Buffalo Bill’s transformation urge

Thomas Harris drew heavily from Gein while writing The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Buffalo Bill’s horrifying “woman suit” echoes Gein’s own experiments with skin, stitched from the bodies of his victims. Harris also studied other criminals, but it was Gein’s psychological profile - his isolation, his fixation on transformation - that gave Bill his depth. The Oscar-winning film fused real crime with chilling fiction, redefining the serial-killer genre.