The Victim (2011)

"NOT Based on True Events."  Cute touch in the intro.  We've got a barely recognizable Danielle Harris (Mary) getting plowed over a rock by some redneck.  Kyle (Michael Biehn) is a sort-of creeper having lunch in town and then returning to his remote home.  In the meantime, Annie (Jennifer Blanc) is running terrified through the woods.

Annie arrives at Kyle's house, where he attempts to console her.  Sidenote: I'm having a hard time picturing Michael Biehn as anybody but the Sheriff in Planet Terror.  I know he's been in a ton of stuff, but my mind keeps going back to the BBQ recipe.  When trying to explain what happened to her, we revisit how this all came to be.  Poor Danielle Harris has to keep reliving the doggie-style scene that is the cause of her demise.

The men that were partying with Mary and Annie when the "whole thing went down," James (Ryan Honey) and Jonathan (Denny Kirkwood), show up at Kyle's house looking for Annie.  Since the cops are against them, Kyle and Annie believe they have no one to ask for help, so they set off to find Annie's body to use as "proof."  They kind of look, but then just bang instead.  But we all know those two men weren't gone for good, didn't we?  We get a lot of flashbacks via Annie, a little torture, and a pretty sweet head-bashing.  The end wasn't really a "twist" and didn't come as a huge surprise.

I've read different reviews and stories about this movie, and I get the sense that the acting was supposed to be intentionally bad in order to make it a grindhouse-style flick?  It didn't really work here, since there was no "punch-line," so to speak.  Like Planet Terror had the cheesy lines and overacting, but it also had awesome zombies and a ton of gore and a good storyline.  It was written in three weeks and filmed in 12 days, and maybe they should have taken more time on each end of this.  There were a few graphic sex scenes, and a lot of Danielle Harris and Jennifer Blanc running around in skimpy clothing, or being buck-assed naked. This movie definitely had potential, but just didn't come fully to fruition.   Still love all involved, but have seen better performances out of everyone. 

The Fields (2011)

Tara Reid's fall from grace post-American Pie/Van Wilder has been pretty public, and I probably wasn't alone in thinking that she would never work again.  But recently she appeared in a handful of horror movies, and showed up in American Reunion looking as lovely as ever.  So I do want to sort of root for her, even though the hair she's sporting in this movie does not really suit her:

I think they were going for "Amityville Horror," but ended up with "Little House on the Prairie"

Cloris Leachman is also in this movie, and what a random place for her to show up.  She plays a curmudgeonly hick grandmother who keeps telling her grandson that if he wanders too far off, they will find him dead and bloated and disgusting.  Nice image!

All of the promotional materials for this movie claim that it's "based on actual events" but neither IMDB or Wikipedia will tell me what those events were.  So, let's just get right into the plot.  Bonnie (Reid) is in a shitty marriage where her husband thinks it's fine to point a rifle at her.  But instead of leaving him, she ships her kid, Steven (Joshua Ormond) to live with his creepy grandparents so she and her husband can work things out.

This is all happening alongside the events of the Manson killings, which Steven seems quite interested in.  He is also told repeatedly to stay out of the cornfields behind his grandparents home, and he discovers why when he sees a dead body back there.  During the time that Steven is staying at his grandparents', strange things start to happen.  It begins with him hearing someone breathing at the window and continues as he begins to see strange people on the property.  Speaking of people, there are some weird-ass characters in this movie.  There's these weird inbreds killing chickens, random hippies wandering around, and a dude with a creepy resemblance to Charles Manson. 

I didn't see any information on the budget for this movie, but I will say that the quality is quite good, especially the cinematography.  It was filmed in the Poconos in Pennsylvania, which obviously lends a natural beauty, but the lighting and sound quality were excellent as well.  There's some great location shots, from the farm itself, to a decrepit and disgusting house, to an abandoned amusement park.  (Side note: it must have been so f'in awesome filming in the abandoned park, which was actually Bushkill Park, opened in the early 1900s)

But unfortunately these positive components, and a few creepy moments, did not add up to a good movie.  I watched this whole thing, and I'm still not really sure what happened.  It seems like some Charles Manson-wannabes were kinda torturing some grandparents and their grandkid.  They may have killed other people.  There were some neglectful parents vaguely involved.  The lame jump scare at the end made me SO MAD.  I feel like this movie had some really great legs, but it just couldn't pull it all together.  Bummer.

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)

I know I watched this movie a few years back, but I never got around to writing a review about it, and it mostly faded out of my head.  I met both Michael Rooker and Tom Towles at a convention a couple of weeks back, and it had totally gone over my head that they were BOTH in this movie.  Yipee!  This movie was made 25 years ago and both Henry (Rooker) and Otis (Towles) look so young!!  The other main character is Becky (Tracy Arnold), Otis's sister who has come to live with the two men after a divorce. 

Henry, based loosely on the life (and elaborate fantasies) of serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, was shot on 16mm film for $110K.  Family, friends, and personal possessions were used in the movie to cut down on production costs.  You could catch up on the history, and the similarities between movie and real life on the Wikipedia or IMDB page, but what stood out to me randomly was that Henry Lee Lucas was friends (and lovers) with drifter and male prostitute Ottis Toole, also known as the killer of Adam Walsh.  Obviously, the Otis character in the film is named after this fact.

Henry is about a guy-next-door type serial killer, who appears to live a quiet and mild-mannered life as an exterminator, but actually murders people on a regular basis.  Henry and Becky become fast friends and share stories of their abusive childhoods, of which Henry's ended in the murder of his mother.  Henry becomes quite protective of Becky, especially from her pervy brother, and she becomes increasingly flirtatious.

The two men go out one night and solicit two prostitutes, eventually killing them.  Neither seem to show any remorse, although Otis does fear getting caught by police.  The men continue to kill together, switching up their killing methods so that police cannot find a pattern.  After going out for cigarettes, Henry returns home to find Otis raping his sister Becky.  This does not please him, and they get into a fight, with Becky eventually attacking Otis.  I would have liked this movie to end in a Bonnie and Clyde-type thing, but I think it's clear from the beginning that Henry has a one-track mind and not much of a romantic interest in any woman, nonetheless Becky. 

This movie is good, but I don't feel like I worship it the way that other people do.  It has five stars on Netflix, which is fairly unheard of in the horror genre, but I could name a good list of movies that I think are better than this one.  That said, Rooker is badass as per usual, and it is a good movie overall, with a solid plot, good acting, and decent effects, especially for the budget.  Henry is good with or without the background story of an actual serial killer.  Definitely a genre classic.

The Slumber Party Massacre (1982)

Like Christmas in February, The Slumber Party Massacre randomly appeared on my queue today.  This randomly reminded me of the Christopher Pike book Slumber Party, which of course, I now must obtain.  My research into purchasing a Christopher Pike book is turning into me buying a mass quantity of Christopher Pike and R.L. Stine books from EBay.  I'm sure my husband is going to be thrilled. 

Back to SPM.  We've got the typical 80s high school slasher setup.  Lots of T&A, shower scenes, short-shorts in gym class, and several girls who avoid wearing bras.  Trish's (Michelle Michaels) parents are going out of town for the weekend and she is planning a slumber party.  OMG. remember those?  My favorite slumber party memory consists of my sister, my friend Ashley and I squeezed together on my parents' pull-out couch watching Nightmare on Elm Street 3 and 4 and snarfing more sugar and caffeine than ever should have been put in our presence.  I'm quite sure it included Fun Dip.  This memory is closely followed by another time (again at my friend Ashley's) where we stayed up all night watching The Stand and recreating the scene from our favorite NOES sequel, where Kristen washes down coffee grounds with Diet Coke.  Truth be told, it tasted disgusting, made me bounce off the walls all night/morning, and is a fun story to tell at bars. 

Anyway, the girls start arriving for the slumber party and we just know this is gearing up to be a good time.  Meanwhile, the apparent new girl/outcast, Valerie (Robin Stille) stays home with her little sister.  The hilarity of this?  Her little sister finds a Sylvester Stallone Playgirl while Valerie investigates a noise outside.  Seriously, who knew such a thing even existed?  Google confirms it:

I feel like I'm forgetting an important plot part, since I'm apparently distracted by memories and occurrences in this movie that are not integral to the plot at all.  Oh yes, there is an escaped killer on the loose, wielding a gigantic drill.  The girls better watch out.  So the slumber party is in full swing and the girls are changing into their flimsy little nighties.  I've been to many sleepovers in my lifetime and they mostly involve sweatpants. 

To add to the equation, there are some guys playing tricks on the girls, such as screwing with the fuse box and leaving bloody Barbie dolls around.  While the girls invite the guys in and make strawberry daiquiris all around, the serial killer is slashing people one-by-one.  We've got awesome deaths like a girl kissing a beheaded guy and a pizza delivery guy with his eyes gouged out (also, $6 for a pizza?!?!  Awesome!)  We even get treated to a dead girl in the fridge!

While the driller killer runs around ending lives, everyone else seems confused and/or stupid.  Someone even stops to eat some pizza.  I know when I need to collect my thoughts during a mass murder, I take a break for a slice.  The slasher continues as most do, with the high schoolers being picked off, while the killer continues to traipse around with a drill with a cord on it.  LOL.  We do see lots of girl power near the ending of this movie, and I like that action.

Funnily enough, this movie was written by a feminist and was meant to be a parody.  However, the producers didn't see it as such, so it ends up both intentionally and unintentionally funny at points.  And in true 80s fashion, the entire score for the movie was done on a Casio synthesizer.  Well played, sirs, well played.         

Antibodies (2005)

Antibodies has been taunting me from my Netflix queue, with it's crazy poster art and presence of badass Norman Reedus.  I also really liked Case 39 and I've never really seen a German movie before.  However, I kept putting it off, due to its length.  But tonight, I was gearing up to make roasted butternut squash risotto (nom nom nom) and the squash had to roast for 45 minutes.  And as is the case with risotto, you have to stir it continually for another 45 minutes.  That said, I had a good opportunity to watch this movie without planting my butt on the couch for over 2 hours.

Sadly, Norman Reedus is actually in very little of this movie.  He's in the first fifteen minutes or so, and then mysteriously in a coma for the next two hours, never to be seen again.  I thought that being in this movie must mean he speaks German, but he actually barely speaks in the entire movie.  Bummer.

Antibodies is about a prolific serial killer, Gabriel Engel, who is finally captured by police.  In a very Silence of the Lambs-esque story, Engel refuses to talk to most of his questioners, but he finds himself incredibly interested in a young rural cop.  Said cop, Michael, is investigating the death of a young girl in his town.  However, since Engel's motives have mostly involved young boys, they only have a small reason to believe he killed the girl.  In a quid pro quo type of relationship, Engel reveals details of past killings in exchange for personal information about Michael's life.

Meanwhile, Michael himself begins to unravel while investigating the case.  The previously devout Christian and family man discovers deeper and darker desires within himself.  Are the interviews with Engel having an effect, or is evil truly contagious?

What did I learn about Germany from this movie?  It seems that a lot of people use "jerk off" as an insult, and also talk a lot about jerking off.  Also, there seems to be copious amounts of sex on German television.  Cops go to strip clubs, and random ladies that work at suit stores will have butt sex with you after you stalk them.  /end generalizations.

This movie was really interesting, and had a great story and acting.  It's definitely one of those movies for a rainy afternoon, because sticking with it for over 2 hours takes some commitment.  But it was a compelling plot with various twists and turns, and good character development.  Definitely one to see if you like Silence of the Lambs.  They even give a couple little nods to the flick, with Hannibal Lecter mentioned, and a lamb involved in a crucial scene.  Available on Netflix instant, with subtitles that are readable!  Yay!

Son of Sam (2008)

I'm a New Yorker and I know the Son of Sam story.  Any New Yorker worth their salt knows much about the events of the summer of 1977, which was truly a dynamic time in NYC history.

I liked the movie Summer of Sam, which really used the Son of Sam story as a background story to other stuff that was going on.  So I was hoping that Son of Sam would be an actual informative movie about the case.

This movie was more horrible than I ever could have imagined.  Almost no actual facts about the case were correct.  The picture quality was terrible.  The dialogue was awful, and was pretty much a lot of whispering and rambling.  The actor who plays David Berkowitz is pretty much in a catatonic state for most of the movie, just reading off his lines as if the paper was in front of him.  There's a lot of annoying background talking that gets old after about 30 seconds.  This heavily focuses on the probably-untrue claim that David Berkowitz was somehow involved in a Satanic cult.  In terms of this shitty movie, the "cult" consists of a chick in a bra and some other weirdos.

Not only is the story entirely inaccurate, but pretty much no effort was put into the timeline or geography.  Although the murders all took place in the Bronx and Queens, the main character is often pictured standing next to the Brooklyn Bridge.  Not to mention he rides one of the "new" talking subway cars, which didn't exist until the most recent decade.

I actually liked House of the Dead, so I'm usually a little slow to rag on Ulli Lommel.  But this movie was seriously one of the worst movies I've ever seen.  Even if this wasn't completely erroneously pretending to be about the Son of Sam, it still would have been a pretty much unwatchable movie.  Horrible, horrible, horrible.  Skip at all costs.

Bundy (2008)

An American Icon?  A Legacy of Evil?  What is the tagline?  We shall never know.  I don't even think the person on the one-sheet is Corin Nemic, who played Bundy in the movie.   Putting Kane Hodder on the bill for this movie would be pretty much like listing Danny Trejo second for The Devil's Rejects.  He's in this movie for about two seconds, and cast as a lawyer, which makes zero sense.

This movie is insanely boring, to be honest.  I like Corin Nemic, and I think he really could have played a good Ted Bundy but the script for this movie was just freakin' stupid.  It mostly revolved around Bundy's childhood, where his dad sometimes yelled at people, and his college years, where he got dumped by a cute girl because he couldn't get it up.

I was under the impression that Bundy was pretty threatening but in this movie he just seems to have whiskey dick, drive around drunk aimlessly, and wear dorky clothes.  I was not scared of him at any point, and I was pretty much bored through the entire movie.  At the end, there's sort of a flashback/retrospective of Bundy, but no real life facts.  WTF?  A Netflix search shows me that there's never really been a good movie made about Ted Bundy...maybe a business venture for a sharp writer?

Dear Mr. Gacy (2010)

I was sort of sad about William Forsythe playing a gay serial killer since I have a not-so-secret crush on him.  Kind of like when my dreams of a tryst with Guillermo Diaz fizzled when I learned he was openly gay.   I would prefer him maybe to play a serial killer writing to a cute girl with a pixie cut who likes wine and The Devil's Rejects but I guess it's not in the cards, is it?

Dear Mr. Gacy is based on the true story of Jason Moss, who wrote the book The Last Victim.   Basically, this oddball kid is bored with life and his college education, and becomes obsessed with serial killer John Wayne Gacy.  Frustrated with the lack of information that law enforcement is getting from Gacy, he decides to take matters into his own hands.  He writes letters to Gacy in jail, posing as a confused and likely homosexual teenager.  He takes suggestive photos, hoping to make Gacy so enamored with him that he tells him all about the murders.

However, Jason digs himself a hole far, far too deep and goes from sunrise chats with Gacy, to the killer suggesting he have a sexual relationship with his own brother.  As Gacy dives deeper into the relationship, so does Jason.  He becomes more violent and reserved in his personal life, and it's obvious that his discussions with Gacy are deeply disturbing him.

Although I've never read The Last Victim ($11.99 on Kindle, c'mon) I did already know what happens when Jason finally meets with Gacy.  I'm fairly obsessed with serial killers and it never fails to amaze me how truly disturbed and manipulative they can really be.  I liked this movie and I'd venture to say that Forsythe played a pretty good Gacy.  He did make a couple of faces that looked exactly like Sheriff Wydell and that sort of made me LoL but I guess most people wouldn't have that reaction.  This kid Jason obviously had some issues from the start, and the book actually appears to make him out to be a bit of an egomaniac who feels he can "get inside the head" of any serial killer.  This movie was a good time, and I always love seeing my man Billy Forsythe on the big screen (or straight to DVD...whatever)

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Maniac! (1980)

It seems like I've had a really good run with Netflix lately, since I haven't had any problems since I received Mean Creek split completely down the middle sometime last year.  This also may have been because I've been getting a lot of Blu-Rays, which are apparently impervious to scratches.  However, I recieved my Maniac DVD scratched all to hell and with a weird melted mark on it.  I assume that's why I forced to miss 1:14 to 1:26 and had to look it up on Wikipedia.  Oh, the perils of online rental.

Anyway, Maniac is a very freaky movie that I've been looking to watch for some time.  I'm always excited to watch movies about 70s and 80s New York City, and after viewing the glory that is Basket Case I needed another look at the grungy NYC that I was not even alive for.

Frank Zito (Joe Spinelli) is a large and in charge lonely New Yorker who misses his moms.  She was an abusive prostitute that made him hide in a closet while she brought men over.  For some reason, this immediately made me think of Identity.  Because of his strange childhood, Frank is a Ron Jeremy-looking schizophrenic who goes out at night trolling the streets for ladies.  He attacks them, says weird things, and scalps them.  He then brings their hair and clothes back to his apartment, where he dresses up mannequins to look like the deceased women.  Or his mom.  I'm not sure.  He snuggles with them for a couple of nights before finding a new mannequin lover and so forth.

One day while traipsing around Central Park, Frank spots an attractive photographer, Anna (Caroline Munro) taking his photo.  He is interested in Anna, but actually to date her and not chop up her face.  Somehow he's able to change from a bumbling weirdo to Rico Suave and take Anna to New Jersey for dinner.  They date, while he continues his extracirrcular activities.  But even though he seems normal around Anna, he's quickly losing his shit.

Tom Savini did the effects for this movie, and even appeared in probably the best kill scene, which is very reminiscint of Son of Sam.  The bathroom scene was also quite awesome, and seeing a late-70s version of the Columbus Circle subway station was quite a treat.  This movie was seriously creepy, and although the end was sort of meh, I enjoyed it overall. 

Fun fact: The song "Maniac," made famous by Flashdance, was actually written about this movie.  They changed the lyrics for Jennifer Beals to rock out to.




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Random: 30 Day Horror Challenge Day 15

What is your favorite movie involving serial killers?

It's hard for me to explain how much I love Juliette Lewis.   I find her to be an incredibly underrated actress.  Sure, she's played her share of trailer trash roles, but she was downright brilliant in The Other Sister.  

Another movie she was fucking amazing in?  Natural Born Killers.  I love this movie.  I love everything about it.  It's such a mindfuck roller coaster ride the whole way.  Maybe it isn't conventional horror, but when I think serial killers, I think Mickey and Mallory. 

There is SO much controversy surrounding this movie....mostly due to the fact that several psychos actually murdered people after watching this movie.  The Wikipedia page on this flick will keep you busy for a while.

You want a fun Friday night on the couch?  Get NBK on Blu-Ray and a bottle of wine (or whatever mind altering substances float your boat) and just surrender to the chaos ;)

Kalifornia (1993)

The Snowpocalypse is upon us in New York City, which gives me the perfect excuse to stay inside and catch up on some movie-watching.  I'm not sure how it is that it took me this long to find out about a serial killer movie that features Brad Pitt, Juliette Lewis, Michelle Forbes, and Fox Mulder.  Talk about a pretty sweet cast.

Years before he was saddled with a day care worth of kids and whipped by Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt was so dirty and sexy.  Juliette Lewis is NBK-era trashy and awesome.  David Duchovny is in his X-Files prime, and Michelle Forbes is nearly unrecognizable with her Pulp Fiction haircut.

Kalifornia is about a couple, Brian and Carrie, who are working on a book about serial killers.  To gather material for the book and take photos, they plan a cross-country trip visiting the sites of serial killers.  In order to save on gas and expenses, they put out a ride share ad.  The people that answer the ad are Early and Adele, a white-trash couple trying to escape prior transgressions and a nosy parole officer.  But little do Brian and Carrie know that beer-swilling hick Early is actually a serial murderer.

As they make their way across the country, Early is killing people left and right, although it takes the fellow passengers a little while to catch on.  Brian seems seriously desperate for a male buddy to distract him from the overbearing Carrie, so it almost seems like he's in a bit of denial about the whole thing.  Poor Adele is an abused and passive victim who goes along with anything Early does just so that she doesn't have to be alone.

This movie dragged a little bit at points, but it was overall a cool movie.  Brad Pitt is awesome as a country-friend psychopath and Juliette Lewis is just warming up for the awesomeness that will take place in Natural Born Killers the following year.  This is more crime thriller than horror, but definitely worth checking out.  Also, fun fact.  Brad Pitt actually went to the dentist and got his tooth purposely chipped for this role.  Bet Angelina wouldn't let him do that today ;o)

Albert Fish (2007)

I am SUCH a dork for documentaries.  The hubs and I watch all kinds of crazy docs.  I understand that this movie is sort of a docu-drama, which I don't appreciate as much but it's about serial killers so I'm diving in.

Albert Fish got into my head lately because I did a recent rewatch of House of 1000 Corpses.  The name got into my head and I remembered what a f-ed up case this whole thing was.  Anyway, to the movie.

First off, I'm a resident of New York City, so it's really awesome to see the old photos and footage of early 1900s NYC.  The Unsolved Mysteries type reenactments are really not my jam though.  I'd rather have a straight documentary with old recordings and current experts on crime and such.   They had several actors doing replays of Albert Fish at different times in his life.  These portrayals were pretty exaggerated and overboard, and in my opinion, kind of took away from it a bit.

Anyway, although I've read the Albert Fish section on Wikipedia and Crime Library and such, I did learn some new facts from this faux-ish documentary.  Mostly on the gory details of the murders and Fish's various wild sexual escapades.  This man was seriously bananas.  I do agree with other reviewers though that they went kind of overboard on the religious aspect and corny interim shots of red paint being thrown on the walls and such.

If you've already read a good amount about Fish, you're not going to get TOO much new information from this docu-drama.  But it was pretty decent to watch...I just wish they would have focused more on the docu and less on the drama.

Fear Dot Com (2002)

I've seen this movie once before, and I was pretty sure that it was super-lame, but I decided to give it another chance for the sake of a review.  This movie is kind of a ripoff of Ringu/The Ring only with a website instead of a video.  The premise is that you go to this website to watch people get killed, and after you see it, you die within 48 hours.  Strangely enough, your death is caused by your worst fear.  The people in this movie have odd fears -- one guy dies in a car crash, one person drowns in the bath, one person is hit by a subway. and one person is seemingly scared to death by cockroaches.  This other person dies in a jail cell and I'm not sure if that's their worst fear, or if that's how they had to die because they were stuck there.  Anyway, I digress.

Stephen Dorff is Mike Reilly, a burnt out NYC detective who is distressed because a previous case he worked on, "The Doctor" has not been solved.  But now there's a new case to be cracked.  People are dying randomly in NYC and being found looking super-scared and with bloody eyes.  Those in charge immediately think it's a virus and bring in Terry from the Department of Health (Natascha McElhone).  But tests and autopsies show that it's not a virus at all and something else is afoot.

You would think it would be time for the DOH to be taken off the case since it's not a virus, but not in this movie.  Terry and Mike band together to solve the mystery.  As it turns out, the victims all have one thing in common -- they've all visited the feardotcom website prior to death.  Additionally, there appears to be some sort of little girl bouncing a ball involved in this nonsense. 

Blah blah blah Doctor's former victim blah blah blah torture chamber.  If this movie said "Want to Play?" a la Chucky one more time, I was probably going to lose it.  And in the end, I still couldn't figure out how the website was doing what it was doing.  This movie somehow got two watches from me, but gets the same verdict.  Skip it.
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Movie News: Scream 4 - Wes Craven confirms that it's onnnnnn!

Apparently Wes Craven heard me reminiscing about 90s horror the other day and decided to make all my wildest dreams come true.  The man himself will be directing the fourth installment, which is coming more than a decade agfter Scream 3.  I can't believe it's been that long!  No worries though, I think Neve's still got it.

The scheduled release date is April 12, 2011.  More to come on this, obviously.

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Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield (2007)

Is it totally wrong that I think Kane Hodder is sexxx-ayyyy?  This is what was behind the Jason mask all those years?  Hmmmm, I was missing out.

Anyway, I know this movie has gotten a lot of shit.  I can tell you right now that the main problem with this movie was naming it "Ed Gein."  This movie was actually watchable, but it just wasn't really very representative of the story of Ed Gein.

As most horror fans know, Ed Gein was a scrawny weird loner who was obsessed with his mother.  He dug up bodies from the cemetary and played around with them and even killed a few people.  His story was the inspiration for characters in Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Silence of the Lambs.

Kane Hodder ≠ Ed Gein.  He is big, muscular, scary, and the aforementioned dead sexy.  The innaccuracies of the story were glaring.  So I'm going to stop comparing it to actual Ed Gein because there's no reason to.  The movie follows a loner living on the edge of town (they say this about 27 times) who is sad about the sickness/death of his mom.  He also has a little hobby of digging up corpses with his friend Michael Berryman. 

Women seem to seriously tick him off, and he feels the need to kill them.  He also kills anyone who gets in the way of his little errands.  In addition to the grave robbing and farming, it seems like Ed Gein has a really full schedule.  He is also doing some arts and crafts on the side by making a full woman-suit.  On the other side of things, we have some bumbling cops including an idiot detective that takes his airhead girlfriend on police business with him.  There's no wonder it took these morons so long to figure out why women and corpses were going missing left and right.

There's was lots of kind of soap opera stuff going on this movie with lots of background on the supporting characters and pretty much zero on the main one.  That said, this movie wasn't totally unwatchable but they should have just dropped the comparison to Gein and just made it another ripoff.