Middle-aged bachelor, Ezra Cobb (Roberts Blossom), lives with his dominating mother, who instills in him a hatred of women; gonorrhoea riddled whores who will steal your money she tells him (except for fat ones like Maureen Selby). One day Ma Cobb dies whilst Ezra is feeding her pea soup. He can't bear to be without his mother so after a year he finally cracks, digs her up and takes her back to the farm house. He's shocked to find that she doesn't look quite as fresh as the day she was buried, so he decides to exhume some fresher corpses and sets about patching her up.

Ezra's neighbours, the Kootzs, worried about his increasing strangeness, suggest that he seek female companionship. So Ezra goes to visit the plump Maureen Selby. She arranges a séance and contacts her late husband who suggests that she needs some lovin' and Ezra is just the bloke. All is going well until Maureen tries to seduce him and Ma Cobb's words of warning ring in Ezra's head.

As with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Psycho, Deranged is based on Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein, although sticking much closer to the real life events than the other films. Roberts Blossom is wonderful as Ezra; a complex, psychotic character with a very tenuous grip on reality. His performance, along with a fine script and confident direction, raises Deranged from an average low budget exploitation movie to a memorable cult classic. The film starts with a newspaper columnist introducing us to a "human horror story of ghastly proportions and profound reverberations". He pops up occasionally throughout the movie as a narrator, lending a surreal quality to the film. It’s the quirky characters and subtle black humour that sets Deranged apart from it’s contemporaries, and those with a taste for the unusual may find it more satisfying than the other Gein inspired flicks. S.J.T.

Deranged. 1974

Directed by Jeff Gillen and Alan Ormsby

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