The Serial Killer Who Inspired Three Classic Horror Movies

You’ve likely heard of Ed Gein. His house of horrors made headlines for years after he was sent to a mental hospital for his actions. They were so memorable, in fact, that he inspired some of the most iconic horror movies of all time: Psycho (1960), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), and The Silence of the Lambs (1991).

First, a quick primer: People in Plainfield, Wisconsin, had talked about Ed Gein for years. They had witnessed strange things at his farm, including shrunken heads that looked frighteningly real. For the most part, however, people shrugged it off—even when local residents started going missing. It wasn’t until the deputy sheriff’s mother disappeared that anyone discovered the extent of the atrocities going on at the Gein farm.

Discovered among Gein's possessions were four noses, nine masks made of human skin, numerous decapitated heads, lampshades and bowls made of skin, and lips being used as a pull on a window shade. Gein later admitted to two murders (including the deputy’s mother, who was found gutted in his shed) and claimed that most of the items had come from late-night cemetery raids.

If it sounds like something straight out of a horror movie, well, that's because it is. Three of them, in fact.

1. PSYCHO (1960) 

Before Alfred Hitchcock made Psycho into a movie, it was a very disturbing novel by writer Robert Bloch. Bloch happened to be living about 35 miles away from Plainfield when Gein was arrested and knew the vague story of what had happened. Picking up on a detail he had read—that psychiatrists suspected Gein’s clothing made of women’s skin was for the purpose of pretending that he was his recently deceased mother—Bloch wrote a story about a man obsessed with his mother. When sordid details of Gein’s past came to light, Bloch was surprised at how closely Norman Bates seemed to match.

2. THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974)

Many people scoffed at the “inspired by true events” tag that accompanied Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. After all, if a family of miscreants had abducted numerous passersby and tortured them, and had been caught, wouldn’t the world have heard about it? Well, it turns out, we had. Though there was no character directly inspired by Gein in the movie, some details showed up in the movie that also showed up at Gein’s farm—the body-part home decor, the possible cannibalism, and the masks of skin, for starters.

3. THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991)

The Silence of the Lambs' Buffalo Bill is actually a terrifying mash-up of at least four murderers: Gein, Ted Bundy, Gary Heidnik, and Edmund Kemper. The woman suit, obviously, was inspired by Gein. Bundy lured women in a manner similar to Buffalo Bill’s, by pretending to be hurt and in need of their help. Heidnik fashioned a well-like hole in his basement in which he kept his victims. And Kemper began his killing spree with his grandparents, as did Jame Gumb.