Deranged (1974)

"I apologize for calling you a hog, Mama!" -Ezra Cobb.

As it is Halloween time again, and with the recent release of Netflix's Monster: The Ed Gein Story, I thought I'd take a look at this film which came out the same year as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Both films were inspired by Gein's gruesome exploits and, while Chainsaw,Psycho (1960), and The Silence of the Lambs (1991) are more famous versions of that crime saga, Deranged is every bit as disturbing. A big reason for this is the great performance of Roberts Blossom as Gein-esque Ezra Cobb, who, like Gein, was a loner who became psychopathic toward women and engaged in acts of cannibalism and necrophilia in his isolated farm house following the death of his extremely strict mother. I still can't believe this is the same actor who, 16 years later, would play the kind, misunderstood neighbor in Hone Alone (1990). Another reason the movie is disturbing is because the actresses portraying Cobb's victims are instantly sympathetic, making their death scenes all the more shocking.