As a writer that covers the horror beat, I am woefully uneducated about the adventures of America’s legendary psycho killer, Ed Gein. Sure, I know the basics: he lived with his mom; he dug her up after she died; he dug up other corpses and killed people, repurposing their skin and bones. I also know he inspired films such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Psycho and Silence of the Lambs. But I didn’t know he was the inspiration for the 1974 Canadian cult movie Deranged.
Though I’d never seen Deranged, I’ve long been a fan of its lurid movie poster, which shows a woman’s bare legs tied together and hanging from the ceiling as a crazed man looks out at us. It’s an indelible image, with an ominous tag line: Pretty Sally Mae died a very unnatural death! …but the worst hasn’t happened to her yet! And then there’s the shockingly sensational subtitle: The Confessions of a Necrophile. Would the movie attached to this unforgettable one sheet be as memorable? That’s a tall order for any filmmaker to fill, but it seems that co-directors Jeff Gillen and Alan Ormsby knew what they were doing. While Deranged might not deliver all the delights promised by the poster, it is an extremely effective exploitation flick that’s a lot better than I expected it to be.
Ezra Cobb is a devoted son. He has lived on a small, rural farm with his mother his whole life. Now, she’s dying and he can’t bear to be without her. After she passes, he realizes he doesn’t have to be without her. He goes to the cemetery and digs her up, but it’s been several months and she just doesn’t look as good as she once did. Ez gets the idea to give her a facelift using the skin of freshly buried women. Hey! He can even keep the women around the house as companions for his mom. (I told you he’s devoted.)
Ez’s mother always warned him against pleasures of the flesh, and it’s strongly implied that he’s a 50-year-old virgin. Though his mother isn’t truly gone—I mean, hell, she’s seated right there at the table—let’s face it, she isn’t the company she used to be. So Ezra decides to take a wife (literally). After a deadly comical misadventure with a family friend who uses her dead husband’s spirit as a tool of seduction, Ezra chooses a cocktail waitress at a nearby bar. As you can imagine, things do not go well for her. She ends up at his house, in her underwear, surrounded by Ez’s growing collection of corpses, whom she gets to know better than she’d like. Eventually, Ezra (completely) loses his grasp on reality and gets sloppy in his courting, which leads to his capture.
The film uses a device that was all the rage in the ‘70s. As the film starts, a man steps into frame and tells us he is the reporter that covered the story on which the movie is based. He promises what we are about to see is the truth, and then he steps out of frame, occasionally reappearing to comment on what we are seeing. While this has the potential to ruin the fantasy by constantly reminding us we are watching a movie, Deranged is compelling enough to keep that from happening.
Considering the subject matter, I was expecting a bloodier movie. But then I remembered this flick was made in 1974, before horror movies became the splatter fests they are now. The lack gore here isn’t an issue. As with most things artistic, less is more. When we do see what grue there is, it’s all the more effective due to the restraint employed by the filmmakers. Today’s torture porn producers could learn some lessons in moderation from Deranged.
As Ezra, veteran character actor Roberts Blossom is quite good. He makes this psychotic killer a real person. As written, Ezra is beloved by his neighbors and the last person they suspect to be the murderer. Blossom plays Ezra as a solemn country man, low-key and formally polite. He convinces us that other than killing several people and being a corpse robber, Ez isn’t a bad guy. He’s just misguided and lonely. Up until Ezra totally lost it and kidnapped his neighbor’s teen girlfriend, Blossom had me feeling sorry for ol’ Ez. Now that, my friends, is acting.
I don’t know how close Deranged is to the reality of the Ed Gein case, but directors Gillen and Ormsby have delivered a gripping little flick. Its straight-forward presentation and understated performances, hallmarks of ‘70s cinema, combine to convey an unexpected sense of reality. At times, I almost felt like I was watching a documentary—and with a story this deranged, that’s an accomplishment in any era.
~Theron Neel
