Five-Legged Iguana

ED GEIN: THE BUTCHER OF PLAINFIELD (WARNING: SPOILERS)
(Review)

On the 17th of November, 1957, a gruesome arrest was made in Plainfield, Wisconsin. One Edward Theodore Gein was found to have murdered a number of women and kept chilling souvenirs, memento mori which he used, as pieces of furniture (severed heads as bedposts; skin which upholstered chairs and was used for lampshades), dishes (the top of a human skull became a soup bowl), and articles of clothing (a belt made of nipples; a necklace of lips; masks made from the women’s faces; an entire body suit made of skin, including leggings and breasts) which he wore on occasion.
So bizarre and atrocious were Gein’s crimes that a number of fictional characters would find their origins in certain aspects of his case: Norman Bates in Psycho; Leatherface in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre films; Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs.
Now, Michael Feifer brings us Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield, which dramatizes the events leading up to his arrest.

There are two central characters to this tale: Gein (played by Kane Hodder, a stunt man who made his indelible mark on the horror genre when he played Jason in parts VII through X of the Friday the 13th franchise) and recently promoted deputy sheriff Bobby Mason (Shawn Hoffman, The Heat Chamber).
Feifer contrasts Gein and Mason by showing us each man’s relationship with his mother: Gein has been scarred for life by his domineering mother, whose mental spectre haunts the tortured man, while Mason cares deeply for his mother Vera (excellently played by Priscilla Barnes), who runs the hardware store in town.
Throw in the other woman in Bobby’s life for good measure, his girlfriend Erica (Adrienne Frantz), and the stage is set for the inevitable collision between the story’s principals.

For a straight-to-DVD release, Ed Gein has a couple of surprisingly good performances, from Hoffman and Barnes (who is best known as the second “replacement blonde” on the hit TV show Three’s Company, following the sudden departure of Suzanne Somers).
There is no discernable trace of the broad sitcom humour Barnes once had to ply for the show, and her turn here is suitably impressive.
Hoffman meanwhile, essays the young newly appointed deputy well, presenting us with a capable, caring, and humble leading man. Sadly, he is sabotaged by an uncertain script, which, in perhaps trying to show that Bobby is only human, manages to depict an otherwise responsible lawman sometimes derailed by his libido.
Hodder acquits himself well enough, if not with any particular flair. A more interesting (though awfully short) performance is that by Michael Berryman, another recognizable genre face, for his role as Pluto in the original The Hills Have Eyes and its sequel. Here, in an obvious move of casting against type, Berryman is Gein’s accomplice, who questions the morality of grave robbing.
Less successful in her performance is Frantz. Again, the script does the actor a disservice by painting a picture of a young woman dangerously close to being a self-absorbed princess, who soothes Bobby’s guilt at being away from his job (to search for a missing girl) with some heavy petting. (In a deleted scene, she even goes so far as to get annoyed that Bobby isn’t completely with her, as if jealous that the missing girl is taking up her boyfriend’s thoughts.)

The script also takes incredible liberties with the state of the remains of Gein’s final victim, 50-year-old Bernice Worden, mother of deputy sheriff Frank Worden, abducted from the hardware store which she owned.
Yes, Vera gets abducted, and yes, she gets killed, but Feifer pretty much leaves her body intact, particularly her head (which was chopped off of Bernice Worden’s gutted carcass), so Bobby can have one of those teary farewells where he thanks Vera for taking good care of him, tells her to tell his deceased father that he’ll never forget everything they taught him, and vows to catch her killer.
Feifer then stages one of those climactic scenes where a moral debate takes place as the protagonist (who has just lost a loved one to the killer’s depredations) holds a gun to the baddie’s forehead, while the would-be victim pleads with the hero not to stoop to the bastard’s level.
Yes, it’s a dramatization, but it doesn’t have to be so melodramatic.

Ed Gein does have its merits, and as I’ve mentioned, is slightly better than your average straight-to-DVD fare. It is, however, not as morbid as one would expect, given the facts of the case, which are a matter of public record. There really isn’t any sign of the macabre décor Gein had around the house, and we actually only see him wear the full body suit in one scene, and as it is, the sequence in Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs, where Buffalo Bill dances to Q Lazarus’ “Goodbye Horses” is a whole lot more disturbing.
In fact, some of the most disturbing shots in the film are seen during the opening credits, and I’m assuming these are the police photographs taken in the wake of Gein’s arrest.
We also don’t really get any deep insight into Gein’s childhood or his relationship with his mother. The film doesn’t really delve into the psychology of Gein, into why he apparently wanted so badly to be his mother that he made a suit of skin just for that sole purpose. (Nope, no convenient psychiatrist’s evaluation here, ala Hitchcock’s Psycho.)
What conceivably could have been an intense psychosexual study is instead a film about a killer getting arrested and a young man proving true to the values instilled in him by his loving parents.
And if this is Feifer’s point, that we are all merely products of our parents, then the film really could have benefited from an involved exploration of Gein’s childhood and upbringing. A harrying voice with lots of disorienting echoes isn’t going to cut it.
And neither does this movie, when you come right down to it.