Deranged
Short description
Deranged is a 1974 horror film about Ezra Cobb, a man in rural Wisconsin who has spent years caring for his domineering, deeply religious mother. She teaches him that women are a source of evil, and when she dies, he is left adrift. Unable to accept the loss, he eventually exhumes her body and brings it home. He teaches himself taxidermy in an attempt to preserve and repair her remains, then begins robbing graves for materials, and his need for fresher sources grows as his mental state deteriorates.
The story is loosely inspired by the crimes of Ed Gein, the Wisconsin man whose case also influenced other well-known horror films of the era, though this one stays closer to the rural setting and the killer's point of view. Roberts Blossom plays Ezra, with Cosette Lee as his mother, and Leslie Carlson, Robert Warner and Marcia Diamond among the supporting cast. Alan Ormsby wrote the screenplay and directed the film with Jeff Gillen; the two also made Popcorn, released much later in 1991. Bob Clark, then a rising filmmaker, served as a producer.
The film runs eighty-three minutes and was released in early 1974. On TMDB it holds a rating of 5.8 out of 10 from just over a hundred votes, which points to a small audience and a mixed response rather than broad acclaim.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film tells the true story of the American serial killer, necrophile, and cannibal Ed Gein.
- The corpses shown in the film were made from plastic skulls attached to a fine wire mesh and painted cotton. Plaster casts of the faces of crew members' relatives, including producer Tom Carr's wife, were used to create the faces.
- The film's budget was $200,000. Producer Tom Carr earned this money by organizing concerts for Led Zeppelin, Three Dog Night, The Temptations, and Rod Stewart.
- Cobb's house was filmed on an abandoned farm in one of the forests in the Canadian province of Ontario. The farm owners were not even aware that filming was taking place on their property.
- The film disappeared after its premiere in 1974 and was long considered lost. A copy was found in Florida in the mid-1990s, and in 1994, the film was released on VHS by the independent distributor Moore Video.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
