How this serial killer inspired “Psycho,” “Texas Chainsaw” and Ryan Murphy’s “Monster.”

He is the ultimate psycho killer.

Serial killer Ed Gein may not be a household name like Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer, but he looms large in pop culture and inspired a trio of iconic horror movie killers: Norman Bates in Psycho and Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs. ” and Leatherface in “Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”

Even though the majority of his crimes were committed in the 1950s, Gein is still relevant today. Not only are these movies some of the classic spooky seasons, but it was also recently announced that the third season of Ryan Murphy’s hit Netflix anthology series Monsters, which featured Jeffrey Dahmer and the Menendez in previous seasons -Brothers went to Gein in the lead role will be Charlie Hunnam.

Harold Schechter, a true crime historian and author who wrote the definitive book about Gein, “Deviant: The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein, the Original Psycho,” told The Post that by the time Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” appeared in the Year 1960 all the horror movie monsters came from “other places – Eastern European monsters like Dracula and Frankenstein or the Wolf Man.” Or monsters from outer space. Or monsters that emerged from the Japanese seas, like Godzilla.”

But Norman Bates was “the first truly all-American monster,” he said.

He added: “And it really changed horror films after that. “So Gein is kind of a seminal figure in the history of horror” because he inspired “Psycho,” which in turn “created the modern slasher film.”

Gein, who lived in Wisconsin, was born in 1906 and was known as “The Butcher of Plainfield.” Although he inspired several fictional serial killers, there were only two confirmed murders (with others suspected). He is infamous not for his productivity, but for the bizarre and horrifically disturbing nature of his crimes.

Schechter, who has written over a dozen books about serial killers and mass murderers, explained: “His whole thing was to restore his mother by digging up the bodies of these middle-aged women in the communities around him and bringing them back to his farmhouse He made various household items and a skin suit out of her body parts, which he wore and pretended to be his own mother.”

After Gein’s crimes came to light in 1957, he pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. He spent the rest of his life in psychiatric hospitals in Wisconsin until he died of lung cancer in 1984 at the age of 77.

During research for his book “Deviant,” first published in 1989, Schechter interviewed Gein’s former neighbors and acquaintances.

“Basically, he wasn’t considered a village idiot, but rather a somewhat silly, lonely guy. He would babysit for his neighbors,” he said.

“They thought he was a local weirdo, but he seemed harmless enough… Apparently no one could imagine what was actually going on in his farmhouse, because it’s pretty unimaginable.”

Although the average person has seen “Psycho,” “Silence of the Lambs” or “Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” Gein isn’t a famous name unless he’s a true crime buff like serial killers like Bundy or Dahmer are.

Schechter attributes this to the fact that Bundy and Dahmer were active more recently, while Gein’s era goes back further.

Schechter, a retired professor at Queens College who once taught a course on myths and folklore, said that Gein casts a long shadow in popular culture because “there are certain stories that repeat themselves over and over again in different forms.” Something in the human imagination seems to require these different stories. Every now and then something happens in the real world that seems to be the real-life incarnation of an ancient folklore. There are elements of the Gein story that are like that.”

He cited the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel, the character Boo Radley from “To bother the Nightingale,” and even a story from his own childhood in the Bronx about “some old lady who lived on the sixth floor” as examples of the kind often – told a story about “a creepy person who lives in a remote house…The Gein story was like one of those fairy tales come to life.”

The retired professor continued: “There is something very resonant about this story. And the details lend themselves to being retold – as is the case with all folk tales.”

Each different form of retelling reflects the era in which it was published, he said.

Schechter, for example, said that “Psycho,” which came out right after the 1950s, reflected a mentality “when sex still had this hidden dirty quality.” The film begins with the camera panning into the hotel room where these two are lovers have their rendezvous. It’s all about voyeurism and the things that reflect that kind of ’50s sexual duplicity.”

Meanwhile, he believes that the 1974 “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” had something to do with the Vietnam War era.

“It takes the Gein myth and turns it into a story about how America has turned into a machine that slaughters its young people,” he said.

He also believes that 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs has something to do with “cosmetic surgery,” explaining “the obsession with changing one’s body.” Buffalo Bill wants to be this beautiful woman.”

Cruel as it is, Gein’s story has “a kind of mythic-archetypal quality that makes it very susceptible to being told and retold in these different forms,” ​​he added.

Still, Schechter has some reservations about the story’s next incarnation, when Season 3 of Ryan Murphy’s Monsters premieres (at an unannounced date on Netflix). Since Gein is less known than Bundy or Dahmer, there are fewer books about him.

“I was not approached in any way. And my book is – in all modesty – the definitive Gein book,” he said. “Certain alarm bells were ringing: ‘How can they do this without at least consulting my book?'”