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“Psycho,” “The Exorcist” and “The Silence of the Lambs” are some of the most terrifying horror movies ever put on screen but the shocking reality is these movies were inspired by actual events.“
“Psycho” (1960) and “The Silence of the Lambs” (1991) have one thing in common: they both dealt with men who killed women and then dressed up in their skin. What a lot of people don’t realize, is that “Psycho,” the book by author Robert Bloch which would eventually become a film of the same name, was actually based on the real-life events of Ed Gein, a man who was arrested in Plainfield, Wisconsin in 1957 for the murders of two women but he not only killed them, he skinned them and made a “human dress” that he would wear. Psychiatrists speculated Gein did these gruesome acts so he could pretend to be his dead mother, a woman known to be self-righteous and overly domineering. When she died years earlier, they say Gein snapped as he didn’t have his mother and best friend to look after him any more.
The series premiere of “Behind the Screams” talks about Gein and the women who mysteriously disappeared not only from his hometown but from neighboring towns too. In 1955, local bartender Mary Hogan from Plainfield, Wisconsin, disappeared under puzzling circumstances and when it was revealed that she originally hailed from Chicago and had possible ties to the mob, it was presumed that they put out a hit on her, for whatever reason but the local sheriff was perplexed when he couldn’t find any clues in regards to her disappearance and supposed killing. Several years went by and a new sheriff was in town and when another local woman, hardware store owner Bernice Worden went missing, the woman’s son claimed to know who might be responsible. Supposedly Ed Gein was in their store the previous day and asked his mother out and when she refused, Gein became irritable and asked for some anti-freeze he said he would pick up the next day.
With his name in the receipt book showing that he picked up his anti-freeze that very morning, it gave the sheriff and his deputy enough cause to visit Gein so they could question him. Once they began talking to him however, it quickly became apparent that he was lying about his whereabouts that morning and was arrested and put in jail for the night. The two officers made their way back out to Gein’s property and upon entering an old garage at the back of his house, they discovered Worden’s decapitated body and a “dress” made out of various women’s skin. There was a “human mask” experts say had been carved off the body it was attached to and they believed it to be that of Mary Hogan, the bartender who disappeared a few years earlier.
Gein also admitted to exhuming recently buried bodies of middle-aged women at the local graveyard who reminded him of his mother and kept the body parts in his garage. He was eventually found mentally incompetent by reason of insanity but he never saw the inside of a jail cell, instead, he was committed to the Mendota State Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin. He was later diagnosed with schizophrenia and died from lung cancer in 1984. Gein became the primary focus of author Robert Bloch’s book “Psycho” and his story and likeness was loosely based in other films such as “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,” “House of 1000 Corpses” and the character of Buffalo Bill in “The Silence of the Lambs.” Reelz Channel have made a name for themselves with their various series that cover a wide-ranging number of topics like “Fame Kills,” “Autopsy: The Last Hours Of…” and “Murder Made Me Famous” and “Behind The Screams” is another welcome category to their ever-growing library.
These shows are informative and for the most part, look at the diversified aspects of fame and stardom and in many cases, its quintessential deterioration, resulting in the deaths or suicides of celebrities and others who wish to become famous or in some instances, infamous. There’s no denying that Ed Gein was a monster but with “Behind the Screams,” it at least gives you a little insight as to what was going on inside his head.
Series Premiere Saturday, Sept. 26th at 9pm ET/PT on the Reelz Channel
