Pulp Features

New York based Chuck Parello is a relatively new director whose first two films have dealt with psychotic killers. He is fast becoming a recognized face amongst horror fans due to the graphic nature of his movies and the genuine fright they provoke. The unsettling factors within his projects are not helped by the fact the people dealt with were based on real-life murderers of the craziest order, rather than purely some screenwriter’s imagination. When it comes to the uncanny, truth is always stranger than fiction.

Parello’s first major directorial job was “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Part 2”, the sequel to “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer”. While it was not a bad project as far as horror films go, it did not gain him as much recognition as he might have desired. His second film, “Ed Gein”, proved quite the contrary.

Ed Gein has been the subject of numerous films before, usually with a change in name and surroundings. No one will deny he was a prototype for Hannibal Lector in “Red Dragon”, “Hannibal” and “Silence of the Lambs”. He also inspired both “Psycho” and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, another lesser known film named “Deranged”, and several documentaries.

In real life, Gein was a farmer with a mother’s boy complex living in Plainfield Wisconsin who managed to pass for normal by day, but liked to rob graves by night. He was quite a craftsman, so to speak, fashioning furniture out of bones, a suit made out of women’s skin and a variety of trinkets made from skulls. He was eventually captured after having killed some local people and leaving enough clues to bring the police right to his door step. Gein was arrested, placed in an insane asylum where he eventually died.

For more information on this movie, you can visit www.edgeinthemovie.com which has a trailer, a more in-depth article on Gein’s life, information on the film, and the actors involved.

Steve Rainsback makes a convincing Ed Gein in this, and even looks quite a bit like the real madman. Others in the cast include Carrie Snodgress from “Diary of a Mad Housewife”, and several newcomers.

Parello’s direction gives this movie a truly creepy atmosphere, sickeningly so at times, but this is the intent. His work on this picture has gained him quite a following amongst horror fans and enhanced his reputation as a ‘psycho-killer director’, so much so that he is supposed to be in-line to do another movie shortly, again based on real-life psycho killers. This time around it is The Hillside Stranglers who will reportedly become his subject.

Although a relative newcomer, Chuck Parello has set the groundwork to be around for a long time to come. “Ed Gein” has been well received on the festival circuit and was the winner of the best film award at the Sitges Film Festival.

Chuck Parello’s next project is another true story - “Deep Forest” about a man murdered thirteen people in Northern Spain in the 1850s and then claimed to be a werewolf when he was caught.

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