How This Serial Killer Inspired Ryan Murphy’s ‘Psycho,’ ‘Texas Chainsaw,’ and ‘Monster’

He’s the ultimate psycho killer.

Serial killer Ed Gein may not be a household name like Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer, but he looms large in pop culture, inspiring a trio of iconic horror movie killers: Norman Bates in “Psycho,” Buffalo Bill in “The Silence of the Lambs.” ”, and Leatherface in “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”.

Although most of his crimes occurred in the 1950s, Gein remains relevant today. Not only are these films classics of the spooky season, but it was also recently announced that the third season of Ryan Murphy’s hit Netflix anthology series “Monster” — which had popular previous seasons about Jeffrey Dahmer and the Menendez brothers — will be about Gein, starring Charlie Hunnam.

Harold Schechter, a true crime historian and author who wrote the definitive book on Gein, “Deviant: The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein, the Original Psycho,” told the Post that until Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” was released in 1960, all the monsters in horror films were from “other places – Eastern European monsters like Dracula and Frankenstein or the Wolfman. Or monsters from outer space. Or monsters that appeared in the Japanese seas, like Godzilla.”

But, he said, Norman Bates was “the first truly American monster.”

He added, “and it really transformed horror movies after that. So Gein is a seminal figure in horror history” because he inspired “Psycho,” which, in turn, “created the modern horror film.”

Gein, who lived in Wisconsin, was born in 1906 and was known as The Butcher of Plainfield. Despite inspiring several fictional serial killers, he has only had two confirmed murders (with more suspects). He is famous not for being prolific, but for the bizarre and terrifyingly disturbing nature of his crimes.

Schechter, who has written more than a dozen books about serial killers and mass murderers, explained: “His goal was to try to reconstruct his mother by digging up the bodies of these middle-aged women in the communities around her, bringing them back to your farmhouse. , making various household objects out of parts of their bodies and a fur costume that he would wear and pretend was his own mother.”

After Gein’s crimes came to light in 1957, he pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. He spent the rest of his life in Wisconsin psychiatric institutions until he died of lung cancer in 1984 at age 77.

While researching his book “Deviant,” first published in 1989, Schechter interviewed former neighbors and acquaintances of Gein.

“He was basically considered – not quite the village idiot, but a lonely guy and a bit of a goofball. He would babysit his neighbors,” he said.

“They thought of him as a local weirdo, but he seemed quite harmless… Obviously, no one could imagine what was really going on inside his farmhouse, because it is quite unimaginable.”

While the average person has seen “Psycho,” “The Silence of the Lambs” or “Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” unless they are a true crime buff, Gein is not a famous name in the same way that serial killers like Bundy or Dahmer are.

Schechter attributes this to the fact that Bundy and Dahmer have been active more recently, while Gein’s era is older.

Schechter, a retired Queens College professor who used to teach classes on myth and folklore, said Gein cast a long shadow on pop culture because “there are certain stories that keep being repeated in different forms. Something in the human imagination seems to demand these different stories. Every now and then, something will happen in the real world that appears to be the real incarnation of some ancient folklore. There are elements of Gein’s story that are like that.”

He cited the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale, the character Boo Radley from “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and even a story from his own childhood in the Bronx about “an old lady who lived on the sixth floor” as examples of the kind of story he told story about “some scary person who lives in some remote house… Gein’s story was like one of those fairy tales come to life.”

The retired professor continued: “There is something very resonant about this story. And the details can be retold – as is the case with all folktales.”

Each different form of retelling reflects the era in which it was released, he said.

For example, Schechter said that “Psycho,” released just after the 1950s, reflects a mindset “when there was this hidden dirty quality to sex. The film begins with this camera entering the hotel room where these two lovers are meeting. It’s all about voyeurism and things that reflect that kind of 1950s sexual duplicity.”

Meanwhile, he thinks the 1974 “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” had to do with the Vietnam War era.

“He takes the myth of Gein and turns it into this story about how America turned into this machine that massacres its young people,” he said.

He also believes that “’The Silence of the Lambs”, from 1991, has something to do “with cosmetic surgery”, explaining “the obsession with altering the body. Buffalo Bill wants to become this beautiful woman.”

As horrific as it is, Gein’s story has a “kind of mythic archetypal quality that makes it very susceptible to being told and retold in these different forms,” ​​he added.

However, Schechter has some reservations about the story’s next incarnation, when the third season of Ryan Murphy’s “Monster” will premiere (at an unannounced date on Netflix). Because Gein is more obscure than Bundy or Dahmer, there are fewer books about him.

“I was not approached in any way. And my book – in all modesty – is Gein’s definitive book,” he said. “Certain alarm bells went off, like, ‘How can they do this without at least consulting my book?’”