Ed Gein: Movies, Shows, Books and Podcast Episodes About the Butcher of Plainfield

AETV.com may earn affiliate commissions for purchases made through links on this website. Ed Gein left behind a chilling legacy that has lent itself to movie and TV portrayals, as well as coverage in books and on podcasts. Gein was arrested in 1957 after police in his small hometown of Plainfield, Wis., discovered a farmhouse filled with horrors: bowls made from skulls, furniture upholstered with human skin and clothing stitched together from body parts. 

Investigators would later learn that much of Gein’s warped psychology stemmed from his intense, almost pathological attachment to his mother, Augusta, a strict and deeply religious woman who instilled in him a fear of sin and a mistrust of women. When she died, Gein became increasingly isolated, clinging to her memory even as his behavior grew more erratic and macabre.

He was linked to the the murders of at least two women, tavern owner Mary Hogan and hardware store owner Bernice Worden, though his body-snatching sprees suggested far darker compulsions. Declared insane, Gein was committed to a state hospital after his 1968 conviction and spent the rest of his life in psychiatric custody until his death in 1984. 

But even as he faded from public view, the grotesque details of his crimes took on a life of their own. Gein became less a man than a symbol: the rural recluse whose warped obsessions seemed to expose the darkest corners of the American psyche. 

For decades, filmmakers, authors, podcasters and documentarians have mined his story, blurring the line between fact and nightmare. 

Arriving in theaters just three years after Gein’s arrest, this Alfred Hitchcock classic is the most famous fictional retelling of Gein’s crimes, even though its setting and characters are only loosely based on Gein’s life. Norman Bates, the soft-spoken motel owner, was inspired by Gein’s reclusive lifestyle and troubled relationship with his domineering mother. 

More than six decades later, the film remains deeply unsettling as it reveals how ordinary-seeming people can harbor terrifying inner lives—a truth Gein embodied. Hitchcock shocked 1960 audiences with his daring treatment of violence and sexuality, most famously in the shower scene that has become a cinematic touchstone. By weaving Gein’s psychological complexities into a suspense thriller, Hitchcock created the prototype for the modern horror film. 

Tobe Hooper’s landmark horror film drew directly from the macabre details of Gein’s home. While Leatherface and his cannibalistic family are exaggerated creations, the imagery of masks stitched from human skin, furniture made of bones and the claustrophobic feel of a farmhouse turned slaughterhouse all come from Gein’s grisly legacy. 

Though the movie never mentions him by name, audiences familiar with the headlines about Gein quickly made the connection. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre became notorious for its raw, documentary-like style, fueling debates about violence in the media. Yet beneath the gore, the film reflected a deep cultural unease with rural isolation and the horrors that might lurk in forgotten corners of America—a fear Gein had already made terrifyingly real.

Released the same year as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Deranged is one of the most scrupulous dramatizations of Gein’s life and crimes. The film centers on Ezra Cobb, a lonely Midwestern farmer whose devotion to his dead mother drives him to exhume corpses and create grotesque “mementos.” 

While fictionalized, many of the details closely mirror the Gein case, from Cobb’s obsession with women’s skin to the eerie solitude of his farm. Shot in a stripped-down, documentary style, critics noted that it accurately captured not just the lurid spectacle of Gein’s life, but also his sad, twisted psychology, showing a man warped by isolation and grief into something unrecognizable.

Jonathan Demme’s Academy Award-winning thriller is often remembered for Hannibal Lecter, but the terrifying character of Buffalo Bill was based in part on Gein. Bill’s gruesome project of skinning women to create a “suit” echoes Gein’s own practice of fashioning masks and garments from human remains. Like Gein, Bill lives in isolation, his house filled with unsettling trophies, a grim reminder of the horrors police found in Plainfield in 1957. 

While the character also drew on other real-life killers, Gein’s influence proves unmistakable—his crimes provided the visual and psychological template that made Bill so terrifying. The film’s lasting success cemented Gein’s place not just in horror, but in mainstream thrillers, showing how his story continued to shape cultural ideas of madness and monstrosity more than three decades after his arrest.

Harold Schechter’s Deviant is widely considered the definitive book on Gein, balancing detailed research with a compelling narrative style. Schechter draws on court documents, police records and local interviews to reconstruct Gein’s childhood, the domineering influence of his mother and the grotesque crimes discovered after his arrest. 

Beyond chronicling Gein’s life, the book also examines how his case reshaped American culture, fueling both the rise of true-crime publishing and horror cinema. By contextualizing Gein’s story within broader social anxieties about gender, family and rural isolation, Deviant demonstrates why his crimes reverberated so powerfully. 

The long-running Last Podcast on the Left devoted several episodes to Gein in 2015. Hosts Ben Kissel, Marcus Parks and Henry Zebrowski trace Gein’s early years, his twisted family dynamics and the horrific discoveries that stunned Plainfield in 1957, emphasizing the surreal nature of Gein’s life.

The episodes also situate Gein within a larger tradition of American killers, analyzing why his case in particular became such fertile ground for both true crime and horror storytelling. For listeners accustomed to the show’s mix of laughter and dread, the Gein series is a standout, providing a reminder that Gein’s legacy continues to influence how we continue to talk about crime and culture today.

This four-part docuseries lets viewers hear the infamous killer in his own words, taken from interviews conducted by law enforcement after his 1957 arrest and stored by a local county clerk until they were discovered in 2019. 

Unlike dramatizations that turned Gein into a horror archetype, this series emphasizes the unnerving ordinariness of the man itself. It retraces Gein’s upbringing and fixation on his mother, his grave-robbing and confirmed murders and the 1957 search that exposed his “house of horrors,” while exploring his enduring impact on pop culture.

Hosts Alaina Urquhart and Ashleigh Kelley dedicated multiple episodes of Morbid to unpacking Gein’s crimes. With their blend of forensic knowledge and accessible storytelling, they revisit his childhood in rural Wisconsin, his reclusive lifestyle and the shocking evidence police uncovered. 

The episodes emphasize not just the lurid details, but also the psychological forces that shaped Gein, particularly his fraught relationship with his mother. By presenting the case through both a modern true-crime lens and a conversational style, the Gein series offers a mix of dark details, context and empathetic discussion of Gein’s troubling story.