As a well-known horror flick that paved the way for slashermovies, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one of the top movie rentalsfor Halloween week. Since its original release in 1974, questionshave surrounded the film’s plot.

“I heard it was based on a person from outside of Austin,but I knew it was exaggerated.” junior political sciencemajor Adrienne Gelert said.

“I wanted to know if it was a true story or not, and fromwatching the remake, none of it adds up to be believable,”sophomore business major Elizabeth Grider said.

Actually, both students are right. Massacre is based on serialkiller and Wisconsin native Ed Gein.

Gein lived with his mother and brother, who both died during hislate 30s. After the deaths, he became an unstable loner, and hisobsession with his mother grew. Gein, who was also umarried, becameobsessed with the female anatomy and started his first acts ofgrave robbing.

According to the BBC’s crime library, he would dig upwomen’s graves and preserve their bodies. Gein would save theskins and wear them. Only until he ran out of fresh graves did hecommit his first killing.

Gein’s first victim was Bernice Worden, who worked at thelocal hardware store. When Worden’s son came back to the shopone night and found blood by the cash register, he noticed areceipt with Gein’s name on it and immediately contacted thepolice.

When a police officer arrived at Gein’s farmhouse, the badsmell and mess led him to believe Worden would be found. Whenentering the kitchen, the officer felt something hit his back.Worden was hung upside down from a meat hook, and her body was slitdown the front. Police also found the remains, mostly skin, of 15other women.

When Gein was arrested, he admitted to the killing and wearingthe skin from the women he had taken from the graves. Gein, who wasput in mental hospital, died in the 1980s.

The director of the original Massacre, Tobe Hooper, said that hegot his inspiration from another source as well. Hooper got theidea of what the chainsaw-weilding Leatherface would use whilewaiting in line at a hardware store. Leatherface also wearsmultiple masks in the film, and it was reported that Gein woredifferent masks depending on his behavior.

Although no cannibalistic family existed in Austin, the houseused for Massacre is similar to Gein’s dark, dilapidated andisolated farmhouse in Wisconsin.

Gein’s gruesome behavior and life story also spawned theideas behind Psycho and Silence of the Lambs.