Ed Gein & Hollywood (Bonus Episode)

In this Halloween inspired bonus episode, we dig into the real-life monster who changed horror forever – Ed Gein, the “Butcher of Plainfield.” His gruesome crimes shocked America in the 1950s and went on to inspire some of cinema’s most iconic villains. After going over Gein’s life and crimes, we explore how Norman Bates in Psycho (1960), Leatherface in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), and Jame Gumb (Buffalo Bill) in The Silence of the Lambs (1991) each borrowed pieces of Gein’s disturbing psyche – from his obsession with his mother to his skin-crafting horrors. Along the way, we separate fact from fiction to uncover how Hollywood transformed true crime into urban legend.

Primary Source:

• Schechter, Harold. Deviant: The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein, the Original “Psycho.” Pocket Books (1989).
• Ed Gein Documentary

Instagram: @CriminalAdaptations

Email us: criminaladaptations@gmail.com

TikTok: @criminaladaptations

X: x.com/CriminalAdapt

Theme: DARKNESS (feat. EdKara) by Ghost148

Chapters

• 0:00 Cold Open & Halloween Setup
• 0:53 Why Ed Gein, Why Now
• 2:50 Origins: The Gein Family Story
• 10:42 Isolation, Control, and Belief
• 15:49 Deaths of Henry and Augusta
• 23:02 Descent Into Grave Robbing
• 31:02 Mary Hogan Vanishes
• 31:42 Bernice Warden’s Murder
• 33:26 The Farmhouse of Horrors
• 38:09 Interrogation and Insanity Claims
• 43:13 Exhumations Confirm the Truth
• 47:39 Media Frenzy and Mythmaking
• 52:10 Psychiatric Findings and Commitment
• 58:38 House Burns, Auction Draws Crowds
• 1:04:20 Hospital Years and Trial Outcome
• 1:12:11 Parole Bid, Final Years, Death
• 1:17:49 Hosts Debate Insanity & Diagnosis
• 1:24:25 Psycho: From Novel to Landmark Film
• 1:31:45 Norman vs. Ed: Parallels and Gaps
• 1:39:41 Texas Chain Saw Massacre: Origins & Impact

Transcript

Hard Copy News: 0:07

You're working too fast.

Georgia Foster (Ed's Neighbor): 0:10

I'm sorry, Mother. Just go slow and steady.

Hard Copy News: 0:17

Take your time, sweet boy. The movie Psycho went on to become a sequel, then another sequel. The movie Texas Chainsaw Massacre was also largely based on these crimes, as was The Silence of the Lamb. Long after the movies have forgotten, though, the terrible legend of Ed Gean will live on in Wisconsin.

Remi: 0:48

And welcome back, everyone. Halloween is here, and we couldn't resist bringing you all a special bonus episode about one of the most infamous figures in true crime history, the so-called butcher of Plainfield, Ed Gean. His gruesome story seeped into pop culture and became the inspiration behind some of horror's most iconic creations, including Psycho's Norman Bates, Leatherface in Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs.

Ashley: 1:23

But there's another reason we're tackling Gean now. Netflix's hit anthology series Monster is back. After Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan shocked audiences with Dahmer and revisited the Menendez Brothers, they're turning their lens on Ed Gean next.

Remi: 1:39

We previously watched the first two seasons of Monster and were really blown away by the attention to detail and the quality of the Dahmer season and the Menendez Brothers season, so we were excited to add this one to the docket as well.

Ashley: 1:57

And it's spooky season, so it gave us a great excuse to watch three classic horror flicks.

Remi: 2:03

Were you familiar with Ed Geen before we decided to do this episode? I knew a little bit about him, but I feel like I'm practically an expert on him after all the research we've done.

Ashley: 2:14

I knew a fair amount about him, not necessarily about like his upbringing, but about his crimes. I was pretty well versed in it. But I definitely learned a lot from doing this research.

Remi: 2:27

I had known that Norman Bates, Leatherface, and Buffalo Bill were inspired by Gean, but until really diving into it, I didn't realize how little was taken from Gean. Which is why we decided that this Halloween, we're pulling back the curtain on the real case, the movies it spawned, and how Ed Gean still shapes American horror decades later.

Ashley: 2:53

Then in a follow-up episode next week, we'll discuss Monster, the Ed Gean story, which promises to bring Gean's twisted tale to a whole new generation just in time for Spooky Seeds Ed. So let's get into the true story of Ed Gean.

Remi: 3:29

In 1879, three-year-old George Geane's life changed forever. His family lived on a small farm in Coon Valley, Wisconsin. One day, his parents and older sister headed into town to run errands, but tragedy struck when their wagon was swept away in a sudden flash flood. George was left an orphan as a result. He was taken in by his maternal grandparents, finished elementary school, and began apprenticing with the local blacksmith. By his early twenties, George left the farm and moved to La Crosse, drifting between jobs, selling insurance, doing carpentry, working at a tannery, and even a brief stint at the city power plant. But steady work didn't last. George struggled to hold jobs, likely because of his drinking. Most of his days ended at the bar where he'd spend nearly all of his paycheck. He also wrestled with dark moods, sometimes blaming the world for his bad luck, other times convinced he was worthless and incompetent.

Ashley: 4:32

During his time in the cross, George met Augusta. She was just 19, and he was 24. Augusta was deeply religious, fiercely moral, and quick to condemn what she saw as the immorality of modern life. Stern, self-righteous, and dominating, she came from a large, close-knit family. Something George, with his own fractured childhood, may have found appealing. On December 4th, 1899, George and Augusta married. From the start, Augusta ruled the home with an iron fist. She was harsh, rigid, and deeply intolerant. She belittled George constantly, calling him worthless, lazy, good for nothing, and lacking in ambition spirit. The usually withdrawn and quiet George rarely fought back, but on rare occasions, his anger broke through and he'd lash out, sometimes even striking her.

Remi: 5:27

On January 17th, 1902, George and Augusta's first son Henry was born. His childhood was marked by isolation and loneliness, a quiet life that stretched on for 40 years until his death. Augusta kept her distance from Henry, admitting she had prayed for a daughter instead of a son. Seven years later, on August 27, 1909, Edward Theodore was born. Augusta swore this child would not grow up like other men, but even with that vow, her love came with cruelty. Whenever young Ed made mistakes, she cut him down by calling him useless, stupid, and someone only a mother could love.

Ashley: 6:10

By 1913, Augusta had a new plan. The family would leave the temptations of the city behind and become farmers. She scrapped together enough money for a modest place and moved the family 40 miles away to a small dairy farm. They didn't stay there long, less than a year, but it marked the first of many attempts to keep her family isolated and under her control. By 1914, the Geans bought a 195-acre farm in Plainfield, Wisconsin, a remote homestead that instantly pleased Augusta. The house sat six miles outside of town, with the nearest neighbors a quarter mile down the road. For Augusta, the distance was perfect. She distrusted Plainfield and the people in it, convinced the small farming town of roughly 800 had loose morals and weak religious values. To her, the residents were untrustworthy, beneath her family. Yet Plainfield itself was a modest, hard-working community, mostly poor farmers who still took pride in helping one another.

Remi: 7:13

At eight years old, Ed began grade school at a one-room schoolhouse with just 12 students. He stayed through the eighth grade, finishing his formal education at 16. His performance was average, his IQ unremarkable, but what stood out was how alone he felt. Ed struggled to connect with his classmates and never quite fit in. On the rare occasions he seemed close to making a friend, Augusta shut it down. She warned him other families were bad influences, the father's drunks, the mother's immoral. Ed absorbed her judgment and stayed isolated. He was a quiet, sensitive boy, soft-spoken, meek, easily brought to tears, and unable to take a joke. When other kids teased him, especially with crude sexual remarks, it only reinforced what Augusta had taught that the world was wicked and dangerous, and the only safe place was home.

Ashley: 8:12

Life on the farm was harsh. It produced just enough to keep the family fed. The boys rarely left except for monthly supply trips into town. Meanwhile, their father drank heavily and grew abusive towards his wife and sons. As the boys got older, Augusta's teachings became darker. She railed against the sins of modern women, quoting scripture and retelling Bible stories like Noah's Ark, warning of a cleansing flood that would wash women's wickedness away. Her views on sex were extreme. She considered it a disgusting necessity, something to endure only for the sake of having children. She made her son swear to stay uncontaminated by women.

Remi: 9:27

That same year, at 36, Ed traveled to Milwaukee for his army physical, but was rejected for service due to a small growth on his eyelid that slightly affected his vision. With George gone, the sons picked up odd jobs to bring in extra money. Ed worked as a handyman and even babysat for neighbors. Children loved him. He was gentle, patient, and more at ease with them than with adults. Around women, especially, Ed was awkward and self-conscious. Still, those who hired him found him polite, dependable, and quiet.

Ashley: 10:14

Henry grew increasingly independent, taking more work away from home. Ed admired his older brother deeply. They'd always been close, spending time fishing and hunting together. But Henry worried about Ed's intense attachment to Augusta. He once hinted that Ed might be too close to their mother. A suggestion that seemed to genuinely surprise Ed. On May 16th, 1944, tragedy struck again. Henry Gean died suddenly at just 43 years old. That day, Henry and Ed were fighting a brush fire in a nearby marsh when the two became separated. Ed later reported his brother missing and joined the search. But something about how Henry was found raised eyebrows. Ed led searchers straight to the body. The ground nearby was scorched, but Henry himself wasn't burned. There were also unexplained bruises on his head. Despite those odd details, the official cause of death was ruled asphyxiation. Investigators noted no foul play, and the case was quietly closed.

Remi: 11:19

Not long after Henry's death, Augusta herself fell ill. She complained of feeling faint and weak, and a doctor was called. The diagnosis? A stroke. From that moment on, Augusta became completely dependent on Ed, and he seemed to welcome it. Caring for his mother gave him a sense of purpose. He waited on her hand and foot, tending to her every need. At night, he'd sit by her bedside and read aloud from the Bible, devoted and watchful. But in the winter of 1945, tragedy came again. While visiting a neighbor to discuss selling straw, Augusta suffered a second stroke as they pulled into the yard. She was rushed to the hospital, but it was too late. On December 29, 1945, Augusta Gean died at the age of 67.

Ashley: 12:13

After Augusta's death, Ed's world grew smaller and stranger. Though he mostly stopped working his own land, the farm falling further into disrepair, he never turned down a neighbor who needed an extra set of hands. He survived by leasing out a few acres and picking up handyman work around Playingfield. In his free time, Ed buried himself in reading, especially lurid true crime magazines like Inside Crime and Startling Detective. He became obsessed with violent, disturbing stories. When he did venture off the farm, it was usually for work or to visit Mary Hogan's tavern. Ed wasn't much of a drinker, but he was fascinated by Mary, a brash, foul-mouthed middle-aged woman who oddly reminded him of his mother.

Remi: 13:01

Inside the farmhouse, things were bleak. Trash and rotting clutter covered the floors. Ed's diet was little more than pork and beans, and he even saved chewing gum in an old coffee can. He lived in just three rooms, the kitchen, living room, and his bedroom, while the rest of the house slowly decayed. His reading turned much darker too. He devoured accounts of notorious killers and atrocities, Nazis, cannibals, headhunters. He was fascinated by the Bitch of Buckenwald, Ilsa Kotch, the wife of a Nazi who became infamous for collecting human remains. He clipped newspaper articles about local tragedies, car wrecks, suicides, unexplained disappearances. He even read about a man who had undergone a sex change operation in New York, fueling his own fantasies about becoming a woman. Ed also believed, at least for a time, that his mother's spirit lingered. He claimed to hear her voice telling him to be good. He was convinced he might bring her back, and even tried, though without any success. Meanwhile, his relationship with the community soured. Though he'd long helped neighbors with heavy labor, some repaid him with mockery or unfairness, shorting his wages, cheating him, or refusing to return borrowed tools. Resentment slowly replaced his once quiet willingness to help.

Ashley: 14:41

By 1947, Ed's inner world turned darker. That year, he began making secret night trips to local graveyards. Often, he'd wander among the headstones, doing nothing, and return home. But other nights he acted. Over the years, Ed admitted to making more than 40 nighttime visits, and on at least nine occasions, he dug up the newly dead. Always middle-aged women whose obituaries he clipped from the paper. Ed later claimed these episodes felt dreamlike, almost as if he was in a trance. When the urge came over him, he said he'd sometimes pray, trying to fight it off, but not always with success. He insisted his interest in dead bodies was scientific. As a boy, he once dreamed of being a doctor, and now he used the bodies to study anatomy firsthand. He swore he never ate human flesh and said he stopped grave robbing by 1954. Ed's methods were chillingly methodical. He probed the ground with a metal rod to test how recently a grave had been filled. Sometimes he exhumed entire bodies, other times he took only the parts he wanted. He preserved skin with oil to keep it supple, discarded bones and unwanted remains, and fashioned grotesque keepsakes. He made masks from human faces and even assembled a full suit of skin, wearing it around the farmhouse and occasionally outside on warm nights. He sometimes felt guilty. There were times he returned stolen remains to their graves, but the pattern, death, obsession, and desecration had already taken hold.

Remi: 16:47

Mary herself was gone. In the weeks that followed, Ed Gean didn't stay silent. Around other men, when Mary's disappearance came up, he'd sometimes crack a strange joke, saying she was over at his place. Everyone laughed it off because Ed was the town oddball. No one took him seriously, including his neighbor, Georgia Foster, who recalled the following story.

Georgia Foster (Ed's Neighbor): 17:12

In the wintertime it got kind of boring in the afternoon, so I'd go over there and sit with whoever was attending the store. And one day, Eddie Dean was there and Irene and we sat around the stove and we rehashed what it might have happened to uh Mary Hogan. I had a brilliant idea, and I said to Irene, you know, I think I know what happened to Mary Hogan. And she said, What? And I said, Well, I think Eddie ran off with her here. I said, you know, he's such a lady killer. And uh he laughed and he said, Yeah, and yum yum, was she good? And I said, Oh my god, Ed.

Remi: 17:43

Next came the whispers. Kids claimed they'd seen shrunken heads at Ed's farmhouse. The story spread quickly, but locals brushed it off as harmless weirdness. People figured Ed collected odd souvenirs, maybe even bought authentic shrunken heads from the Philippines. To most in Plainfield, it was just another eccentric quirk of the quiet, solitary man at the edge of town.

Ashley: 18:10

On the morning of November 16th, 1957, Ed Gean left his farm and headed into Plainfield. Around 8 a.m., he stopped at Warden's hardware store, run by 58-year-old Bernice Warden. Ed had been lingering there more often lately, and just the day before, he'd asked her son Frank what time he'd be out hunting on opening day. That morning, after buying a drug of antifreeze, Ed shot Bernice inside her store. By afternoon, Frank came back from hunting and was surprised to find the hardware store locked since his mother planned to keep it open all day. He picked up the store key from home and walked into a grim scene. The floor was splattered with blood that trailed to the back door, and the store's truck was gone. Frank called the police and immediately named Ed Gean as a suspect. The clues lined up fast. Ed had asked about antifreeze and store hours the day before, and a receipt in Bernice's handwriting showed she'd sold antifreeze that very morning. The police quickly found Ed at a neighbor's house. When questioned, his words only raised suspicion.

Deputy Sheriff “Buck” Batterman: 19:23

Someone's freezing me. What are you talking about? What about it? Well he's dead, isn't he?

Alfred Hitchcock: 19:35

How do you know that?

Remi: 19:38

Heard it. Investigators quickly searched Gean's property. An ash pile near the house tested positive for human remains, charred teeth and bone. A trench close by held more bones and a nearly complete skeleton. Investigators entered his farmhouse the day after his arrest. They started in an outbuilding and immediately uncovered horror. Bernice Warden's body hung upside down from the rafters. She'd been decapitated and split open from neck to pelvis. In this clip, Deputy Sheriff Virgil Buck Batterman recounts the experience of discovering Bernice's body.

Deputy Sheriff “Buck” Batterman: 20:23

To see one of the well-known people in Plainfield, well-liked person in Plainfield hanging there, upside down and uh dressed out like a deer, uh, it's hard to explain how a man feels when he sees something like that.

Ashley: 20:37

Inside the house, the discoveries only grew more grotesque. A suit bowl carved from the top of a human skull, other skull caps scattered casually about, a pair mounted on his bedposts like trophies, four kitchen chairs upholstered with human skin and fat, lampshades stitched from flesh, a garbage can covered in hide, and even a window shade pole decorated with human lips. In boxes and containers, investigators found more remains, nine vulvas tucked into a shoebox, four noses in another, and an oatmeal box stuffed with pieces of human facial skin. There were leggings sewn from actual human legs, a vest made from a women's upper torso, and nine masks, real faces, hair still attached. One of them belonged to Mary Hogan. The deeper they searched, the more body parts surfaced. It became impossible to tell how many victims were represented. Strangely, parts of the house were immaculate. Augusta's bedroom and the front parlor were sealed off and perfectly preserved, untouched since her death. Everywhere else was chaos, filth, clutter, and unimaginable relics of violence. And even as the crime scene team worked, new, endlessly horrifying evidence kept turning up in piles, leaving the small community of Plainfield in a state of total disbelief.

Georgia Foster (Ed's Neighbor): 22:09

I ran across the street over to Hills, and I rapped on the door and I said to Irene, did you hear about the murder in Plainfield? And she said yes. And and uh she told me who it was then that it was Mrs. Worden, and she said, You'll never guess who they picked up for it. And I said, Well, no, who? And uh she said, Well, Eddie Geane, and we both kind of laughed because we knew we wouldn't hurt a fly.

Remi: 22:31

After his arrest, Ed Gean was questioned off and on for nearly twelve hours. He had no lawyer and wasn't told his rights, yet he said nothing at first. It took thirty hours before he broke his silence. Ed admitted to killing Bernice Warden, but claimed he couldn't remember the details, insisting it happened while he was in a daze. He swore she was the only woman he'd ever killed, saying every other body part found in his home had come from graves. What struck investigators was his calm demeanor. There was no visible remorse, no real sense of the horror of his actions, and Ed was polite, even friendly, cooperative, and eager to please. At one point, he matter-of-factly admitted to holding severed female genitals over his own body, trying to imagine life as a woman.

Ashley: 23:29

When pressed about murder, though, Ed grew evasive. Eventually, he confessed to killing Mary Hogan as well. But to the end of his life, he claimed Bernice Warden's death was an accident. He later told his attorney he'd been treated well by investigators. No tricks, no intimidation. In fact, he said talking to them felt like it cleared his mind. Once formally charged with first degree murder, Ed finally seemed to grasp the weight of his situation. He entered a plea of not guilty, and later, not guilty by reason of insanity.

Remi: 24:04

But there was one major question hanging over the case. Could Ed really have robbed so many graves without anyone noticing? The DA doubted it at first, and resisted the idea of digging up remains. But eventually, to test Ed's confession, he agreed to exhume two graves with the family's permission. If the first two checked out and matched Ed's story, they'd stop from there. If not, the whole account would unravel. Investigators kept Ed's list of eight or nine possible graves mostly secret. The first grave they exhumed was that of a fifty-two-year-old Eleanor Adams. She was buried near the Gean family plot after her death in August 1951. When her coffin was opened, its cover was split apart and inside was nothing but a crowbar, no body. The second grave belonged to a fifty-nine-year-old woman named Mabel Everson, who died that April. It showed the same grim evidence, broken coffin cover and just a few scattered bones. With those two exhumanations confirming Ed's story, the DA halted further digs. The disturbing truth of Ed's grave robbing was now undeniable. Prosecuting attorney Robert Sutton would later make the following statement.

Prosecutor, Robert Sutton : 25:43

And then he would go out that night and dig up the particular body, take it back to his uh house, and uh perform uh all kinds of surgical procedures on it.

Ashley: 26:00

Ed broke down in tears when police asked him about his mother after his arrest. He called Augusta a goddess, said she devoted her life to saving him from the evils of the world, yet he always failed her. To Ed, his mother was infallible. Ed began to reflect as he awaited trial. He told investigators that loneliness after Augusta's death drove him to the things he'd done. He also blamed an unsettling moment before her second stroke, them seeing a strange woman leaving a neighbor's house. In his mind, that encounter somehow triggered his mother's death. Ed consistently denied necrophilia, though his actions told a darker story. He described his urges as an evil spirit invading his mind. The first time he went to a cemetery, he said, it was because he believed he might be able to actually raise the dead.

Hard Copy News: 26:54

The secret, gory life of little Ed Gean was now exposed, and almost as gruesome was the curiosity of a world that had never witnessed such unspeakable crimes. Curiosity seekers would descend on a sleepy farm town that would leave its mark on America's conscience for decades.

Remi: 27:14

The moment news of Ed Gean's arrest broke, Plainfield was swarmed. Reporters poured into the tiny Wisconsin town, chasing every dark rumor they could. Stories flew about cannibalism, jars of human blood, even claims that Ed handed out packages of human meat to unsuspecting neighbors. As a result, the local clinic saw a rush of people with sudden stomach trouble. Reporter Dan Henry Jr. made the following statements.

Deputy Sheriff “Buck” Batterman: 27:53

A guy who would uh carve up a woman, uh dress her out like a deer, hang her in a shed. He's the role model for basically all the wackos in the world.

Ashley: 28:04

Journalists and investigators tried to link Ed to every unsolved disappearance in Wisconsin over the last decade, but he passed a polygraph test about those cases, and no direct ties were ever found. Just days after his arrest, once evidence had been cleared out for the crime lab, the press was allowed inside the farmhouse. A sheriff's deputy acted as a tour guide, pointing out the exact places investigators found each grotesque artifact. By November 21st, 1957, headlines began framing Ed's crimes as fueled by a twisted devotion to his mother. Articles claimed his victims resembled Augusta. They said Ed had long wanted to be a woman and even considered performing a sex change operation on himself. Meanwhile, the farmhouse became a grim attraction. Police guarded the property around the clock, but curious cars rolled past constantly, hoping for a glimpse.

Fred Reid: 29:24

There was thousands of them. The traffic was bumper to bumper, from plainfield out to his house and back, and all the crossroads, and you couldn't believe it.

Remi: 29:37

National attention followed fast. On December 2nd, Life magazine ran a sprawling nine-page story. Time followed with its own feature the following week. After his arrest, Ed Gean was kept under heavy guard whenever he was moved, especially on the way to court. Once he entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, the judge ordered him to Central State Hospital for a 30 day A psychiatric evaluation. Inside the hospital, Ed was quiet and compliant. He followed every rule and remained polite with the staff. Occasionally, he admitted to hearing his mother's voice as he drifted off to sleep, but there were no signs of active delusions or aggression. Doctors diagnosed him with schizophrenia and found him highly suggestible and unable to fully act in his own defense. He was legally insane because he lived in a fantasy world and couldn't reliably separate right from wrong, even if he claimed that he could.

Ashley: 30:44

From November 25th to December 18th, Ed underwent an exhaustive battery of physical and psychological tests. The final recommendation: he remained committed for ongoing treatment. On December 19th, doctors submitted their full psychiatric report to the judge. Ed had complained of strange sensations, at times saying he could smell dead flesh when no one else could. The psychological profile painted a complex picture, strong feminine identification, bizarre religious beliefs, deep sexual immaturity, and a tendency to project blame. Doctors described him as having a quote schizophrenic personality with several neurotic manifestations. Ed was often confused, sometimes unsure if a memory was his own or something he'd been told. He admitted he might have married if he'd ever found the right woman, but one potential partner clashed with Augusta, and another almost captured his affection until he learned she'd been with other men. Ed called his two victims immoral, rationalizing that he might never have committed any crimes if life had been different, if he'd married, if neighbors had treated him better, or if he'd sold the farm and left Plainfield behind. He confessed to feeling excitement during grave robberies, mixed with an odd sense of duty, as if the body should be preserved and cared for. He maintained that Bernice Warden's death was an accident and claimed to remember almost nothing about putting her body in the truck. But when it came to Augusta, his feelings were unwavering. He described her as good in every way and often broke down when talking about her. Memory lapses, he said, began after her death. He described periods when the world seemed unreal and admitted that shortly after she died, he thought he could raise the dead. For a year or more, he sometimes heard her voice at night urging him to be good. About his father, though, Ed had nothing kind to say.

Remi: 32:47

At Central State Hospital, Ed seemed almost grateful for the attention he was getting. Unlike how he was handled in the community, hospital staff treated him with patience and professionalism. Perhaps, for the first time in his life, Ed felt respected. On January 6, 1958, Ed appeared for a formal sanity hearing. The court ruled him incompetent to stand trial and ordered him committed to Central State Hospital indefinitely. If doctors ever decided he was mentally fit, he would face trial, but until then, Ed would remain locked away. After his commitment, life in Plainfield and beyond moved on. But fascination with Ed Gean still lingered. On March 20, 1958, the Gean farmhouse mysteriously went up in flames. Many suspected someone in the community torched it to keep gawkers away and stop the planned property auction from happening on Palm Sunday. It was presumed arson, but no evidence or suspect was ever found.

Georgia Foster (Ed's Neighbor): 33:59

I am glad that the house burned down, uh so that they there was always talk of uh somebody buying it and making a house of horrors and charging money to go through it. And uh, I'm glad it's gone so that uh that part was not carried out.

Ashley: 34:20

Ed Gean reportedly didn't seem upset when he heard the news either. Despite the fire, the auction went ahead anyway. On March 23rd, an estimated 20,000 people poured into Playingfield just to walk the grounds and gawk at what remained. By the official sale date, March 30th, the crowd had thinned to about 2,000. Most just curious onlookers with a handful of serious bidders.

Remi: 34:45

One item drew special attention, Ed's 1949 Ford Sedan, which sold for $760, which is the equivalent of $8,200 today. The buyer who won the bidding war was a 50-year-old carnival and sideshow exhibitor who turned the car into a macabre attraction. He installed wax figures inside, one posed as Ed behind the wheel, another as a mutilated victim in the back. By July 1958, the Geen Ghoul car was traveling to fairs as a grisly roadside spectacle. In the years after, new discoveries surfaced now and then. In May 1960, workers digging on the property unearthed more bones. In December 1962, funds were finally allocated for Wisconsin's crime lab to properly rebury the remains of Ed's victims.

Ashley: 35:45

Inside Central State Hospital, Ed Gean settled into a quiet routine. Cut off from the outside world's obsession with his crimes, no interviews were allowed. He seemed unaware of the public's fascination swirling around his name. By all accounts, Ed adjusted well, maybe better than at any other time in his life. He was calm and cooperative, got along politely with other patients, but mostly kept to himself. He spent hours reading and enjoyed regular therapy sessions, occupational activities, and simple handicraft work. Staff described him as docile. Still, some female employees noticed his lingering stares, a quiet unease behind his otherwise passive demeanor.

Remi: 36:35

Every six months, doctors re-evaluated his competency, but doubted it would ever change. Then, unexpectedly, in January 1968, a court ruled Ed competent to stand trial, though he remained officially diagnosed with schizophrenia. On January 22nd, 1968, Ed appeared in public for the first time in a decade. Reporters watched as the once feared butcher of Plainfield looked small and deeply uncomfortable, shrinking under the gaze of curious spectators. In November 1968, Ed Gean finally went on trial, a brief one-week proceeding held without any jury. The case began on November 7th and focused solely on the murder of Bernice Warden. On the stand, Ed repeated his longstanding claim that he'd shot Bernice accidentally. He said he couldn't remember moving her body from the store or anything that happened afterwards.

Ashley: 37:40

On November 14th, the judge found him guilty of first-degree murder, but the trial wasn't over. The next step was deciding if Ed was legally insane at the time of the crime. That phase lasted only a few hours. The court concluded Ed lacked the capacity to understand the wrongfulness of his actions and couldn't control his behavior at the time of the crime and was therefore not guilty by reason of insanity. Ed was recommitted to Central State Hospital indefinitely. He would remain in state care until doctors believed he was both sane and no longer dangerous, a standard he would never meet. Before returning, the press was briefly allowed to see him. He seemed relieved that the trial was finished and was looking forward to going back to the hospital, a place he now considered home. Once again, he shifted blame for his darkness outward, saying people hadn't been as friendly as they should have been.

Remi: 38:37

Over the years, Ed remained a model patient. He worked steadily as a carpenter's helper, mason, and hospital attendant, and saved his modest wages in a personal account. In his free time, he watched TV, listened to the radio, and read. He had freedom to move about the hospital grounds, trusted enough to roam the buildings, and even surrounding areas of the property. He remained quiet, kept mostly to himself, and caused no trouble at all. Overall, he seemed content. By February 1974, after more than fifteen years in the hospital, Ed Gean made a surprising move. He filed a petition claiming he'd fully recovered and should be released. His bid for freedom went before the court on June 7, 1974. The first psychiatric expert testified that there were no clear signs of severe mental illness on the surface, but warned something dangerous still simmered underneath. The doctor advised against release, but suggested maybe a transfer to a less secure hospital.

Ashley: 39:50

Two other experts strongly disagreed with even that idea. They said Ed's tolerance for stress had eroded over the years. He had no real social contact, not a single visitor since his commitment, and he'd be pathetic, confused, and out of place if released. They believed he couldn't handle day-to-day life, and society's reaction to him would likely be cruel. Before the hearing started, Ed briefly spoke with the reporters. He was polite and soft-spoken, saying if he ever got out, he'd probably move to a big city for work. No reason to return to Plainfield.

Remi: 40:26

In the end, the judge rejected Ed's petition. Though he would have been eligible for parole if not for his insanity ruling, the verdict left him where he'd been for nearly two decades, committed indefinitely to Central State Hospital. In 1978, at 72 years old, Ed was quietly moved to the Mendota Mental Health Institution in Madison, Wisconsin. There, he lived out the rest of his days, largely forgotten by the outside world. On July 26, 1984, 78-year-old Ed died from cancer and respiratory failure. He was buried back in Plainfield Cemetery, the same ground from which he'd stolen so many of his victims. His grave went unmarked, a deliberate effort to keep it from becoming a morbid sideshow attraction.

Ashley: 41:24

And that is the true story of Edward Geane. And before we get into how he has been portrayed in several Hollywood films, Remy, what are some of your thoughts about the butcher of Plainfield, the ghoul Ed Gean?

Remi: 41:39

He seemed like a very quiet, introverted, simple little man who had some severe mental problems, obviously, and a morbid fascination with human anatomy and things like that. I'm not a professional in a lot of these areas. I cannot comment on like if he was trying to become a woman or if he was trying to become his mother or anything like that, but clearly he was a person who was not happy being himself. But I do have a lot of questions as far as your thoughts, Ashley, because you are the doctor in the room who knows way more about this sort of thing than I ever could. In fact, when we were going over some of the information from the trial, I'm pretty sure I heard you cough the word bullshit under your breath during a certain part. Do you not agree with the not guilty by reason of insanity?

Ashley: 42:36

So I obviously did not evaluate Ed Gean, but from what I have read about him, I do not think he would meet the criteria for guilty except for insanity. It is such a high bar. You have to basically prove that someone did not know that what they were doing was wrong, or that they were incapable of conforming their conduct to the requirements of the law. Unable to do so, not just unwilling. It seemed to me that when he shot and killed Bernice, he moved her body. He obviously knew murder was illegal. He kept quiet about it for quite some time. And it doesn't seem to me that he was incapable of not doing so. I don't know why he did it. It's kind of seems these murders are just kind of like out of the blue. It's very unclear.

Remi: 43:27

That was one of my big lingering questions as well. He seemed to kill these two people essentially out of nowhere. I know that Mary reminded him of his mother, but yeah, the circumstances around it, it seems very random, very out of the blue, and kind of out of character for Ed to have done that sort of thing. And I do want to point out that the definition of insanity that Ashley is given is like the legal definition of this. I would say Ed is insane by what the public would view as legally insane. If you ask a normal person on the street about Ed Gean and his crimes, they will definitely say that he is insane. But under the legal definition, he does not qualify, believe it or not.

Ashley: 44:13

In my opinion, they declared that he did, but things were different back in the day. But that's a very good point. Insanity is actually a legal term, it's not a psychological term. So yes, that is um a really good distinction to highlight there. I don't even know if from what I've read or heard about him, if I even think he meets criteria for schizophrenia. Like it seems to me that he just became so isolated and just in his own little world after his mom died, and he just became engrossed with death and destruction.

Remi: 44:47

It is unusual for someone suffering from schizophrenia for the voice that is talking to them, specifically coming from someone who they knew who passed away or something like that. It's very rare that it's a voice that they know or have heard before.

Ashley: 45:03

That would be more of like a grief and loss type reaction. And especially when he says times he hears her voice like right before he's falling asleep. Having hallucinations like that right before you're falling asleep or right as you're waking up is actually a very common occurrence and not something that's related to any sort of psychotic thought process.

Remi: 45:24

So, what do you think his thought process was with what he was doing to these corpses? Do you think he was trying to make a woman suit and become a woman himself, or do you think he was trying to become his mother? There's a lot of different interpretations to this.

Ashley: 45:45

I think I read somewhere that when he put the suit on, he felt closer to her. It seems to me that Ed Geen was a very isolated person who never formed any sort of healthy relationship or attachment at all, and was just completely enmeshed with his mom. And when she died, it was like part of him died.

Remi: 46:08

Well, it is in our notes that she did always want a girl and ended up with two sons. Maybe it was a way of making him feel closer to her in some capacity. I don't know. It's definitely a level of crazy that I have not a lot of insights to at all. But how about the things like making lampshades and chairs and stuff like that? What was that?

Ashley: 46:35

Well, you had said the Nazi wife had done that, right?

Remi: 46:40

Yes, Ilse Koch.

Ashley: 46:42

So I'm guessing that he maybe got that idea from his research on her and decided to try it out and found it to be a worthwhile hobby to do in his endless amount of free time.

Remi: 46:58

I also wanted to highlight that apparently he didn't have sex with these bodies either. He was not a necrophiliac, but he did keep parts of their sexual anatomy in his house for I'm not sure what reasons.

Ashley: 47:15

I don't know. This is a level of psychologically disturbed and deranged that is above my pay grade.

Remi: 47:24

And pretty rare as well.

Ashley: 47:27

Yeah, I don't think there's very many Edgeans in this world, and that's definitely a good thing.

Remi: 47:34

But the story of Edgein didn't just haunt Wisconsin. It also, of course, inspired some of the most iconic horror stories ever told.

Ashley: 48:22

Block happened to be living about 40 miles from Plainfield at the time of Ed Geen's arrest. What fascinated him most was the unsettling idea that a ghoulish killer with grotesque appetites could thrive almost openly in a small rural community where everyone believed they knew each other's secrets. While shaping his next novel, Bloch faced a practical challenge. How could his shy, isolated murderer plausibly find victims? It didn't make sense for such a withdrawn man to stalk strangers. The answer became the book's defining hook. The killer would own a lonely rundown motel, and the victims would come to him.

Remi: 49:04

Block had released the novel just two years after Ed Geane's arrest. He later said he hadn't known about Geane's crimes when he began writing, only that he'd been fascinated by the idea that the man next door might be a monster, unsuspected even in the gossip-ridden world of a small town. By the time Geane's story broke, Bloch claimed the book was nearly finished and added just a single passing reference to the case in one of the final chapters. Despite the timing, he denied that Ed Gean was a direct model for Norman Bates, but Norma Bates definitely has a shadow of Augusta Gean. Block's novel, titled Psycho, was released in 1959, and just one year later came Alfred Hitchcock's legendary film adaptation.

Alfred Hitchcock: 50:00

Good afternoon. Here we have a quiet little motel tucked away off the main highway. And as you see, perfectly harmless looking. When in fact, it has now become known as the scene of the crime.

Ashley: 50:26

It was Hitchcock's trusted assistant Peggy Robertson who first spotted Psycho. She read a glowing New York Times review of Robert Bloch's novel and brought it to Hitchcock's attention. Studio executives at Paramount had already dismissed the idea, finding the story too dark and unsellable. But Hitchcock ignored them. He quietly bought the film rights himself for just $9,500 and instructed Robertson to track down and purchase as many copies of the book as possible to keep the twist secret. At the time, Hitchcock was searching for new material after two stalled projects, Flamingo Feather and No Bail for the Judge, and was frustrated with rising star salaries. Only a small trusted circle, including Robertson, helped him choose what to develop next.

Remi: 51:16

The psycho screenplay stayed fairly close to Robert Bloch's novel, but with some key changes. In the book, Norman Bates is a middle-aged, overweight man, unstable, alcoholic, and prone to slipping into his mother personality during drunken blackouts. The film stripped away the alcoholism, as well as Norman's involvement with the occult, spiritualism, and pornography. Hitchcock also dialed back the violence. In Block's version, the shower scene ends with Marion being decapitated. When he pitched Psycho, Paramount refused to give him his usual big budget, so Hitchcock countered with a daring plan. He'd shoot the movie, fast and cheap, in black and white, using the small, efficient crew from his TV series, Alfred Hitchcock presents. Paramount still pushed back though, saying their sound stages were fully booked, though the industry was in a slump and there was plenty of space, empty. Undeterred, Hitchcock offered to finance Psycho himself and shoot it at Universal's lot with his own team, if Paramount would simply agree to distribute the film. In place of his usual quarter of a million dollars directing fee, he proposed taking 60% of the profits. Paramount agreed, and it was a decision that would end up rewriting box office history.

Ashley: 52:51

Psycho features a powerhouse cast. Anthony Perkins as the reclusive Norman Bates, Janet Lee as a runaway embezzler, Marion Crane, along with Vera Miles, John Gavin, and Martin Balsam. The story pivots on Marion's fateful stop at the Lonely Bates Motel, where she meets the shy young proprietor and his deeply troubled mother.

Psycho (clip): 53:16

Of course, I've suggested it myself. But I hate to even think about it. It's not as if you were a maniac, a raving thing. We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven't you?

Ashley: 53:49

The film premiered on June 16th, 1960, at New York City's De Mile and Baronot Theaters. It broke new ground in how movies were shown. For the first time in U.S. theaters, audience were told no one would be admitted after the film started. A move designed to preserve its shocking secrets.

Remi: 54:09

When Psycho first hit theaters, critics were split. Its shocking violence and taboo subject matter made some recoil, but audiences just couldn't stay away. The film became a box office phenomenon, earning $50 million worldwide on a budget of just $806,000, and when adjusted for inflation, Psycho made $385 million by today's standards. Its runaway success forced critics to take another look, sparking a major re-evaluation of Hitchcock's work. The movie went on to earn four Academy Award nominations, including Best Director for Alfred Hitchcock and Best Supporting Actress for Janet Lee.

Ashley: 54:58

Today Psycho is considered one of Hitchcock's masterpieces, and arguably his most famous, most studied, and most influential film. Scholars praise its precision, the sleek direction, nerve-wracking tension, striking camera work, unforgettable score, and iconic performances. It's been called the most heavily analyzed film in the long career of the most investigated director in the history of American film. Psycho pushed boundaries for violence, deviant psychology, and sexuality on screen, paving the way for the modern slasher genre. After Hitchcock's death in 1980, the story kept going with sequels, a remake, and television spin-offs. And in 1992, the Library of Congress added Psycho to the National Film Registry for being culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.

Remi: 55:50

In 2012, the story behind Psycho itself became a movie starring Anthony Hopkins as Alfred Hitchcock and Michael Wincott as Ed Gean. The biographical drama, titled Hitchcock, was directed by Sasha Gervassi and based on Stephen Rabello's book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, and explores the legendary director's life during the creation of his most shocking film. Norman Bates returned to the screen again in the form of Bates Motel, a modern-day television prequel to Psycho, which was developed by Carlton Cruz, Carrie Erin, and Anthony Capriano. The series starred Vera Firmiga as Norma Bates and Freddie Hymore as young Norman, and continued to explore the twisted, codependent bond between mother and son long before the infamous shower scene. It ran for five seasons from 2013 to 2017 and reintroduced the Bates family to a whole new generation of viewers. Now, I never watched the Bates Motel TV show, but you did, Ashley. Is there any insight you have onto Norman Bates' backstory? I'm assuming it explored it a lot more in detail with that many seasons.

Ashley: 57:14

It's been a long time since I watched it. I think I watched it as it was on TV, so I don't really remember much about it. I do remember the two main characters, and also he does have a love interest in it, who Norma has a complicated relationship with. Sometimes she likes her, sometimes she doesn't. But really the main takeaway is that Norma was portrayed as a very domineering mom over her son. And he is portrayed as someone who has mental health issues very early on in his life.

Remi: 57:42

Did you ever see the shot-for-shot remake from 1998 starring Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates and Anne Haish as Marion, directed by Gus Van Sant?

Ashley: 57:55

I was going to say no, but I do remember Anne Haish as Marion. So yes, yes, I did.

Remi: 58:01

It is a shot-for-shot remake, and we just watched the film Psycho the other night in preparation for this episode, and I remembered the shot-for-shot remake, but there were definitely some changes made there. Specifically a scene where Marion is getting ready to go in the shower and Norman is spying on her from a peephole in the other room. In the Hitchcock version, he is just watching her, and in the Gus Van Sant version, he is masturbating. So that is a key difference there.

Ashley: 58:32

So as you said, we did watch all three of the movies we're gonna discuss in these next upcoming sections. Why don't you give our audiences who haven't seen Psycho a just very down and dirty rundown?

Remi: 58:44

Well, surprisingly, most of the beginning of the movie focuses on a woman named Marion Crane, played by Janet Lee, who is a secretary who impulsively decides to steal a $40,000 down payment from one of her employer's clients for seemingly no reason whatsoever. I remember we were watching this and just kept saying out loud, why did she do this? It just seems like she did this for nothing.

Ashley: 59:16

And adjusted for inflation, that's $400,030. That is just so much money to impulsively take from your employer who you've worked for for a decade.

Remi: 59:27

And she was definitely gonna get caught. The money was given to her, like there was a million things that would point to her. She would have to leave town and start an entirely new life. For whatever reason, when I first saw this film, I thought she stole the money so that she could start a new life with the guy that she was with at the beginning of the film. But no, she just took this money and decided to skip town on impulse one day. And eventually, because she gets tired and it starts raining, she stops at the Bates Motel and meets the proprietor of said hotel, Mr. Norman Bates. Bates, played by Anthony Perkins, whose son is Osgood Perkins, who directed Long Legs and the Monkey.

Ashley: 1:00:14

That is a fun little fact. For those of you who don't know who Osgood Perkins is, he's also the kind of awkward guy from Legally Blonde.

Remi: 1:00:23

I'm so glad you highlighted that. That was in my notes, but I took it out in hopes that you would say something about it.

Ashley: 1:00:29

After that, Marion has, you know, some nice pleasantries with Norman until he brutally stabs her to death in the shower. And that's about halfway through the movie. The rest of it is an investigation into her disappearance featuring Marion's sister and her lover, and also a private investigator. One thing I do remember from this movie or hearing about it after was that everyone was shocked that the main title character was killed halfway through. I remember hearing in a philosophy of film class that I took in college that that really just blew audiences away.

Remi: 1:01:09

Hitchcock was the first to pull off the whole killing the main character halfway through thing to throw the audience off, essentially. It's been done many times nowadays. The first thing I can think of is Ned Stark in the first season of Game of Thrones, spoiler alert. But yeah, people were not expecting it. She was highlighted as the star of this film, and people were not expecting her to die before the halfway point, basically, in such a horrific way. Hitchcock actually added more edits to the shower scene to increase the tension and shock. That sort of thing wasn't done. It was lots of long shots and that sort of thing, and he was one of the first to add a bunch of quick shots, and you never really see anything happening in the scene, but just the implication of what's happening is enough to get in your head. And another fun fact about that is because Hitchcock was filming in black and white, he used chocolate for all of the blood in the film. So the swirling blood going down the drain in the scene is actually just some chocolate syrup.

Ashley: 1:02:18

I also wonder if he was one of the first to have the villain in the movie drink milk, because I did note that Norrin Bates drinks a nice big old glass of milk at one point.

Remi: 1:02:29

One other little random bit of trivia is Norman's mother, whose voice is heard throughout the film, was actually done by three different actresses: Virginia Gregg, Janet Nolan, and Paul Jasmine. So each time it's speaking, it sounds slightly different, just to kind of unsettle the audience. So very cool, but I think the big thing we need to discuss is Norman Bates, the killer in this film who took inspiration from Ed Gean. Now, according to the film and my research, Norman grew up isolated with an abusive controlling mother, Norma Bates. Norman, Norma, what it's like Will and Willow. Norma Bates taught him that sex with other women was sinful. When Norma got a lover, Norman became jealous and poisoned them both, killing her, and was unable to cope with the loss. He preserved her corpse and developed a split personality, sometimes being Norman and other times being his mother. And he would literally act out scenes to the point where other people could overhear him impersonating his mother's voice, going back and forth and arguing. Like pretty far away, he was in the house up the hill, and someone down in the motel could hear Norma and Norman arguing, which was just Norman arguing with himself. When Norma takes over, Norman kills people, especially ones that he's attracted to, in order to protect his mother's place in his life. The film, of course, picks up with Norman running the Bates Motel and living with the preserved corpse of his dead mother. After Norman is caught, his mother's personality takes over completely, and Norman basically fades into his own subconsciousness. In the end, Norman kills four people total, Marion, the detective, and two other girls that are not seen on screen, and just sort of ditches the evidence, including their car and bodies, in a handy-dandy swamp that's behind his motel. I thought it was an oil pit at first or like a sand pit. And we did discuss how deep is this pit. He definitely has thrown a lot of cars in there at this point, but he hasn't had any issues.

Ashley: 1:04:50

Well, what are some of the main similarities that you notice between Ed Gean and Norman Bates? And we'll kind of go back and forth in this.

Remi: 1:04:57

Definitely his relationship with his mother. I think out of all the three films we watched for this, that this closely mirrors Ed's relationship with his own mother. She was demanding, controlling, and he would hear her inside his own head. And I feel like that aspect of it was really represented well in this film.

Ashley: 1:05:22

And after Norma dies in the movie, Norman is pretending to be her caretaker, saying that she's sick, which Edgein did care for his mom after she had the strokes. Even though Edgein didn't remove his mother's corpse from the grave, he did treat it. And Norman mentions doing that at one point and even preserves her room after her death.

Remi: 1:05:46

The relationship is the big thing that stands out. They both led a reclusive, secluded, isolated life. But beyond that, they do seem like very different characters to me. Do you have more, Ashley?

Ashley: 1:06:01

I do have a several other similarities that I noticed that aren't as glaring as the relationship between Norman and his mom. But first, going off on Marion, she really represents the type of woman that Augusta would have hated and warned her sons about. She is having a premarital relationship with him. She steals money from her employer.

Remi: 1:06:23

And he obviously is lusting after her, and that's what triggers the mother taking over in that situation.

Ashley: 1:06:30

Also, interestingly, her partner actually works at a hardware store, and that just reminded me of the hardware store that Bernice Warden was killed at.

Remi: 1:06:40

I did not catch that. I remember taking a note that Norman has a lot of taxidermied birds around his office at the Bates Motel and his home. But as far as we know, Ed Gean was not into taxidermy. There were not like taxidermied animals found around his house or anything like that.

Ashley: 1:06:59

I viewed that as Norman is obsessed with taxidermy, and that kind of mirrors Edgeen's obsession with the grotesque and the macabre.

Remi: 1:07:08

See, the film student in me immediately thought that it was Hitchcock giving a clue that he would be making a film called The Birds somewhere down the line. He was notorious for planning out a lot of his films in advance, like many of the autours today. But yeah, other than that, I had no real thought as to why he would include that.

Ashley: 1:07:29

We also see that after each time Norman kills someone, he really goes through this meticulous routine of cleaning up the scene, disposing of all of the evidence. And I linked that to Ed's meticulous routine of grave robbing, him probing the ground and just having this routine that he went through every time he committed his crimes at the graveyard.

Remi: 1:07:50

But he did not do that when he actually murdered people. I think at both crime scenes for the two women that he killed, there was literally a smear of blood as if he just dragged the corpse out that was still there when witnesses showed up the next day. So he may have been more meticulous in grave robbing than he was in murder.

Ashley: 1:08:13

And my last two similarities that I noticed were Norman dressing up as mother is a way that he becomes her. And I viewed that as Ed Geen wearing the women's suit as a way to become closer to his mother. And in the end, it is heavily, heavily, heavily implied that Norman is going to be found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Remi: 1:08:38

And they do include the he wouldn't hurt a fly line at the very end of the film as well, which seems to have been a sentiment repeated about Geen by the people he knew very often, surprisingly.

Ashley: 1:08:53

And at one point when he's talking about his mom, he has this great quote of she just goes a little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes. And that kind of just reminded me of how Ed described his irresistible impulse to rob these graves.

Remi: 1:09:09

And of course, is one of the most iconic lines in the film.

Ashley: 1:09:14

Well, what about differences? Because that's a lot of similarities, but there is obviously striking differences here between Norman and Ed.

Remi: 1:09:22

There are a lot of differences. Ed, of course, didn't own a hotel. He did not preserve his mother's corpse and keep it in his home. And Norman killed four people, and Ed killed two. So there is a lot of differences in that regard. From everything I've learned, I don't think Ed was dressing in his mother's clothing and pretending to be her. He may have been wearing other people's skin and doing that, but of course, Psycho cannot show that sort of thing, especially at the time of its release. So a lot of the gruesome details are also absent from the film Psycho. But what do you have, Ashley?

Ashley: 1:10:02

He also kills with a knife, not a shotgun, and only when he's mother, not as he's Ed.

Remi: 1:10:08

And always disposes of the bodies.

Ashley: 1:10:10

There's also clear differences between their appearance. Anthony Perkins is an attractive younger man. And at least initially, until he kind of starts to unravel a bit when he's first interacting with Marion, he seems charming and comfortable around her. He clearly turns into a pretty big weirdo, but initially he seemed just like a normal, nice dude.

Remi: 1:10:32

He seemed desperate to talk to someone, at least that's how I perceived the performance. And he seemed kind of grateful to have someone to talk to. He brought her dinner. He made a sandwich for her. He seemed to be pretty happy that there was someone around, other than the corpse of his dead mother yelling at him from the house above.

Ashley: 1:10:53

And I guess that could actually be a similarity to how Ed was with his neighbors.

Remi: 1:10:57

Yeah, his neighbors all found him extremely nice and sociable, if not a little weird. And of course, Norman comes off as a little weird, but I wouldn't say concerningly weird. If I met someone like Norman, I may think he was odd, but I don't know if I would think he was dangerous.

Ashley: 1:11:13

Well, that's just one Hollywood adaptation that took inspiration from Ed Gean. The next film features a killer who comes off right away as much more sinister. Part-time as an assistant film director, part-time as a documentary cameraman. He'd already been developing a story seeped in isolation, deep woods, and darkness. Hooper later said the raw graphic crime coverage coming out of San Antonio's newsrooms at the time pushed him further toward horror. And woven into his plot were chilling threads from real-life details inspired by Wisconsin murderer Ed Gean.

Remi: 1:12:24

Toby Hooper said the cultural and political climate of the early 1970s shaped the Texas Chainsaw Massacre as much as anything else. Audiences were already uneasy. Vietnam, political scandals, and violent crime dominated headlines. And Hooper wanted to tap into that feeling.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (opening narration): 1:12:46

That's why the film famously opens with the line: The film which you are about to see is an account of the tragedy which befell a group of five youths, in particular, Sally Hardesty and her invalid brother Franklin. It is all the more tragic in that they were young. But had they lived very, very long lives, they could not have expected, nor would they have wished to see as much of the mad and macabre as they were to see that day. For them, an idyllic summer afternoon drive became a nightmare. The events of that day were to lead to the discovery of one of the most bizarre crimes in the annals of American history. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Remi: 1:13:30

Hooper admitted that this was deliberate misinformation, his way of reflecting how, at the time, he felt Americans were constantly being misled. So he turned that distrust into horror, making viewers feel like what they were about to see could actually be real. One specific detail Hooper took inspiration from was Gean's grotesque habit of crafting and wearing masks of human skin. That image became a central, terrifying visual in his screenplay.

Ashley: 1:14:06

Toby Hooper made the Texas Chainsaw Massacre on a shoestring budget, just under $140,000, which is about $700,000 today. He cast mostly unknown local actors from Central Texas and shot the entire film on location there. And I will say, this movie does not feel like a low-budget horror.

Remi: 1:14:27

The cinematography is outstanding in this film, and it does a real brilliant job of capturing the mood and the feeling of being there in that situation.

Ashley: 1:14:40

Getting the film to audiences, however, proved harder. Because of its brutal subject matter, Hooper struggled to find a distributor until Brainston Distributing Company finally picked it up. Ironically, Hooper had tried to tone things down, limiting visible gore and hoping for a PG rating, but the Motion Picture Association of America still gave it an R. I don't know what planet he was on thinking this would get PG.

Remi: 1:15:08

Well, PG-13 did not exist at the time. PG-13 was not invented until the 1980s, so if it didn't get an R, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre would have been rated PG.

Ashley: 1:15:21

Internationally, the film ran into even more trouble. Several countries banned it outright. And in the US, some theaters pulled the movie after complaints about its violence. Despite all that pushback, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre went on to become one of the most influential horror films ever made.

Remi: 1:16:07

When the Texas Chainsaw Massacre hit theaters, critics were once again divided. Some dismissed it as cheap exploitation, while others recognized its raw power. But audiences showed up. The film was a runaway success, grossing over 30 million at the US box office, the equivalent of $150 million today. It also sold more than 16 million tickets in 1974 alone. Over time, its reputation only grew. Today it's considered one of the most important and influential horror films ever made. It helped define the modern slasher, the hulking masked killer, power tools turned into weapons, and the enduring trope of the final girl, who is the last survivor facing the monster. Its legacy has stretched for decades, spawning a long-running franchise of sequels, prequels, remakes, comics, and even video games. In 2024, the Library of Congress recognized the film's cultural impact, adding the Texas Chainsaw Massacre to the National Film Registry as culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. I'm sensing a pattern here. But this is another film that we watched the other night. Ashley, do you have any first thoughts on the Texas Chainsaw Massacre? I know this was the first time you had seen the film.

Ashley: 1:17:42

I was kind of dreading this one. I thought it was going to just feel old and kind of like how you've talked about the town that dreaded sundown, just bad and just kind of a cheap BC horror movie.

Remi: 1:17:56

This is definitely not the town that dreaded sundown.

Ashley: 1:17:59

And I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. It's really not gory at all. They do a lot of cutaway shots. It's surprisingly for being like a first-time director and how low budget this is with all unknown actors. It is so good. It is really aesthetically pleasing to look at, even though like everything that's happening is grotesque. I really enjoyed the film.

Remi: 1:18:24

I have seen this film many, many times. I am a fan of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, at least the original one. I have seen some of the other ones. I've seen the remakes that were produced by Michael Bay. I haven't seen the newer ones. In fact, there are a total of nine feature films in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise to date. And I was telling Ashley the other day about one of them called the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Next Generation, which was made in 1995, and stars Matthew McConaughey and Renee Zellwigger, believe it or not. And you were initially interested, and then I think you just saw the poster for the film and said, nah, I think I'll skip this one.

Ashley: 1:19:08

Yeah, it's like lips holding up a lipstick, but the lipstick is a mini chainsaw, and I was just like, no, not doing it.

Remi: 1:19:16

It is not a good film. I think the only reason I ever saw it was because Matthew McConaughey and Renee Zellwigger were in it. There's a lot of really bad Texas chainsaw prequels and sequels and things like that. But I do know that Renee Zellwigger and Matthew McConaughey actually filmed that before their careers hit it big, and the production company just sort of sat on it. And after they became successful, that's when they decided to release it to kind of capitalize on their names and success. But what about this film? This film starts off with the police discovering a house of horrors type thing full of bones and crosses and graves and bodies and that sort of thing, and are taking photographs of it, which was the creepy sound that is synonymous with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Ashley: 1:20:08

And then for the rest of the film, we follow a group of five teenagers who are on a road trip because one of the girl's relatives might have had her grave robbed. Seems like there was a string of grave robberies, and those were being investigated. So they all pile in a car and go to find out if their poor, poor relative was among one of the victims.

Remi: 1:20:33

There is some audio of a radio newscast announcing that there's been a string of grave robbings in the area. And this is probably where a lot of the similarities in this film and Ed Geen kind of start and end. This was the first thing that happened that we kind of looked at each other and immediately thought gean.

Ashley: 1:20:56

After that, our teens take a little detour to a abandoned farmhouse that one of their family members owned. They get separated, they're out of gas, so they go try to find gas. And then Leatherface slowly starts picking them off one by one.

Remi: 1:21:15

For seemingly trespassing in his home, all of these teens just wander into Leatherface's home. He's downstairs in his homemade butcher shop, and all of these teens just keep wandering in. If I were a teenager, I would not wander into this random house that I came upon while visiting a friend's dilapidated abandoned home.

Ashley: 1:21:36

Yeah, it's really only the final girl that he chases after at any point.

Remi: 1:21:40

Yeah, the other people don't really have any chance at all. They start wandering through the home, and Leatherface shows up from basically behind a wall, grabs them, and takes them into his butcher shop. He hangs one girl on a meat hook at one point, and he bashes two guys in the head with a mallet. And later on he uses his chainsaw against the final girl's brother named Franklin, who is in a wheelchair and has a hell of a time getting around in the wheelchair throughout the entire film. And is also a really, really, really annoying character.

Ashley: 1:22:17

Did you see any other similarities other than the grave robbing between Ed Geen and Leatherface?

Remi: 1:22:23

Well, of course, the human skin mask. I think that is the biggest takeaway from Edgean that this film took.

Ashley: 1:22:32

He also has a light fixture above the kitchen table that is clearly made out of skin.

Remi: 1:22:38

And Leatherface has a lot of random scattered bones around the house. He has a couch made of bones. He also has a chicken in a birdcage for some reason. And his house is just covered in feathers, like a lot of feathers.

Ashley: 1:22:55

There's also a meat hook that one of the victims is hung up on at one point that kind of reminded me of Bernice Warden when they found her. She was hanging.

Remi: 1:23:04

But I don't think she was hanging by a meat hook. I actually don't know the exact details of that aspect. But from my standpoint, it seems like a lot of minor things were taken from Ed in order to incorporate them into Leatherface. Leatherface is very big. He is a hulking monster who wields a chainsaw. In fact, he is one of the first on-screen killers ever to use a power tool to murder his victims. He seems like he can't talk. He almost seems like he is mentally handicapped to the point where he can't speak. There is, of course, the cannibalism aspect, and he is living with people. He is not isolated. He's living with his family. So it seems like it's a lot of surface-level things that were taken. There's more in that news broadcast at the beginning of the film than there is in the rest of the film.

Ashley: 1:23:56

Well, and even with that, the person who's been robbing the graves is his brother or whoever that hitchhiker is, and however they're related to Leatherface. It's not even Leatherface.

Remi: 1:24:05

And there does not seem to be any sort of mother aspect to Leatherface at all. In fact, it seems like there is more of a grandpa situation going on in this. They bring him down for the traumatizing dinner at one point. And you thought he was dead already, but he's a very decrepit, corpse-looking old man.

Ashley: 1:24:26

I thought he was dead until he did one little like gasp at one point. I was like, oh, that's an actual person. It does not look like an actual person.

Remi: 1:24:34

Yeah, he like doesn't have eyes. They're just blackness where his eyes are. It looks like someone in a mask, but it looks really creepy. But yeah, the mother aspect is completely absent. There was a grandmother, I think, with the grandfather who was a preserved corpse of some sort, but she was far less focused on in the film.

Ashley: 1:24:55

Well, with that, we got one more film to discuss, and I'm sure it's one that most people will be at least somewhat familiar with Silence of the Lands began as a 1988 novel by Thomas Harris. The second in his series of suspense novels about the brilliant and terrifying Hannibal Lecter. The first book, Red Dragon, had already been adapted into Michael Band's 1986 film Manhunter. In both Thomas Harris's original novel and the 1991 film adaptation, the central villain is James Gum, better known by his chilling nickname Buffalo Bill. A serial killer who kidnaps and murders women, then skins their bodies to graft a grotesque women suit, part of his obsessive desire to transform himself.

Remi: 1:26:08

Thomas Harris built Buffalo Bill's terrifying methods by blending traits from three real-life killers. From Ed Geane came the most grotesque details, fashioning trophies and keepsakes from the skin and bone of corpses he exhumed, along with two women he murdered. Geane even created masks and a full skin suit, of course. From Ted Bundy, Harris borrowed the killer's manipulative charm. Bundy would fake injuries, wearing an arm brace or using crutches, in order to lure women close enough so that he could overpower them. And finally, from Gary Heidick came the idea of captivity and horror. Heidnick kidnapped, raped, and tortured six women, keeping them imprisoned in a basement pit where two died. The role of Buffalo Bill was brought to life by actor Ted Levine in 1991 for the cinematic adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs, whose unsettling performance became one of horror's most infamous portrayals.

Psycho (clip): 1:27:19

It rubs the lotion on its skin. It does this whenever it's told.

Hard Copy News: 1:27:24

Mr. My Family will pay cash. Whatever ransom you're asking for, they'll pay it.

Psycho (clip): 1:27:30

It rubs the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again.

Ashley: 1:27:48

The film also stars Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling, the young FBI trainee on the hunt for a Buffalo Bill, who must turn to the brilliant psychiatrist and cannibalistic killer Hannibal Lecter, portrayed by Anthony Hopkins as she's seeking insights to help find the murderer. The Silence of the Lambs premiered on February 14th, 1991. Happy Valentine's Day and became an unexpected blockbuster. Made for just 19 million, it went on to gross $272.7 million worldwide, finishing as the fifth highest grossing film of the year. Its festival debut came at the 41st Berlin International Film Festival, where director Jonathan Demi won the Silver Bear for Best Director.

Remi: 1:28:38

Then came Oscar Night. At the 64th Academy Awards, the Silence of the Lambs swept the big five Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay. It's still one of the only quote-unquote horror films ever to win Best Picture. I personally consider it a little more of a thriller. Over the years, the movie's reputation has only grown. Critics and filmmakers routinely call it one of the greatest and most influential films ever made. The American Film Institution placed it 65th amongst the best US films and named Clarice Starling one of cinema's greatest heroines, while Hannibal Lecter remains one of its most iconic villains. And keeping up the trend here, in 2011, the Library of Congress added the film to the National Film Registry for being culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.

Ashley: 1:29:47

But the film isn't without controversy. Some have criticized its portrayal of gender identity through Buffalo Bill, arguing it perpetuates harmful stereotypes. Director Jonathan Demy defended the work, clarifying the character was never meant to represent transgender identity. The film's Impact Indoors, it launched a full franchise: the sequel Hannibal in 2001, prequels Red Dragon in 2002, and Hannibal Rising in 2007, plus two television adaptations. And it continues to influence thrillers and horror storytelling to this day.

Remi: 1:30:25

And just like the others, we watched this film the other night to refresh our memories. I've seen this film dozens of times by this point. I could probably quote certain scenes word for word. Do you have any initial impressions from watching the film recently, Ashley?

Ashley: 1:30:45

Yeah, I feel like watching this time, I don't know if it's because I was kind of up and making dinner while it was going on, but I became confused at several points. Like I missed how she found out where Buffalo Bill was. There was a couple other like plot points that I'm just like, wait, how did we get here?

Remi: 1:31:03

I totally agree. There was a bunch of stuff because I was paying full attention this time that left me confused. And I kind of was wondering, wait, how did they get from like A to B to C there? In fact, there is this whole little subplot where Hannibal Lecter is saying that Buffalo Bill killed a former lover of his that was Lecter's patient, who ends up being a decapitated head in a jar that looks like it's being held at a homeless camp for some reason. But somehow Hannibal Lecter got this head and knew where it was. And there's like a part where Hannibal Lecter gives the wrong name to the FBI. And it just had me wondering: like, did he really know anything about Buffalo Bill? Or was he just kind of making it up as he went along?

Ashley: 1:31:55

I also had some significant qualms about some of the mental health aspects in this, mostly about the quote-unquote psych hospital that Hannibal Lecter is being held in.

Remi: 1:32:07

You mean the crazy stone dungeon with glass walls on one side that he is being held in? I never really noticed how absurd the imprisonment is until this viewing.

Ashley: 1:32:22

And when they transport him to like meet with the senator and then just put him in this like huge cage they clearly built for him in the middle of City Hall?

Remi: 1:32:35

Yeah, it's supposed to be an old courtroom that he's being held in in that scene. I don't know why he's being held in this weird cell in the middle of a courtroom full of old paintings and stuff. It seems like they're really going above and beyond to get Hannibal Lecter to advise on a case that, from my point of view, it seems like he doesn't know much about and he's just kind of viewing it from an outsider looking in.

Ashley: 1:33:00

Well, I think it's because he's supposed to be this brilliant psychiatrist, so they're trying to get his insights into this serial killer to maybe help them track him down, is what I interpreted it as.

Remi: 1:33:12

And there's a lot more of Hannibal Lecter than I remember. I always have heard the whole thing of, oh, Anthony Hopkins won an Academy Award for his performance in Silence of the Lambs, and he's only in it for 16 minutes. Well, Buffalo Bill is only in this film for 10 minutes. Buffalo Bill is barely a character in this, which I don't think you and I realize going into it. I think we both thought that he had a much bigger role.

Ashley: 1:33:41

And regardless of if he's only in it for 16 minutes, it feels like more than 16 minutes, which is just because every time Anthony Hopkins is on the screen, you do not want to look away.

Remi: 1:33:51

And I have seen a YouTube video of a specialist, a psychologist, analyzing different performances in films on how realistic of a portrayal it is of a psychopath. And from the video I watched, I remember Anthony Hopkins being listed as the most unrealistic portrayal of a psychopath on film. Javier Bardem as Anton Shigurer in No Country for Old Men was the most accurate. But Anthony Hopkins is captivating to watch in this. I don't know what he's doing. He is not acting like any human I have ever known. And he was apparently a psychiatrist with patients. And I remember saying to you when we were watching the film, would you ever see a psychiatrist that was acting this way, hardly blanking and talking like a lizard?

Ashley: 1:34:42

It would be unnerving, that is for sure. Well, what similarities did you see between Buffalo Bill and Ed Gean?

Remi: 1:34:49

Well, obviously, the biggest thing is the woman suit that Buffalo Bill is crafting from the corpses of his victims. And according to the film, Bill stalks his victims using night vision goggles, despite it already being pretty well lit in the area that he's looking, then pretends to be injured, tricks women into helping him load something into his van, like a couch, and then knocks them out and abducts them. This aspect is, of course, taken from Ted Bundy, who would fake injuries to trick women into his car. Afterwards, Bill keeps them in a basement pit, starves them, and forces them to rub lotion on their skin to keep it soft, which is inspired by Gary Heidnick, who is honestly someone I don't know a tremendous amount about, but he is someone who kidnapped, tortured, and raped six women, as we said before, murdering two of them, and held them captive in a self-dug pit in his basement in Philadelphia between 1986 and 1987. When Bill is ready, he then shoots his victims, skins part of their body, and incorporates that skin into his woman suit. But not before inserting his calling card of a moth chrysalis in his victim's throat, which is apparently a death head hawk moth, and it's like a creepy little moth with a skull on the back of it, and it seems like a really random, precise thing that could pretty easily be traced back to you. In fact, he has moths flying over his entire apartment.

Ashley: 1:36:36

Yeah, really, other than the skin suit, there's very, very few similarities. At one point, when Hannibal escapes, he does so by wearing the face and hair of one of his victims, but that's nothing to do with Buffalo Bill. Really, the only other similarity I saw is that in Buffalo Bill's apartment, at one point he has a blanket and a poster that have Nazi symbols on it.

Remi: 1:36:59

I noticed that as well. His home does have just random Nazi paraphernalia scattered about. There's not really any attention brought to it, but it is just a subtle thing.

Ashley: 1:37:12

And it's a mess and he's alone. But other than that, I think that's where the similarities between Buffalo Bill and Ed Gean end. It seems like really the primary inspiration was that Gary Heidnick character.

Remi: 1:37:25

Yeah, Ed Gean did not stalk or trick strangers into being his victims like Bill does, using deception or traps. He never used night vision goggles. He never kept anyone captive. And of course, no moths.

Ashley: 1:37:42

So, of all of these three Hollywood adaptations, what one do you see Gean in the most?

Remi: 1:37:47

None of them really capture who I envision Ed Gean as after learning his story. But the closest out of all of them, believe it or not, is probably the least gruesome. I think that Norman Bates is the closest interpretation of Ed Gean that we have gotten on film, primarily because of the psychology. All the other films focus more on the grotesque horror aspects of what Gean did, but they ignore the psychological aspect. And Psycho is one of the only films that I think captures that part of Gean's life very accurately, in my opinion.

Ashley: 1:38:31

I agree. It's really the relationship with his mother and how much he unravels after her death that really stands out to me.

Remi: 1:38:40

Well, that's where we'll leave Ed Gean for now. A quiet, lonely little man whose life and crimes left scars far beyond Plainfield, inspiring some of the most haunting stories ever put on screen.

Ashley: 1:38:58

But Ed's story isn't finished. Next time we'll look at how his life is being retold for a new generation in Netflix's monster, the Ed Gean Story, the third season of the hit American biographical crime drama anthology created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan. We'll explore how the series reframes his crimes, his psychology, and the horror legacy he left behind.

Remi: 1:39:21

So join us in just one week when we will be giving our full thoughts on Monster the Edgean story. But until then, thank you for joining us. Court is adjourned.