Motorskallen It's important to keep in mind that this film is "inspired" on what happened, not "based on" the true story. But so is "The Texas chainsaw massacre", "Psycho" and "Silence of the lambs". It's not that the movie sucks big time, but think of the fact that it purports to be the true story ... No, I just don't buy it.The acting is a bit so-so. They definitely got the wrong actor who plays Ed.I don't know really ... take it for what it is, a half-good B-movie. I agree on what others say: "Why make up a story when the truth is way more gruesome" ...

dgar1948 This movie is supposedly based on the real life of Ed Gein. The one with Steve Railsback was much better. Gein was a short man,5ft.7in. Kane Hodder was too big to portray Ed Gein. He's good as Jason but not for this role. Of the two, Steve Railsback was better. He even resembled Gein somewhat. How Gein managed to go unnoticed is beyond me. Just looking at his picture with those cold, dead eyes, gives one the willies. I suppose being 1957, people didn't know much about serial killers and in a small town like Plainfied, no one really took notice of Gein's weird looks. He may have been friendly to people but that look should have raised a red flag I think. A real, cold blooded, cold eyed butcher.

gojirosan When "Deranged" was made the film-makers saw fit to turn Ed Gein into Ezra Cobb even though the resultant film was actually quite close to the facts of the notorious case. I presume that enough was fictionalised that they thought they should change names and such."Ed Gein - The Butcher Of Plainfield" masquerades as a true story retelling of the Gein case, but actually bears very little resemblance to the history. As a biopic type film it is a travesty. If ever a film needed names changing it is this one, far more so than "Deranged". It is as close to the true crime story as "Dirty Harry" was to the true story of the Zodiac killings.OK, so, that annoyance aside, how is it as a horror film? Well, as a horror film, well, as a film generally, it is quite appalling. One of the worst films I have sat through in months. Issues run thus: 1) Kane Hodder is quite astonishingly miscast as Ed Gein. Utterly unsuitable in the part, Hodder just lumbers through glowering menacingly. Very bad.2) Kane Hodder is the best actor in the film! The rest of the cast are rather "amateur dramatics" and utterly unengaging. It is painful to witness some lines being delivered.3) The occasional efforts of stylish film-making seem to come from "The Big Book Of Moody Cinematography Cliché". You've seen it all before, better executed. Aside from the efforts at style, the rest of the film-making is largely inept: cameras shake, framing is bad, there are overlong pointless shots holding back the pace...which leads me to...4) It seems to go on forever. It is under 90 minutes in length, but sitting through it is an ordeal. You'd swear it ran two and a half hours.5) Ed Gein almost seems secondary. Mostly the film is concerned with the family affairs of a newly promoted Deputy Sheriff. Said Deputy is played by an abysmal actor upon whose shoulders no film should rest.Is anything good about it? Well, the gore FX are very good. Some convincing wounds are in display and the make-up is generally excellent. None of this, however, makes up for the massive failings of the film.It doesn't even have any kitsch value, it's just bad; not enjoyably bad, not "so bad it's good", just genuinely bad. A film to avoid and despise.

crispin_13 The story of Ed Gein is a disturbing and terrifying story. Ed was truly a messed up character and his legacy went on to inspire such 'greats' as The Tooth Fairy, Norman Bates, and Leatherface. How is it then that such a fascinating man has inspired such a boring melodramatic piece of drivel?? Ed Gein made belts out of nipples, bowls out of skulls, lamps out of skin, danced around under the moon in suits of human skin. None of this made it into the movie because they needed to give us a fictitious story of a ridiculously awful deputy and his rather homely, sex-starved girlfriend. This movie seemed to go out of its way to falsify history. What baffles me is that most movies stray from the path of truth to exaggerate history; this one seems to do it to minimize it. I just don't get it.