#35: A Terrifying Mama’s Boy
Ed Gein is one of America’s most notorious serial killers, and the country was disturbed and riveted by his murder cases in the 1950s. His real-life story of murder and mutilation has lived on in infamy, but it has also inspired other fictional stories that have ingrained themselves into pop culture.
The character that is probably the most taken after Gein is Norman Bates from the book and movie Psycho. Psycho was originally written by Robert Bloch, who only lived about 30 miles from Gein’s Wisconsin home. News of the horrific crimes was going around at the time that Bloch was writing, so it influenced him pretty heavily. We can see the similarities ourselves when we watch Norman Bates’ obsession with his mother in Hitchcock’s 1960 film adaptation.