Manson (2009)

Please don't spend money on this.

Fantastic!

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

It's an awful story, but it's what happened. There has always been a morbid fascination with these crimes and the Manson family in general. One thing I give this docudrama is that they do tap into the public's interest in the whole Helter Skelter thing; but they also explicitly show how brutal and awful it was too. I don't think it was bloody just for shock value. It's what happened. If that sort of thing is disturbing to you; then I would suggest not watching it. But I think it's important to show the brutality of it, because otherwise you're sanitizing it. I'm sure the last thing the filmmakers wanted was to glorify these murders. But in order to do right by the victims you have to tell the truth. I think they did an excellent job. It's very interesting, but wrong as hell all at the same time. I think they did a very good job with handling the subject matter.

Linda Kasabian Has Come Out Of Hiding To Speak For The First Time In 40 Years About The Manson Murders.Okay That Is The Whole Plot Of This Documentary, I Felt Like They Used Up The Actors That Play Their Parts To What Should've Been More Interviews Like About The Tate Murders, I Know Its A Long Stretch But Roman Polanski Should've Said Something, Besides Deborah Tate And Linda Kasabian And Some Historian No One Knows.The Acted Parts Were So Badly Acted That It Looked Like Manson's Motive For Murders Was That He Didn't Get A Record Deal, This However Is A Load Of Crap, Helter Skelter Is His Motive (The War To End All Wars And He Would Reign As King Of The World).Overall I Found This Documentary To Be Interesting From The Point Of View From People Who Were There But The Problem Is That It Is All How They Interpret Things, For Example I Interpret Helter Skelter As "Great Song, Invention Of Heavy Metal", Manson Interpreted This As "The War To End All Wars"...See How Interpretation Can Vary, Sure Manson Was This Crazed F#ucking Maniac But It Proves My Point. Avoid At All Costs.

This seriously deranged faux doco about the hideous Manson family killers is peppered with actual photos of the real victims in their heartbreaking stabbed gore. This use of real photos shocked me more than anything and I personally found the genuine police report black and white pic of 8 months pregnant Sharon Tate lying on the floor, all smashed to death particularly distressing. The reenactments are also very gruesome, with repeated scenes of actors stabbing and bashing each other. One scene even has a 3 year old child in an unedited shot where 'Manson' beats and kicks a woman. How this assault looked to the child is horrifying as a 3 year old cannot discern playacting of this brutal magnitude. This doco seems to have a keen eye to explicitly display the atrocity reenactments for maximum gore exposure. Debra Tate, Sharon's sister actually appears and I gasp to think how she dealt with this as a finished product. For a TV movie is contains R Rated violence and would have been a tough sit for anyone involved. The details described in the stabbings are equally pointless as we already know these poor people died in a horrific way but to hear what they said and blood and bone details is simply revolting cruelty to the audience. And unbelievable disrespectful to the real families of the original crime. This is a vulgar exploitive doco with a desire to expose the worst violence imaginable, explicitly re inact it, and show the real crime scene photos....and rub it in your face. Terrible.

Linda Kasabian recounts her 1969 relationships with Charles Manson and his youthful followers as if she were one of those women on TV chatting about how taking an aspirin saved her life. This ridiculous two-hour special from the History Channel shows virtually no interest in the victims who lost their lives at the hands of these people, only in Kasabian's sluggish 'bystander' retelling of events (enacted by performers who seem to have been over-directed without benefit of a script). This is one of those bad ideas which can't even be compensated for by the testimony of case prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi or Debra Tate, sister to slain actress Sharon Tate. The intimate details offered by the special are suspect, the reenacted crimes (broken up by commercial interruptions) are sketchily drawn, and the statistics at the finale (which shows the ACTORS posing for mug-shots!) are half-hearted at best, swiftly wiped from the screen like yesterday's headlines. Shameful, pointless swill. It's difficult to discern whether Kasabian is apologizing for her involvement...or if the show is apologizing for her.