Buttmunker

You might not know Ed Gein by name because there hasn't been a movie yet that has tracked the true story with his name as the killer. But there has been movies based on his crimes - namely, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and, more specifically, PSYCHO. But in "Texas," the character based on Gein is an unintelligible moose. And in "Psycho," the character Norman Bates was an intelligent, crafty, and skinny depiction of Gein. How about a straight ahead story on the man, instead of movies "based on the man?"

Same thing with Ronald DeFeo, Jr. Someone says "Ronald DeFeo," and everyone goes, "Who's that?" Well, he's the guy who murdered his mother, father, two sisters, and two brothers with a shotgun early one morning in 1974. Now while that isn't exactly a unique story (unfortunately), the aftermath was phenomenal. At the trial, the 23-year old killer DeFeo tried to blame his actions on a supernatural entity, but the story wasn't to be believed and he was sent away to prison. A year later, his defense lawyer, William Weber, and the new owners of the DeFeo house, concocted a story about the house being haunted. The new owners, George and Kathy Lutz, stood to gain money on the story with a book deal (which they did), and the laywer stood to gain a new trial for his client (which it didn't). There was a book deal, a little something called The Amityville Horror, and the rest is history. There's been movies based on "Amityville," but just the fabrication aspect of it. And sure, there's been a movie loosely based on the DeFeos, but it didn't have their real names, and it still derived its plot from the supernatural. It would be great to have a movie based on the DeFeo story, from growing up in an abusive home, to the murders, to the brilliant sceme to get a new trial, to the runaway success on an alleged haunted house in New York.

Iron Chef

Ummm

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...v=glance&s=dvd

Alien Redrum

And the man that plays Gein is none other than Steve Railsback, aka Charlie Manson in Helter Skelter.

Dimension X

Deranged (1974) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991) were also based on Ed Gein's story.

Judging by Ed Gein (2001), Deranged is pretty faithful to the actual events.

Giantrobo

I see the Ed Gein dvd in stores ALL THE TIME.

FantasticVSDoom

The Ed Gein movie is pretty loosely based as well, and not a good movie so I wouldnt waste the time or money...

DonnachaOne

The fact is, serial killer's aren't all that exciting. Sure, there stories are creepy and gruesome in summary, but there's often very little substance to their story. I imagine that's why so many writers take attributes from Serial Killers to piece together an engaging story, instead of going fact-for-fact.

Also, when you consider a fact-based story, there's the life rights to consider. Would families of victims agree to have their murdered loved ones mentioned in something that allegedly glorifies the murderer? If one was to change victims' names, that would still be playing with the facts.

Mammal

Oh yes it is a good movie. I think so anyway. So there.

Cusm

How about the new batch of serial killer movies that look liek the Ed Gein cover? I have seen Gacey, Bundy and a couple of others. Are any of these worth 2 hours of my life?

Buttmunker

I didn't mean to imply that there weren't any movies on Gein (or DeFeo) - I know I wrote that in my thread title, but the point I was really going for was that there weren't any films in the same caliber as Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Psycho (or Silence of the Lambs, for that matter). They took bits and pieces (pun intended) of Gein for two separate, totally different characters in two totally different movies. Why not make a big budget movie with all the cream? Something as informative as Copycat - but just about one killer, not several.

Not for nothing, but that Manson film could be updated, too.

DVDProfessor

I'm sure we'll see a film called Manson from the company that brought you crap like Ed Gein, Dahmer, & Ted Bundy

Mutley Hyde

Whaddya want? A documentary? It seems that with the titles you've mentioned, you've got a good representation, albeit a cross section, of serial killers. Anything factually representative of actual cases would bring the production to a bio-pic, which just don't do well outside of the documentary circuit (small indie theaters for one week runs, or straight to video, or made for TV... catch my drift?).

Little bit o' trivia - the book Psycho may have been inspired by Ed Gein, but Norman Bates wasn't meant to be representative of Gein; Bloch actually references our famous fiend by name at the end of the book... "Almost the entire front page was given over to the Bates case. AP and UP picked it up right away, and there was quite a bit about it on television. Some of the write-ups compared it to the Gein affair up north, a few years back."

I just read the book about a month ago for the first time, and was actually pretty surprised to see Gein specifically mentioned.

Mutley Hyde

Oh yeah, and there's Henry. That's a good one.

And moving from serial killers to mass murderers, let's not forget Powers Boo, er, I mean Jim Jones. Oh who am I kidding... Powers Booth in The Guyana Tragedy is Jim Jones!