B-Movies & Couch Classics
Reviews of Movies Often Overlooked or Forgotten
by Arik Ben Treston
Ed Gein
 Too
often, horror films focus solely on the gore and blood to try and evoke
fear and fright in viewers when the better direction to go with is the
psychological terror path. Case in point is the untouchable Silence of
the Lambs that, while gory, relied more on the mental horrors that
were occurring to scare the audience. Its sequel, Hannibal, unfortunately
missed that whole concept and went straight to silly bargain-basement
blood and guts horror, forgoing the true beauty of Silence’s
inner-workings that caused it to be such a scary success. But we aren’t
here to bash Hannibal — though maybe we should be. No, we are here
to shed some light on Ed Gein, a small little film (shot in 17
days!) that is based on a true story. In fact, Ed Gein himself was the
actual basis for Psycho — whose author lived only a few miles from
Gein in Missouri during the horrific events of the 1950s — Texas
Chainsaw Massacre, and the Buffalo Bill Character in Silence Of The
Lambs.
Veteran character actor Steve Railsback plays Gein with slyness and just
the right amount of innocence. Railsback is no stranger to evil
characters, having played Charles Manson in the famous tele-pic “Helter
Skelter” and with Gein, he performs disturbingly well as this psychotic
schizophrenic man who spent a little too much time killing people, wearing
their skins, digging up graves, etc. Gein was a very lonely and quiet man
who lived on the old family farm. The few top floors in his head weren’t
occupied, if you get my drift. With that, his predilection to be a sick
bastard worked even better and he was very adept at slicing and dicing his
way through locals. His strained and strange relationship with his late
mother certainly influenced how Gein thought about things and what he felt
he had to do to make things right with the world. While the film doesn’t
endorse Gein in any way, it does however show him to be more than a
lunatic that did disgusting things. He was a complex little man who didn’t
see the evil in doing what he did and that’s why it was more disturbing
then if it was a simple cut (no pun intended) and dry psycho who loved to
kill and torture.
While technically, Ed Gein is a “B-Movie,” it manages to rise above
the usual pitfalls that accompany such films and works hard to stay away
from clichés that would make this movie tired quickly. The filmmakers
decided to show us less and let us imagine more, something that’s usually
more effective anyway in making the audience work harder to surmise what
is going on.
Gein is neither a fantastic film nor a cheap thriller. Rather, it’s
a well-made little film that tries hard to keep its head above lesser
fare. Railsback, the poor-man’s Tommy Lee Jones who also served as
Executive Producer of the film, proves to have considerable talents for
this role and doesn’t overplay things, instead keeping them calm and
under-the-top, where they can be more effective.
For a film made on a miniscule budget and shot in only a matter of a
couple of weeks, you will be surprised at the quality of this film and the
integrity that it possesses in an area that can so often be made into
schlock shock crap with no redeeming qualities or creative talents.
Gein is a standout for how it was made and for the fact that this
interestingly gruesome character has not been focused before in any
previous film. For that alone, it’s worth the rental.
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