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
