Psycho: The Lost Tapes of Ed Gein

Ed Gein, often considered the prototypical serial killer before the concept gained widespread recognition, has left an indelible mark on popular culture. His gruesome actions have served as inspiration for numerous movies, shows, and books, most notably contributing to the creation of the Norman Bates archetype.

This series delves into Gein's early life, shedding light on his upbringing and the dynamics with his parents, with a particular focus on his relationship with his mother. However, the narrative takes a somewhat scattered approach, jumping from one intriguing event to another, interspersed with macabre commentary from various bloggers and fanboys. The excessive enthusiasm displayed by these individuals upon hearing Gein's long-lost voice recordings from police interviews can be a bit overwhelming.

Perhaps a more effective approach would have been a dramatization that carefully pieces together the story from its beginnings, allowing the events to unfold without the overshadowing influence of overly exuberant fan perspectives. Not worth it.

There is some interesting information - but is it enough, and compelling enough to put up with the annoying older pontificating gentlemen and their monotone lazy tongue speak? Nope. I made it thru almost two episodes before I just could no longer take it. And then they intermittently throw in a couple of younger bloggers and commentors, who try to dredge up excitement for this "fantastic find ", but fall exceptionally short and then they look exactly as they are - a little too happy to be included in this pile of nonsense with no substance to add to the conversation. Not really worth watching.

...as I found this 4-part documentary on Ed Gein VERY interesting! Sure, the guys from Last Podcast from the Left are annoying as hell but everyone else interviewed here has some interesting and informative things to say about this infamous man. Sure, I've seen all of the archival footage of Ed and know his story (found Harold Schechter's book "Deviant" to be excellent as well as a few other books) but the interviews of the current and former Plainfield residents, seeing the cemetery and the Gein family graves, seeing the town itself were all new to me.

In Chapter 4 now where the documentary is discussing "Psycho" (and will go on to "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "The Silence of the Lambs" I hope).

VERY interesting altogether!! Read the reviews but check this film out if you are at all interested in who spawned Norman Bates, Leatherface, and Buffalo Bill.

This could have been an interesting series listening to the tapes and revisiting some of horrors from the Geins case. Instead we have an overly produced mess with loud overly dramatic music that makes you feel like you're watching a low budget horror movie.

It seems more like an experiment to see if they could make a series with very limited new material. What we have shows that MGM thinks that dramatic music will hide how poorly researched and put together this docuseries is, repeated half truths that have been corrected over time are in here, the entire series feels lazy.

A frustrating and annoying watch.

I was really looking forward to this mini series but am kind of disappointed. Actually hearing the bits of recordings of Ed answering questions was really the only parts of this worth watching. The first episode basically goes over everything and gives very few clips of his actual voice and you can hardly hear his voice but somehow you can hear the detective clearly. The second and third episodes were just like the first but with a few more audio clips. They have chopped the tapes and you'll hear one response and then in the next episode you'll find out it was actually the response to a different question and you don't really know if the answers they put up are from that actual conversation and I do not know why they would have mixed the recordings up like that. False accusations mentioned such as a perversion with his mother and a heart on the stove. I did not care for the podcast group they had as speakers. They were unnecessarily vulgar and making jokes, laughing and being disrespectful, childish and very inappropriate in their comments. Very few speakers with actual credibility, and half of them almost seemed to have a fascination with Ed Gein himself rather than the psychology behind his behavior. I felt like this could have been one film. Very repetitive and would have been better with less random discussion by irrelevant people and more of the true consistent recordings and actual photos or video recordings. Full of peoples different interpretations of who Gein was, disappointed.