"Remember what I've always told you: The wages of sin is gonorrhea, syphilis and death!"

"Nothing quite says happy Mother's Day like a little Deranged."

But one of many pictures that have taken liberal influence from the exploits of the infamous murderer/grave robber, Ed Gein, 1974's Deranged is an odd little piece of film that feels as much like a horror film as it does a black comedy.

That might seem a bit strange, I suppose, mixing horror and humor to tell the tale of a real life psychopath, but if you really think about the madness of the Gein case, a touch of quirkiness mixed with horror is the perfect match for a maniac such as he. Whoever said crazy had to be serious? Heck, we sure as hell know crazy isn't normal, and if you were normal, you wouldn't be all that quirky and strange, right?

The film is, for the most part, painfully slow but it does succeed in capturing this feeling of unease with its rural setting and the unraveling of its lead character, Ezra Cobb. Deranged is a movie that leaves an impression due to its atmosphere and how the narrative slowly devolves into insanity. Everything culminates into one scene, late in the film, which stands out as the moment when all sanity has passed and the real horror has taken over for Ezra, the character of Mary and the viewer.

It's a wonderfully frightening and deranged moment from a rather mediocre film, but at it's certainly enough to make Deranged memorable for me.