6 Real Serial Killers That Defined The Horror Film Genre

The most influential serial killer in horror film history, a ridiculous amount of movies attribute their antagonists to being inspired by Ed Gein. The best part of all however - Gein isn’t truly a serial killer, although he is almost always described as one.

He only killed two people. His biggest crime was grave robbing and appropriating the corpses he found for arts and crafts on his farm.

Stealing bodies from local graveyards and turning the remains into furniture and trophies, Gein’s property was home to masses of creepy homemade items. A belt made from human nipples, skull ornaments, decapitated heads, and plenty of leftovers littered around his home revealed the work of a madman - and one that has served as filmic inspiration ever since.

Perhaps the most instantly recognisable would be The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, with Gein’s habit of turning faces in masks, lampshades, and a variety of other household objects, Leatherface becomes easily attributable to ‘The Butcher of Plainfield.’

As well as Leatherface, there’s Norman Bates from Psycho and Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs, some of the biggest names in horror film history. Inspiring parts of Rob Zombie’s House of 1000 corpses and The Devil Rejects, as well as films such as Deranged and In the Light of the Moon - there’s no doubt Ed Gein has single handedly influenced decades worth of villains that we now love to hate.

It’s unsettling to think that so many truly devilish characters have come from an even more frightening reality. Gein is the largest, most terrifying influence on horror film as we know it - and he was all too real.