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One man's gruesome crimes inspired decades of cinema's most terrifying killers... Join us as we examine the fictional murderers whose creation can be traced back to the infamous Ed Gein! From mask-wearing maniacs to mother-obsessed murderers, these characters all share a disturbing connection to the real Wisconsin killer.
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00:00Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the 10 most notable fictional
00:09killers who were largely inspired by Ed Gein.
00:1310. Michael Myers, Halloween
00:36Rob Zombie's reboot of the Halloween saga leaned into grittier, more disturbing realism,
00:41and that includes going into far more detail about the unknowable Michael Myers.
00:45Unlike John Carpenter's more enigmatic killer, Zombie's version bears many Gein-like undertones.
00:50He has a fixation on masks, collecting them, making them, and using them to confel his fractured psyche.
00:56I like the mask because it hides my face.
01:00I don't like you to hide your face. Take it off.
01:04It hides my awkwardness.
01:06And come on, his mask looks a bit more skinny than the original's fresher Halloween store appearance.
01:11He's also depicted as having a close bond with his mother, whose spectral memory guides Michael in his violent quest.
01:17Both characteristics echo Gein's infamous life, and with Zombie's love of horror, it's probably no coincidence.
01:23This Michael Myers isn't just a blank slate boogeyman. He's a macabre manifestation of real life horror.
01:28Michael was created by a perfect alignment of interior and exterior factors gone violently wrong.
01:37Number 9. Frank Zito, Maniac.
01:40Now you're mine. Oh, mine. Why did you need those other men? They didn't love you. I did. I loved you. I needed you.
01:54Considered an unofficial video nasty, Maniac has long attracted controversy for its themes and graphic violence.
02:00Much like Ed Gein, the movie's killer, Frank Zito, is driven by deep psychological trauma that is rooted in a warped relationship with his mother.
02:08Mommy has to punish you.
02:11Mommy, Mommy, please don't lock me in the closet. Please, Mommy, I'll be good.
02:16Frank, Mommy has to punish you.
02:19Both men express their violence through an obsession with women and trophies.
02:24Zito scalps his victims to place their hair on mannequins, while Gein infamously exhumed corpses and crafted grotesque keepsakes from their remains.
02:32The fixation on recreating female figures as controllable objects echoes Gein's attempts to cope with his loneliness and grief following his mother's death in 1945.
02:41While Zito is a far more outwardly violent figure, the influence of Gein's macabre legacy is obvious.
02:47I told you not to go out tonight, didn't I? Every time you go out, this kind of thing happens.
02:54Number 8. Vincent Smith, Motel Hell
02:57Funny-looking critters, ain't they, Vincent?
02:59Yeah, maybe so. But you know as well as I do, it takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent fritters.
03:08On the surface, Farmer Vincent seems like a kindly small-town figure, but beneath that folksy charm is a cannibalistic entrepreneur.
03:15Vincent traps unsuspecting travelers, plants them in his secret garden, and eventually turns them into his famous smoked meats.
03:22While Gein was never known to engage in cannibalism, the collecting and harvesting of human bodies is a direct nod to the famous criminal.
03:29But humans, human flesh, how could you do it?
03:37What are you talking about? Hell, half the people in this county have been eating human flesh that I have smoked for over 30 years and loving it.
03:46Vincent's rural isolation, his twisted sense of practicality, and the way he treats human bodies as resources is also lifted directly from the Gein playbook.
03:55And who can forget Vincent's grotesque pig mask, which too obviously recalls Gein's fascination with wearing trophies of flesh.
04:02Vincent?
04:04Vincent?
04:05Vincent?
04:06Vincent?
04:07Vincent?
04:08Vincent?
04:097.
04:10Garland Green, Conair,
04:11That skinny lil' man butchers 30 something people up and down the eastern seaboard.
04:14You see the way he killed those people, makes the Manson family look like the Bartras family.
04:17Well, he's on the right flight.
04:21Well, he's on the right flight.
04:24Steve Buscemi's Garland Green is a highly intelligent serial killer
04:27who casually recounts his atrocities with unnerving calm.
04:31Garland's psychology shares much in common with Gein's.
04:34His calm demeanor belies his horrific acts,
04:36much like Gein's neighbors who remembered him as a quiet and harmless man.
04:41The boy next door who harbors sinister secrets vibe reeks of Gein,
04:44and at one point, he tells the story of wearing a woman's head as a hat
04:48as he embarked on a road trip.
04:49Murdering 30 people, semantics or not, is insane.
04:56One girl, I drove through three states wearing her head as a hat.
05:00The connection there is obvious.
05:02Indeed, Gein is often credited as a major inspiration on the character,
05:06alongside other charming but deadly killers like Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and Ed Kemper.
05:11Are you sick?
05:14Why do you ask?
05:16You look sick.
05:19I am sick.
05:21You take medicine?
05:23There is no medicine for what I have.
05:25Number 6.
05:26Otis Driftwood, House of a Thousand Corpses.
05:29Why you ask?
05:30Why is not the question.
05:33How?
05:34Now, that is a question worth examining.
05:37Rob Zombie clearly has a thing for Mr. Gein.
05:40The famous director makes the list again with Otis Driftwood,
05:43a sadistic killer who delights in mutilation and turning victims into grotesque art pieces.
05:48Otis' manner of transforming corpses into grotesque art pieces reflects Gein's notorious furniture and clothing made from human remains.
05:56Where's Bill?
05:58Where's Bill?
06:00Bill?
06:01Is you okay?
06:03He's a good guy.
06:05Oh, he's been a great help to me.
06:07A real blessing.
06:08I mean, I couldn't have asked for a better specimen.
06:12Otis also embraces the rural madness aesthetic of Gein's story,
06:16trapping outsiders who stumble too close,
06:18his house of a thousand corpses mirroring Gein's Plainfield farmhouse nightmare,
06:23and in one twisted scene,
06:24Otis torments Denise by wearing a mask made from the skin of her dead father.
06:28While he's far more sadistic than Gein,
06:30Otis clearly borrows from the same twisted foundation.
06:33Number 5.
06:34Dr. Oliver Threadson, American Horror Story Asylum.
06:38You can scream all you want.
06:39No one will hear you.
06:43Obviously, the basement is soundproof.
06:45Believe me, girls with bigger sets of lungs than yours have tried before.
06:48We turn to the realm of television for Zachary Quinto's Dr. Threadson,
06:52who begins the series as a caring psychiatrist,
06:54but who is eventually revealed as a sadistic killer, Bloody Face.
06:58Yeah, you can see where this is going.
07:00Threadson's entire persona drips with Gein influence.
07:03Threadson abducts women, murders them,
07:05and crafts furniture and masks from their remains.
07:08Hence, you know, Bloody Face.
07:10And like Gein, he also harbors some severe mommy issues.
07:14Although in this case, it's abandonment, not abuse.
07:17She was my mother.
07:18She was 33 years old.
07:20The same age as my mother when she abandoned me.
07:22Threadson's combination of medical grotesquerie, manipulative charm,
07:33and macabre handiwork makes him a modernized version of Gein,
07:36with the Bloody Face mask serving as a chilling homage
07:38to the famous skin masks found in the Gein house.
07:41She's talking about the maniac, the killer of those women, isn't she?
07:44Bloody Face.
07:45Bloody Face.
07:46An eyewitness caught a glimpse of him leaving one of the crime scenes wearing a mask,
07:49which appeared to be made of human flesh.
07:51Number 4.
07:52Ezra Cobb, Deranged.
07:53Take it home, mama.
07:57Home.
07:58Few films are more on the nose than Deranged.
08:01Ezra Cobb is essentially Ed Gein, with his name changed for legal reasons,
08:05as there was very little attempt made to disguise the obvious inspiration.
08:08Like Gein, Cobb is a lonely farmer living in the rural Midwest,
08:12under the thumb of his fanatically religious mother.
08:14Remember what I've always told you.
08:17The wages of sin is gonorrhea, syphilis, and death.
08:21They'll use their bodies to steal from you.
08:27They'll steal your life and your soul.
08:29And after her death, he turns to grave robbing, exhuming corpses, and eventually wearing skin.
08:34At one point, he even kidnaps a cashier and hangs her upside down in his barn,
08:39which is taken nearly verbatim from the Bernice Warden murder.
08:42The film's haunting and blatant recreations of Gein's actions
08:45makes Ezra Cobb one of the most faithful screen adaptations.
08:48He's just Ed Gein with a different name.
08:50Plain and simple.
08:51Mama, this is Mary Ransom.
08:57I think she likes you.
08:59Number 3. Buffalo Bill, The Silence of the Lambs.
09:02Why do you think he removes their skins, agents darling?
09:08Throw me with your acumen.
09:10Few cinematic killers are so overtly Gein-inspired as James Gumm,
09:14aka Buffalo Bill.
09:15His obsession with transformation,
09:17his creation of a suit stitched from the skin of dead women,
09:20come directly from Gein's infamous proclivities.
09:23But unlike some other killers on this list,
09:25there's also a deeper layer of psychology at play here.
09:28Bill is largely fixated on identity and becoming someone new,
09:32which mirrors Gein's attempt to literally wear the skin of others to escape himself.
09:36He's far more violent than Gein was,
09:39especially when it comes to trapping his victims in his creepy basement.
09:42But the psychology, the choice of female victims,
09:44and the wearing of human skin,
09:46all relate directly back to the infamous Wisconsin killer.
09:49What is the first and principal thing he does?
09:51What needs does he serve by killing?
09:55Anger.
09:56Um, social acceptance and, um, sexual frustrations.
10:03No, he covets.
10:05Number 2. Norman Bates, Psycho.
10:08People always call a madhouse someplace, don't they?
10:12Put her in someplace.
10:13The archetype of the mother-obsessed killer was born from Ed Gein,
10:17and Alfred Hitchcock brought it to cinematic legend through Norman Bates.
10:21Norman's controlling and abusive mother,
10:23who lives on in his fractured psyche after her death,
10:26reflects Gein's unhealthy attachment to his own abusive mother, Augusta Gein.
10:30Do you go out with friends?
10:31Well, a boy's best friend is his mother.
10:37Gein also wished to become his mother by wearing the skin of dead females,
10:41a disturbing aspect which is directly mirrored in Norman's penchant of becoming his mother
10:45by wearing her wig and clothes.
10:47The isolated rural home, the secret double life,
10:50and the dual existence of innocent son and domineering mother
10:53all echo Gein's unsettling reality.
10:56Hitchcock may have fictionalized some aspects,
10:58but the real killer's DNA is simply unmistakable here.
11:01At times, he could be.
11:02Both personalities carry on conversations.
11:06At other times, the mother half took over completely.
11:10He was never all Norman,
11:12but he was often only mother.
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11:31Number 1.
11:32Leatherface.
11:33The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
11:35You can have dinner with us.
11:37You like head cheese.
11:38My brother makes it real good.
11:40You like it.
11:41Who else could be in the top spot?
11:43Leatherface is horror's most direct and lasting creation
11:46born from Ed Gein's heinous crimes.
11:48His mask of human skin,
11:50rural isolation,
11:51and reliance on manipulative family members
11:53draws heavily from Gein's horrific legacy.
11:55Where are the kids?
11:56Where are they?
11:57Show me!
11:58I don't know.
11:59I don't know.
12:00I don't know.
12:00I don't know.
12:00I don't know.
12:00I don't know.
12:02I don't know.
12:03I don't know.
12:03I don't know.
12:03I don't know.
12:06Are you sure?
12:07Leatherface also does one better than the other killers on this list,
12:11as he actually has furniture and decorations made from human remains,
12:14a grotesque aspect of Gein
12:16that is often ignored in cinematic adaptations.
12:19He also hangs his victims from the ceiling,
12:21which is exactly what Gein did with Bernice Worden.
12:23While exaggerated into sheer chainsaw-wielding chaos,
12:27Leatherface embodies the disturbing blend of domesticity and monstrosity
12:31that made Gein's crime so chillingly cinematic.
12:34You don't want to go fooling around other folks' property.
12:37Some folks don't like it,
12:39and they don't mind showing you.
12:40Did you know these killers were modeled after Ed Gein?
12:43Let us know in the comments below.
12:44The State of the General
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