Constricting Rage of The Merciless mini review

 

 

 “Constricting Rage of The Merciless” is the sixth Goatwhore album, released on July 8th, 2014. This would be their last album to be produced by Erik Rutan. 

I think the album should have started out with the song “Baring Teeth For Revolt”, which would have brought the high energy from the start. The song is very good, and groovy, which I think is important when trying to draw in a listener. 

 The lyrics delve more into the esoteric elements, and you start to see more of this incorporated into the album. The album art goes along with this, as it seems to all talk about or allude to Revelations in the bible.

Genre wise, the album is more Thrashy than it’s previous one, though the Black Metal notes are long gone by the time this album came out. There’s this cocaine fast riff thing going on that definitely differs from what you’d hear on their debut album. 

My favorite songs are “Baring Teeth For Revolt”, “FBS”, and “Reanimated Sacrifice”, personally, I like the faster tracks on the album. There’s this punk element to all of them, which probably appeals to my love for bands like Megadeth.

It’s strange, because many people would consider this the “go to” album, when it comes to listening to Goatwhore, but I disagree. While good, I don’t think it completely captures the talent that they had. 

3.5/5

 

 

LIFE AFTER MANSON 2014 Review

 

LIFE AFTER MANSON 2014

 

“Life After Manson” is a short film based on Patricia Krenwinkel’s alleged experience of what lead her down the path to follow Charles Manson, and eventually be a part of the Tate-LaBianca murders. I originally watched the film years ago, sometime around 2021, but decided to rewatch it for the sake of reviewing it, and seeing if what was said holds up to the truth as seen in actual documentation. 

From the start, it’s clear that the viewer is supposed to feel bad for Patricia, like as if she was wrongly locked up in this women’s prison. The early part to the film shows her in some sort of group, where it seems that Patricia was trying to play that she was in a bad intimate relationship. (At one point, probably around 2014, Patricia’s legal team did try to say that she was a victim of intimate partner violence, and should be one of the reasons that she should be released on parole). 

Patricia goes on to talk about her early life, and there’s a few snippets of quotes from her mother, Dot. Dot stated that Patricia was a normal girl that did all of the normal things that kids did. Patricia then went on to say that she grew up in household where silence was the way of life. It’s strange to see Patricia nearly contradict what her mother said, where her mom made it seem like Pat had a warm and cuddly early life, where Pat herself nearly says she did not. 

It’s like we’re supposed to believe that Patricia came from a broken home, but really, but at least broken enough for her to be potentially not at fault for committing her crimes.  

Pat seems to place part of the blame for her descent on her now deceased older sister, who was remembered as having been “incorrigible”, suicidal, and mixed into drugs. It appears like a cop out, so that Pat doesn’t have to take accountability for her actions. The way this is portrayed in the movie, it’s like as if Pat was some innocent lamb, led to the slaughter. It’s like as if Patricia was so unaware of anything going on, like as if we’re really supposed to believe that she had no sense of self preservation. There is so much blame placed on everyone else, yet Patricia herself. 

Pat goes on to lie on camera, saying that “her name was changed immediately”, and she had no money of her own, that she had nothing of her own, was in the middle of nowhere, with no way to get back. This is not true! Various pieces of Manson literature have all stated that Patricia quit her job after meeting Manson, not even picking up her last check! She would then get money from her father, which of course, Manson would use. Joseph Krenwinkel, unintentionally financed many parts of the Manson family, under the idea of helping out his daughter. 

According to Jeff Guinn’s book, “Manson”, Patricia even wrote a letter to her father where she said: “For the very first time in my life, I’ve found contentment and inner peace.”. 

On top of that, the Manson family would travel around, Patricia being one of these people. Dianne Lake’s book even stated that Patricia would stay and help out with the remaining members at “The Fountain of The World”. 

What’s interesting, is how Patricia really tried to portray Manson as this crazy person who forced her to stay with him, making it seem like she was obligated to have sex with him. Yet ironically, Tex Watson’s book “Will You Die For Me?” seems to disprove this. According to Watson, he stated that Patricia would only have sex with Charles Manson, this is because Charlie was the only one that would have sex with her. 
 
To quote:  “Even though she was the sweetest of the girls, none of the men except Charlie ever got involved with her sexually. She was a little standoffish and, probably more important, unattractive. When Charlie started trying to get bikers involved with the Family by offering them girls, they all complained that Katie was too hairy. For all the talk about love and oneness, I think she must have felt the rejection from the men and that made her all the more devoted to Charlie. No matter what the others thought, Charlie loved her, and would make love to her. Why shouldn't she do anything he asked?” 

Some of the other books, like Paul Watkins’, did mention Patricia having sex with some of the other members, such as Clem, though it seems true that most did not find any attraction to her. 

So, of course, it seems like Patricia was devoted to Charlie, because he was the only man that showed her any sort of romantic attention, ever. Some people, are just like that. They will throw their lives away for the sake of attention. 

In the film, Patricia goes on to say that Charlie made fun of her in front of the other members of The Family, making it seem like he was attacking her only. This completely glosses over the fact that many of the members would be naked in front of each other, exposing themselves; Susan Atkins being one of these people, where she exposed her butthole, because Manson told her to. 

Patricia makes it seem like she gave up her life to Manson, because she was brainwashed by him. The film as whole tries to portray her as this gullible person who just did what she was told. She states that she started to come to reality when on Death Row, admitting that she would finally have to take responsibility of the damage and horror she had done. It’s interesting to hear this, as she cries crocodile tears for sympathy. 

The film completely glosses over the crimes she was a part of. It states nothing about Rosemary LaBianca, or Abigail Folger. Patricia is never heard saying their names in this film.  They show a recording of one of her parole hearings, where she claimed that she was “doing what she was told”. They had the audacity to show Patricia’s fake tears during this parole hearing, yet never any footage of her saying the victim’s names.  How disgusting. 

Not once, is the crime at Cielo Drive talked about by Patricia. It’s never mentioned how she hissed as Susan Atkins, “Kill Her!”, telling her to murder Sharon Tate. This is recollected in Susan and Tex’s books. Patricia puts so much emphasis on how her ability to make choices was taken from her by Manson, yet, she tried to force Susan to make a choice, did she not? Patricia took away any choices from Abigail Folger, Sharon Tate, Rosemary LaBianca, and Leno LaBianca, when she participated in their murders. She almost took away William Garretson’s ability to make choices, when she couldn’t get into the guesthouse that night at Cielo. If the door wasn’t locked, she would have gone in and killed him too. 

The movie speaks nothing of what happened at Waverly Drive. It never mentions how Patricia took the knives out of the kitchen and brought them into the bedroom with Leslie, where they stabbed Rosemary LaBianca to death. Didn’t Patricia technically take away some of Leslie’s ability to choose, when she encouraged her to participate in killing Rosemary? What about the part where she mutilated Leno LaBianca’s body? 

Patricia complains that Manson is the reason why she’s in prison, but she can’t seem admit that she took away the ability for multiple people to choose, with the actions she committed on those two nights. 

I found the film disgusting, and completely tramples over the victims. Why should we feel bad for this convicted killer? The only reason she is still alive to this day, is because the state of California overturned the death penalty. 

The end of the film concludes with Patricia spewing all of this garbage she clearly learned at all of the classes and lessons she’s had from being in prison for so long. It’s clear to me that she is some sort of Sociopath, that thinks that if she says the right things, she’ll get what she wants, even without actually doing the right thing or putting in the work. To me, she was repeating everything she was taught, with the hopes that it would appear genuine. But how genuine is it to never even apologize to the murdered or their families? 

The film makes it seem like we should feel sorry for Patricia, because she was “just a gullible woman in a bad relationship”. Yet, if someone were truly this naive, that still proves that they shouldn’t be released to the public. If you can be convinced to kill, then what would stop it from happening again? What’s also gross to me is that it’s like Patricia was trying to portray herself as not a convicted serial killer, because she was a woman. Like as if, women can’t commit crime. Ironically, this is misogynistic. Just because someone has XX chromosomes, doesn’t mean that they can’t be criminals too. I think that this mentality goes back to when she was initially locked up; it seems that early news articles were shocked that the Manson girls committed the crimes, because of the mentality that women are typically loving, sweet, and kind. 

Unless you’re deep in the Manson rabbit hole like me, this isn’t worth the watch. Honestly, you’d have to be deep into it, to understand how much Patricia is lying in his film. She was clearly preying on the gullible, who didn’t know the full extent of her participation in the crimes, for people to feel sorry for her. I think that much of Patricia’s defense has been making people feel sorry for her, because she’s often seen as “The Ugly Girl”. Like, “Oh, it’s not her fault, she’s unattractive and no-one likes her. She committed the crimes because she was lonely!”. But that’s not the case. She chose to be at the murders on both nights. Don’t let her shallow arguments fool you. 

I gave this film half a star on letterboxd. The lowest you can go while still rating it. This is all clearly just a ploy for sympathy, in the hopes of her getting parole. Which thankfully, hasn’t happened. 

I suppose the only thing I can truly say about this, and to Patricia by extension, is “You’re only fooling you. Look at your game girl”. 




My video: https://youtu.be/MZ90rup7zG4

House of Manson 2014 Review

 House of Manson 2014

 

“House of Manson” is a film that came out in 2014, and is supposed to be some sort of biographical film about Charles Manson, and the Tate-LaBianca murders. 

There are so many things wrong with this film, it’s almost hard knowing where to start. As strange as it might seem, one of my biggest gripes about the film is that they didn’t bother to cast anyone to play The Manson Family members, that even looked remotely like their real life counter-parts. The only exception would be the actress who played Susan Atkins. Of course, there is so much emphasis on Charles Manson,  that yes, the actor who played him looked quite similar to the real Charlie. 

It was frustrating seeing the murder scenes in the film, and knowing that the actresses who were supposed to be Patricia Krenwinkel, Linda Kasabian, and Leslie Van Houten, looked not even remotely like the real versions. This is also true for the actor who was supposed to be Tex Watson. For whatever reason, they cast a dude that looked like a Jeremy Renner knock off, and didn’t even bother have him grow out his hair. When Tex was with the Manson family, he was quite shaggy. Other characters that looked nothing like their real life counterparts were Squeaky Fromme, Ronald Hughes, Jay Sebring, Steven Parent, Sharon Tate, and Leno LaBianca. Nearly the whole cast were playing characters that were unrecognizable from real life.

The movie was hard to watch, not because it was supposed to be talking about real life events, but because it was executed so badly. The interrogation scene at the end with Susan Atkins was terrible, where apparently a female detective was questioning Susan. This is odd, because I don’t recall a person like that in real life, and this actress’ acting was over the top and embarrassing. 

There are scenes near the end where Charlie is being questioned by a lawyer who is supposed to be Ronald Hughes. For some reason, the writers to this film made Ronald Hughes out to be some long time lawyer that had seen other cases. This is not true. In fact, Hughes did end up representing Manson for a small bit of time before going on to represent Leslie Van Houten. Hughes’ first trial ever was the Tate-LaBianca trial, of which he mysteriously died before it ended. 

The creators to this movie don’t point this out, yet had the audacity to mention at the end of the film that Leslie Van Houten was granted a retrial in 1977 “on the grounds that her original counsel had not adequately represented her”. Yet, they don’t mention that the counsel was Ronald Hughes! Of course not, because then they’d have to admit that they made up shit for this film.  They mention some of the things that happened to various members after the trials, even mentioning how Leslie Van Houten was paroled in 2023, so obviously there was an update at some point to this film. What was odd to me, was how they didn’t point out that Charlie himself died in 2017. Instead, they just said how he skipped his 2011 parole hearing, spent most of his life behind bars, and Helter Skelter never came. 

The movie puts a lot of emphasis on the murders happening none other for the sole reason than Charlie being duped/lied/cheated by Terry Melcher. This is among one of the many theories as to why the murders happened, even in Bugliosi’s book. But Bugliosi first of all has no appearance or character in this film, strangely; and his book of course puts more emphasis on ‘Helter Skelter’, the race war theory. It was odd to me that this movie was obviously supposed to be a ‘fuck you’ to Charles Manson, while not even representing the people, various theories that explained the crime, while also using some of the real facts that can be read in many of the books. 

It was clear the the writers to this movie had read multiple pieces of Manson based literature. They seemed to have read “Will You Die For Me” by Tex Watson for sure, as the line itself is repeated through the film. The creators made it seem like The Manson Family went out to kill because they were brainwashed into obeying the every word from Charlie. The end scene where Ronald Hughes yells at Charlie that “those kids believed your every word and were deceived by you” seems to prove that. This bothers me greatly, as the film seems to act like Tex Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel, Susan Atkins, Leslie Van Houten, and even Linda Kasabian, weren’t culpable for their participation in the crimes. They paint this picture that it was only ever Charlie’s fault. A common theme repeated by the convicted in the decades since. 

As much as the film follows the basic timeline of events, it also just makes up stuff too. For example, when they show Gary Hinman being murdered, Charlie is seen taking a katana off the wall to slice Gary. This isn’t how it happened in real life; Charlie was driven to The Spiral Staircase by Bruce Davis, already having the sword with him. On top of that, they strangely point out that Gary was being murdered for giving Bobby Beausoleil bad drugs, which is something that has been disputed in the decades since his murder. Sometimes, Gary is made out to have never sold drugs, other times, he did, and sold a bad batch to Bobby. At the same time, it’s also shown that The Manson Family took Gary’s cars, and even pointed out that Bobby was arrested, caught driving Gary’s Fiat. This is true. It’s strange how they would get certain details like right, while also managing to pronounce Bobby Beausoleil’s name wrong. 

Strange attention to detail, while ignoring others is a common theme in this film. Another example would be when Abigail Folger was being murdered. Here, they only show Patricia killing her, without any help from Tex. In real life, Patricia ended up calling over to Tex for help, and he apparently gave some of the final blows to Abigail. The movie doesn’t show this, but they do put in the effort to have had the actress who was playing her wear a white dress (which Abigail was wearing in real life), and she does say “I’m already dead.”. 

Then strangely, the movie shows the actress who was supposed to be Sharon Tate, wearing full makeup for some reason. There is an awkward scene where she is seen in the bed talking to Jay Sebring’s character, who is made out to be some sort of loser still in love with her. The film obviously ignored the fact that Roman Polanski wasn’t the best husband to Sharon Tate, and Jay was there obviously protecting her, while Roman was overseas still. The movie ignores Jay’s final words though, where he said, “Can’t you see she’s pregnant?”. Instead, he is later seen being shot. The film seems to only show people being shot or stabbed, not both. I don’t recall them showing Susan stabbing Voytek in the legs, and I know they didn’t show Steven Parent being stabbed either. They strangely show Voytek being hit in the head with the gun by Tex Watson though, for some reason. I don’t understand why they included some details, yet excluded others, while making up other things entirely. 

On top of that, they couldn’t pronounce Voytek’s name properly, much like they were unable to with Bobby Beausoleil. 

I give credit to the actor that played Manson, because it seemed like he really listened to Charlie’s album “Lie”. The cadence he spoke seems to be a pretty good imitation of Charlie’s voice on the record, as you can hear the real Charlie speak inbetween songs, and the digital version has extra tracks such as an interview. Even through this pretty good portrayal of Charlie, I think that much of the dialogue sucked. They made Charlie seem like a cuck that didn’t get a record deal, while completely ignoring various other parts to the real story. The movie does not mention The Straight Satans, Danny DeCarlo, how Terry Melcher, Gregg Jakobson, and Dennis Wilson would sleep with many of Charlie’s women, including the minors, or anything about Harold True. 

Simply put, the whole story isn’t depicted here. And truthfully, telling the entire story is impossible for a movie; but it appears that the director wanted to do that? In my opinion, it would take a TV show to depict the various aspects as to what led The Manson Family to being created, and the eventual points that led to the Tate-LaBianca murders. A movie that is a little short of 2 hours isn’t enough time. 

In my opinion, I think that the movie would have benefited from focusing more on the 2 years before the murders, instead of trying to make a bio pic of Manson’s early life. In context with the rest of the film, showing small bits of Charlie’s childhood did little for the movie, other than pad out the time. Not much of the interesting points about Charlie’s childhood were talked about, and in fact, one of the reform schools was made to look more like an expensive academy! 

Overall, I can’t recommend this film to anyone. I gave it half a star on letterboxd, the lowest you can rate a film. It’s not even worth watching to the people who are deep in the Manson rabbit hole. It’s a waste of time. 




My video: https://youtu.be/ihb82RIvQ54