After the death of his father, Ezra Cobb (Roberts Blossom) lived with his mother (Cosette Lee) in a dilapidated farmhouse. Ezra’s mother was a religious zealot who hated women. Eventually Ezra’s mother died leaving the backward middle-aged man alone. Not being able to work the farm without his parents, Ezra started doing odd jobs for his neighbors. His only friends were Harlon Kootz (Robert Warner), his wife, Jenny Kootz (Marcia Diamond) and the Kootz’s teenaged son, Brad (Brian Smegal).
Alone without his mother, Ezra’s fragile mind snaps completely. He begins hearing his mother’s voice lecturing him about sin and evil women. He then begins hearing his mother tell him to bring her back home. Ezra goes to the cemetery, digs up his mother’s corpse and puts it in her bed. Ezra takes care of her corpse as best he can. Realizing that his mother is slowly decomposing, he then begins digging up the bodies of people who recently died and removes various parts to try to fix his mother’s corpse. In some cases, he removes entire bodies to keep his mother company.
Before she died, she told her son that the only woman she ever trusted was Maureen Selby (Marian Waldman) and only because she was fat. When Ezra visits Maureen he learns that her husband had died and that she has been talking to him in séances. Ezra thinks they could be kindred spirits until she makes a pass at him. This sends Ezra into another realm of insanity. He kills Maureen. The death of Maureen cements Ezra’s inanity. Conflicted between his mother’s religious teachings and his own carnal desires, Ezra begins killing and skinning women believing that they are evil.
“Deranged” AKA “Deranged: Confessions of a Necrophile” was released in 1974 and was directed by Alan Ormsby and Jeff Gillen. It is a Canadian psychological horror exploitation film told in the documentary style. Rumor has it that at one point the film was considered to be lost until it was rediscovered in Florida in the 90’s.
The movie is based on the true-life story of Ed Gein. Gein, also known as the Butcher of Plainfield, was a mentally retarded man who was arrested and found guilty of grave robbing and murder. He was deemed insane and was committed to a mental institution for life. Gein died in 1984, ten years after the movie was originally released.
This is probably one of the campiest Ed Gein type movies ever, but it is closer to real life than any of the films produced on the subject, at least until the 2000 film “Gein”. What makes it weird is the organ music used heavily in the first part of the film. Later on, it got a lot better. In fact, it got kind of gross. The special effects are gruesome and slimy. There are a lot of decomposing body parts featured and some nice bloody brain matter.
I like Roberts Blossom. I’ve seen him in films such as “Home Alone” 1990 and “Christine” 1983. This is the first film I’ve seen of him where he is the main character. Blossom does a good job of playing a lot of weird old guys. In this case, however, even he can’t make the first part of the movie less silly. The “narrator” of the film, Tom Simms, was played by Leslie Carlson. The picture of Maureen Selby’s husband is that of director Alan Ormsby.