In this episode Andrea and Alex dig up the stories from our past that we just can’t seem to quit. Why do they keep reappearing, who’s responsible and what’s that scratching noise?
REQUIRED READING
Candyman. Dir. Clive Barker. 1992 [DVD]
Urban Legend. Dir. Jamie Banks. 1998. [DVD]
LISTEN
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Candyman was directed by Bernard Rose, not Clive Barker.
I see that in the actual recording you got the director right.
Ed Gein was only convicted of two murders, which puts him one short of the official requirements to be a “serial killer”. His graverobbing & taxidermy helped inspire Leatherface & Buffalo Bill, but not Thomas Harris’ other characters (Hannibal Lecter appears to have been inspired by an incarcerated Mexican doctor that killed his own lover). Robert Bloch lived not too far from Gein and was inspired by write Psycho after hearing the story, but in “The Shambles of Ed Gein” he wrote this about what he knew at the time:
“I was not among the epicures. At that time I resided less than fifty miles away, but had no automobile to add to the bumper crop; nor did I subscribe to a daily newspaper. Inevitably, however, I heard the mumbled mixture of gossip and rumor concerning the “fiend” and his activities. Curiously enough, there was no mention of his relationship with his mother, or of his transvestism; the accent was entirely on proven murder and presumed cannibalism.
What interested me was this notion that a ghoulish killer with perverted appetites could flourish almost openly in a small rural community where everyone prides himself on knowing everyone else’s business.”