Deranged

1974 "Pretty Sally Mae died a very unnatural death! ... But the worst hasn't happened to her yet!"
6.3| 1h23m| R| en| More Info
Released: 02 February 1974 Released
Producted By: American International Pictures
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

A man living in rural Wisconsin takes care of his bed-ridden mother, who is very domineering and teaches him that all women are evil. After she dies he misses her, so a year later he digs her up and takes her home. He learns about taxidermy and begins robbing graves to get materials to patch her up, and inevitably begins looking for fresher sources of materials. Based closely on the true story of Ed Gein.

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Reviews

Tedfoldol everything you have heard about this movie is true.
Dorathen Better Late Then Never
Anoushka Slater While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.
Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.
RevRonster Just recently I watched this one for the first time and while I didn't find the film to be that scary, I did see it as an intriguing adaptation of the serial killer that inspired the creation of some of the best work in horror.The film is light on gore (and the little we get is that bright red "paint" looking blood that was notorious in the 70s) and the film relies on psychological terror rather than jump scares, so the younger generations might not enjoy this film but I found it pretty disturbing. Sure, some of the acting is bad but Roberts Blossom in the lead role isn't and is providing a very spine-chilling performance. Overall, the film is interesting and intriguing, even though it is not as memorable as the films that were inspired by the serial killer this film is adapting.
grybop I'm not entirely sure that Deranged is what it claims it is - a thriller. There's nothing too frightening happening on screen and the agony is zero level, bar two scenes. Then, there is the narrator. He destroys everything. If he'd just made a brief appearance at the beginning, he'd be tolerable, but no, he had to explain everything over and even enter the same scene as the killer at some point. Really bad direction choice. The acting was awful - apart from Blossom, who was simply outstanding. His character was probably not meant to be scary really, but rather what the title says, deranged. Blossom's expressions, moves and mannerisms are spot-on, at least I was convinced. Basically, Blossom's performance is the only reason to see this.
movieman_kev Alan Ormsby, who of course would write another B-movie cult classic decades later with "The Substitute", brings us this Brit flick loosely based on Ed Gein. In this version, Ezra Cobb (Robert Blossom, best known for Escape from Alcatraz and Home Alone) pretty much goes completely mental when she passes on.Blossom is extremely suitably creepy throughout and anytime he's on camera the movie soars yet the flip side of that is the on screen narrator who's pretty useless and temporally brings the film to a screeching halt. Thankfully these scenes are seldom enough as to not ruin a memorable little slice of horror.
Vornoff-3 Bob Clark will probably always be remembered for directing and producing "A Christmas Story," (or in some circles for the "Porky's" movies), but for me he is the director of "Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things" and the producer of this odd little gem. In spite of the lurid subtitle, there is no on screen depiction of anything like necrophilia, just a very matter-of-fact retelling of the story of Ed Gein, backed by a sparse organ score. There are elements of black humor, as when the ghoul tells the corpse of his mother that he thinks that maybe a woman he recent met "isn't quite all there" because she talks to her dead husband in séances. Mostly though, the very convincing portrayal by Roberts Blossom makes this an effective and interesting movie, better - in my humble opinion - than the better-known "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" which came out the same year and claimed to tell the same story (it didn't).