horrifying mementos from their bodies. At this point, you’ve probably figured out what inspired him.

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2025-10-03 17:06