Real-life Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein inspired many distinguished films, including Psycho, The Silence of the Lambs and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, but none is quite as disturbing as Deranged.
Roberts Blossom gives an alarmingly convincing performance as rural eccentric Ezra Cobb, whose mother's death unhinges him to the point where he not only lovingly preserves her corpse in the living room but also goes out to find 'friends' to keep her company - not all of whom are dead when he finds them! Perversely, Ezra's more worried about what mother would say about his various activities than he is about the prospect of being found out. Indeed, like Gein, he's cheerfully open about his activities when visiting friends, but no-one believes him.
Like Carnival of Souls and The Honeymoon Killers, this is one of American horror cinema's great one-offs, an eerie, genuinely unsettling but also darkly comic experience.
Review
Considering the low budget Deranged is an excellent horror. The minor docu-drama style and financial production limitation aspects add to the vérité. Nasty topic. The Arrow Blu-ray provides an authentic a/v presentation with highly appreciated supplements. For horror genre aficionados this is easy to consider a very worthy purchase. Another impressive job by Arrow! - DVDBeaver 4/5