Ed Gein – The Texas Chain Saw Massacre/Psycho/Silence of the Lambs
This is the one that most people get wrong, even though Gein is one of the most prolific serial killers on this list. Ed Gein is the inspiration for countless films, but these three are the most well-known. Ed Gein’s crime spree took place in Plainville, Wisconsin in the 1950s. He is known to have killed two women but he also exhumed corpses (especially ones that reminded him of his mother) for their skin and other body parts to use as trophies and memorabilia (he was also supposedly a necrophiliac). Gein’s crime spree inspired all of the films above (Silence of the Lambs probably comes closest to a direct adaptation). But there was never a serial killer family in Texas that had a chainsaw-wielding maniac for a son (Gein is not known to have ever used a chainsaw). Gein was found guilty of first-degree murder but diagnosed with schizophrenia, so he spent the remainder of his life in a mental hospital, where he eventually died in 1984.
