Review of The Manson Family (1997) by Lyndsay P — 20 Jan 2010

After being totally engrossed with the book "Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson murders", and not being able to put it down until I was done, which then led me to read about it on countless websites, I seeked out all copies of movies that have been done on this dark slice of American History, with "Helter Skelter"(1976) and "Helter Skelter"(2003) being up first, but then I stumbled on this version, and I have to report that if you insist on watching any movies on Manson, I'd say choose this one!

Now that's not to say the other versions aren't decent, they just paint a rather straight forward picture providing facts that you could already read about in the far superior book, actually just read the book! Why I recommend to watch this out of all the versions, is that it actually brings a sense of style to the material, as opposed to the straight forward docudrama looks the other films have, and on top of that the films script basically has all the events and the dialogue is practically word for word of what many involved in this case stated.

Charles Manson spent the majority of his life in prison, and was released right during the summer of love, where he crated a commune, that provided "peace, love" and acceptance", which basically consisted of constant sex parties with amounts of various drugs (LSD being the drug of choice apparently). After attempting to start a rock career that would provide Manson with millions of dollars to proceed with his "Helter Skelter" trip, where he received messages in Beatles songs that a race war was about to begin and that the blacks would win, but once the white man is wiped out, Manson assumed that the blacks wouldn't know what to do next, er...but he assumed they would seek him out from hiding underground and since he would be the only white man alive(minus his group of followers I guess), they would make him the new leader of the new world...

The ramblings of a heavy LSD trip I'd assume...

To speed things up, Manson told his followers to go out at night on August 9, 1969. "Creepy Crawl" as they called it,break into a random house, steal the money, and kill everyone there (including the amazingly angelic, simply gorgeous and 8 months pregnant, Sharon Tate, married to Roman Polanski at the time), in brutal and unmerciful stabbings and shootings. One victim was stabbed 51 times as well as one killer later stating "we wanted to cut the baby out and smear it on the wall, and cut off all their fingers, We wanted to mutilate them" and then to leave "something witchy written on the door"(PIG), and then the following night two more innocent people were brutally murdered, and I think Charlie thought that the cops would blame the black panthers, thus putting the race war in action.

This led to the discovery of Manson ,his followers, his commune and his disturbing intentions, which led to one of the longest, notorious and most expensive trials in history. More murders were brought up, and the whole spectacle brutally ended the decade of "peace and love" on a sour and disgusting note.

This movie took 10 years to make, with all the actors being unknowns, but their inexperience brings a certain grittiness to the material that the other versions were lacking with their more "professional" actors. The movie also focuses more on the murderers then Manson himself (this maybe due to the fact that the actor portraying Manson quit half way through) and the movie has the actual murders shown onscreen, making the whole movie more effective and visceral. The Tate night in particular is done pretty faithfully, right down to the positions of the bodies of the victims when found.

The movie literally looks like it was made in the 60ies/70ies with low-tech film and video footage, some of it scratched and faded to look archival.

Very effective. The movie has a very heavy LSD flavor to it, which makes sense since the majority of Manson's followers were usually heavily intoxicated on LSD while he basically brainwashed them in to doing his bidding's.

The soundtrack is quite good, bringing some funny ditties as well, like "Garbage day, why are you called Garbage day" (this is overplayed while we see the family members raiding dumpsters for thrown out produce).

After reading up on this case, it's surprises me that even this day, Manson has followers who adore and admire his beliefs. I'm highly skeptical and don't understand where the appeal is in a dirty, foul tempered, crazy, racist, who is more akin to a dirty wino then a said prophet. Your call. The movie doesn't try and glamorize him, if anything all it tries and do is show what Manson really was, not a prophet, but a twisted sick little man.

I'm a huge Sharon Tate fan as well, and a minor flaw would have to be the depiction of her in this. She deserved better, and the actress didn't even remotely look anything like her (too chunky) as well as the ending seems a bit abrupt, though that could be due to poor financing. The subplot involving modern Manson followers attempting a bombing of a TV station was also a poor narrative decision and didn't seem that credible. Snip that out now!!!

I must state that if you are interested in this murder case, read the book before anything, as well as read up on Tex Watson's statements, as he claims that some aspects regarding that night where altered by Susan "Sadie" Atkins for her own benefit.

What a whacked out chunk of murder history! Fascinating and gruesome all at the same time!