| The new version of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is here, just in time for Halloween, and it is surprisingly good. The film’s advertising claims it’s inspired by a true story – a clever little marketing ploy that’s been used before, and often gets results.
I suspect this little half-truth will lead to a delightfully jittery atmosphere for movie audiences, which is surely the whole point of the exercise. Watching horror movies is particularly fun when the audience contains a few gullible types whose suspension of disbelief is bolstered by the suggestion that the onscreen events actually happened. Still, some of you might want to know the facts, so here they are. (Most of the following is pretty much public knowledge, but it bears repeating under the circumstances.)
The "true story" they’re referring to is the case of Ed Gein. Gein’s crimes bear virtually no resemblance to those depicted in either Chainsaw film, with two important exceptions: Gein owned (and perhaps wore) a mask made of human skin. In fact, he had a whole woman costume, including hair, breasts, and genitalia, made from exhumed corpses.
His Wisconsin farmhouse was decorated extensively with human remains.
Pretty much everything else in the 1974 version of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was the invention of screenwriters Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel. The remake, now in theatres, follows the Hooper-Henkel story reasonably closely, and is similarly fictitious. In other words, if you’re travelling through Texas, you probably don’t have to worry about a family of chainsaw-toting cannibals trying to turn you into chili. (Be careful where you step– some Texans shoot strangers who trespass on their property.)
The real story takes place not in Texas, but a farm near Plainfield, Wisconsin. Born in 1906, Gein was raised by a deeply religious, overbearing mother, who railed against the sins of the flesh, inadvertently causing young Gein to fear sex and distrust women. When his mother died, Gein was devastated. He continued to live alone in his remote farmhouse, occasionally doing odd jobs for neighbours. Eventually, he started digging up graves and stealing corpses, including that of his beloved mother.
On November 17, 1957, the local sheriff was investigating what appeared to be a daytime abduction of Bernice Worden from the hardware store she owned. A fairly obvious trail of clues led to Gein’s farm, where Worden’s body was found in the barn, hanging upside down and gutted like a deer. What was found inside the house was even more shocking – clothing, furniture and handicrafts made from human remains were everywhere. Items included a box of noses, lampshades made of human skin and a belt made out of nipples.
Gein went quietly into custody, and confessed to Worden’s murder, as well as to the murder of Mary Hogan, a barmaid who had disappeared a few years earlier. It’s possible that Gein killed more than just these two victims, but as far as the evidence shows, all the rest of the human detritus that adorned his home came from plundered graves. Gein was sent to a mental hospital, and behaved himself very well until his death in 1984. (Therapy had an extremely beneficial effect on Gein, and presumably, so did hanging around living, breathing people for a change.)
Other films have drawn inspiration from the Gein case. They include:
Psycho (1960): The wonderfully twitchy Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) shared Gein’s mother fixation, and his skill at taxidermy.
The Silence of the Lambs (1991): Gein was the inspiration, not for Hannibal Lector, but for Buffalo Bill, the transsexual killer Lector helped to locate. Like Gein, Bill had his own homemade woman suit.
Deranged (1974): For years, this terrific little cult movie came closer to the truth than any of the other Gein-inspired flicks. Roberts Blossom (the old man from Home Alone) gives an absolutely superb performance as Ezra Cobb, infusing his rural madman character with real humanity. The original Moore Video VHS version includes a half-hour documentary entitled Ed Gein: American Maniac, while MGM has a Deranged/Motel Hell double feature on DVD.
Ed Gein (2000): This recent flick tries to be at least as true to the facts as Deranged, but isn’t anywhere near as interesting or involving. They get most of the names and events right, and Steve Railsback physically resembles the real Gein, but this film manages to make its true story appear implausible. Too bad – nice try. |
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