(2001)
3
Richard Gilliam
If Texas-born Steve Railsback doesn't quite have the right accent to evoke rural Wisconsin, director Chuck Parello and production designer Mark Harper surround him with such visual verisimilitude that Railsback's performance is convincing anyway. The problem with the authenticity here is that the filmmakers have managed to authentically capture the dull, boring parts of life in 1950s rural Wisconsin. Ed Gein is so under-the-top that what should be compelling merely becomes unpleasant. Given that Gein's legend has been previously retold in several cutting-edge works, taking a low-key approach to the psychopathic side of America's heartland was probably a good idea. Unfortunately, Parello isn't Terrence Malick and Ed Gein isn't Badlands. On the plus side, the film closely follows the events surrounding Gein's real-life crimes. On the minus side, Parello doesn't understand that credibility is not a substitute for style. Still, the film has a sincerity that helps it succeed. The denial of the townspeople Gein encounters is much like the denial of the public in the 1950s, who didn't much want to know that people like Ed Gein were in their midst. The era of the serial killer as superstar was nearing though, through the groundbreaking work of novelist Robert Bloch and director Alfred Hitchcock, who were inspired by Gein's story to create Psycho.
Ed Gein on AllMovie
Ed Gein (2001)
