Psycho: The Lost Tapes of Ed Gein

Had to put a small review after two episodes as I can't understand the low rating. If you like true crime then this is a good watch. They're not telling you anything we don't already know as such, it's just much more detailed and a 'deep dive into Geins crimes, mindset and family history. Also the impact on this quiet backwater town in Wisconsin which is forever known as 'Geinsville'. You also get to hear Geins voice for first time which is interesting. Anyway so far so good for me.

*edit* now watched all 4 episodes and it did dip slightly. The first episode remains the best one by far. That been said its still worth your time and a broad take on both him, his crimes and the impact the crimes made on cinema.

This is yet another so called "documentary" that relies on over-the-top dramatization to present a topic that would be so much more interesting if the filmmakers respected their audience. Notice all of the sinister background music. Why not just call it a horror film? Not to mention there is misinformation, and certain common rumors are presented as though they were true. One example is with the alleged occurrence of a human heart being found on Gein's stove in a frying pan. This is simply not true. The heart was found in a plastic bag on the floor near the stove. When Gein speaks you can barely hear his voice and these moments in the show are few and far between. Rather than forking out money for MGM+ go on YouTube and find a real Ed Gein Interview for free.

I wanted to like it and some parts were good but there's to much Speculations from bloggers and podcasters that say what they think happened without any prof that happened and it's been over 50 years so i assume that if it had merit it would be facts by now cause this is the most researched serial killer in history. It's hard to take it serious when the "experts" are 3 podcasters or someone that found about about Ed by mistake and than wrote a book. But if you can ignore that i would still recommend it because of the new tapes.and fotagedes it adds to the story that hasn't been known previously.

Just finished Psych: Ed Gein's Lost Tapes, and I feel like I need a refund on my time. This four-part monstrosity could've easily been condensed into a single episode, but instead, they decided to drag it out like a toddler refusing to leave a playground. Each episode is an agonizingly slow, repetitive mess that offers absolutely no new insights or value to anyone even mildly familiar with Ed Gein.

Let's start with the crime scene photos-because, trust me, the show won't let you forget them. They ran the same three or four photos on loop so many times it felt like a bad PowerPoint presentation. I'm convinced they ran out of pictures halfway through production, panicked, and just said, "Let's show them again. They won't notice." Spoiler alert: I noticed.

Then we get to the "experts" and commentators, who are somehow even worse than the editing. They brought in three podcasters who contribute absolutely nothing. Nothing! These people just sit there cracking dumb, immature jokes over a serious topic, like they're recording an edgy middle-school podcast. It's borderline disrespectful, and every time they opened their mouths, I could feel my brain cells dying.

As for the so-called "professionals," they must've found them at the last minute because most of them were completely unqualified. Maybe three people were actually worth listening to-they knew Ed Gein personally and had some genuine insight. The rest were a mix of weirdos who seemed more like Gein fanboys than experts. Instead of explaining his psychology, they spent their screen time either fangirling or making excuses for him like they were trying to write his Tinder bio.

The audio recordings, which are supposed to be the big selling point of this whole thing, are a mixed bag. Yes, it's creepy and interesting to hear Ed Gein's voice, but the recordings are hard to hear, and I'm 90% sure they botched the closed captions. And if that wasn't bad enough, they kept replaying the same clips while mixing up the audio, so it sounded like he was answering completely different questions. It's like they were trying to gaslight the audience into thinking it was new content.

Final verdict: This show is a disaster. If you're morbidly curious about Ed Gein's voice, you can maybe justify watching it, but even then, you're better off finding the audio somewhere else. Between the repeated footage, terrible commentators, questionable "experts," and botched audio, it's a total waste of time. 3/10, and that's being generous. Go watch a YouTube video or read Wikipedia instead.

Like a lot of these shocking docu-series, you realize the producers do all they can to stre-e-e-e-etch 90 minutes worth of material into four hours, and it really dilutes the finished product. The premise is a bit shaky, in that we're never told why these "lost tapes" have never been heard, not even by Gein's biographers. We're just supposed to accept that they are unearthed treasures. The tapes are somewhat interesting but anticlimactic because Gein doesn't have much to say. We hear from a few experts, a few interesting people who actually knew Ed Gein, a good cross section of contributors, and three sophomoric podcasters who, I guess are there for color but seem to think the whole topic is one big joke and end up dumbing down the documentary significantly. All the while, we see the same stock footage and hear the same audio clips over and over, even within the same episode. If all that superfluous filler had been trimmed it could have been an interesting and tight project. Not bad overall, but way too long.