Deranged
Added How We Rate
- Directed by
- Alan Ormsby, Jeff Gillen
- Written by
- Alan Ormsby
- Produced by
- Tom Karr, Peter James, Bob Clark
Why it’s HorroRated
The real star here is Roberts Blossom, who makes Ezra so soft-spoken and sad that the horror sneaks up on you between his polite little smiles. The film is cheap, stagey in spots, and the deadpan reporter interrupting the story is either genius or baffling depending on your mood. Still, its matter-of-fact approach to the Gein case lands closer to the real story than Psycho or Texas Chain Saw ever attempted. Come for the true-crime curiosity, stay for a lead performance that's far better than the budget deserves.
Synopsis
Ed Gein's grave-robbing crimes in rural Wisconsin were the loose inspiration for Deranged (1974), a pitch-black horror film written by Alan Ormsby, who co-directed it with Jeff Gillen. Roberts Blossom stars as Ezra Cobb, a mild-mannered farmer whose mother's death pushes him toward exhumation, amateur taxidermy, and finally murder, while a newspaper reporter steps into frame now and then to walk the audience through the case. Bob Clark produced the Canadian-made film, which treats its true-crime horror with a deadpan, darkly comic calm.
Filed under
Where to watch Deranged
- Subscription
- Prime Video · MGM+ · fuboTV · Philo
- Free
- Tubi · The Roku Channel · Darkroom
- Rent or buy
- Prime Video · Apple TV
Streaming in the US changes often. Listings from JustWatch via TMDB, checked October 10, 2026.See every option
Quick facts
- Release date
- February 2, 1974
- Runtime
- 1 hour 23 mins
- Country
- Canada
- Language
- English
- Content rating
- R
- Entry type
- Movie
Content notes
- Corpse desecration
- Murder
- Grave robbing and taxidermy
Tags
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