"Charles Manson Then & Now" [1992] Movie Review

 

 

"Charles Manson Then & Now" is a 1992 documentary about Charlie, The Manson Family, and the murders. It was made by Nick Bougas. Though it is not officially anywhere streaming, multiple people have uploaded the film to youtube over the years. 

 For what it was, I think that this was a pretty good film that talked about the events which led up to the Tate-LaBianca murders. It focused mostly on Charlie, and talked about many of the actual events which happened. There were a few details that I wasn't sure were correct, but considering that this came out in '92, this might have been before many of the court transcripts were available for the public to read. 

The film talked about Charlie's childhood a bit, and possibly more than any other film for its time. Even still, I'm not sure how completely accurate it was, as it made it seem like Charlie was always traveling with his mother. In books since this film was released, it appeared that Charlie barely spent any time with his mother at all, when in between the reform schools. Jeff Guinn's book, for example, talked about Charlie spending much of his childhood, before reform school, with his aunt and grandmother. Strangely, this film didn't actually discuss how Charlie got his name. Though he was initially "No-Name Maddox" when born, which the film states, it glossed over the fact that Charlie's last name came from his step father, in the brief marriage his mother had. 

On my own time, when doing research in the past about Manson, I came across an article where his mother stated that she didn't name him at first, because she was waiting for mother (Charlie's grandmother) to come up and see the baby. I'm not sure if the filmmaker would have known this fact though. 

The film rather quickly glosses over the accumulation of women and eventual men that joined Charlie in what became "The Manson Family", and various pieces of Family culture are never brought up. The film focuses more on the things that might have led Charlie and the gang to commit the murders. It brings up the shooting of Bernard Crowe, though he is unnamed, and the murder of Gary Hinman. I have to give credit to the film, because Hinman's murder is talked about being related to drugs, similar to the shooting of Bernard Crowe. 

There are more cultural contexts given in the film, which I appreciate. As someone born decades after the murders, there has always been a bit missing, when trying to understand why people believed some of the things they did back then. The film made it more believable to me, that people saw the current events of the late 60's, and felt that all hell was breaking loose.

The film thankfully isn't a rehash of Bugliosi's "Helter Skelter". They seemed to have done a good amount of research on their own time, beyond what was available to the typical person. They showed books and films that were inspired by the crimes, some I hadn't even heard of...or are sure exist anymore. 

It talks a bit about Squeaky Fromme's attempted assassination of President Ford, though, interestingly, it doesn't talk that much about The Family's time at Barker Ranch. The desert hideout was barely talked about, which surprised me. Of course, like many other Manson films, they don't talk about the trial much at all, with the exception of President Nixon's mistake of publically saying that Charlie was guilty. 

I always find this choice to be interesting. Through everything I've read and watched about The Manson Family, very few talk about the trials, which to me, are the most interesting part. I suppose it's because the 1970 trial was dragged out and it's own circus, but I think that there is some incredibly important information in the trial transcripts which set the facts straight about how the crimes really happened. 

Then again, before Bugliosi's death, I think that he might not have wanted for people to start digging into the trial transcripts, as they would have seen through much of his case. I always heard that he was especially litigious, when people started questioning "Helter Skelter".  

For some reason, the film finishes talking about Charlie, and then goes on to barely compare his crimes to that of Ed Gein and John Wayne Gacy.  I found this odd, and while the information about those cases are correct, they should have been their own separate films, or reduced to a few sentences. 

Overall, I think that this is a good film, believe it or not. It has some cheesy background music, but it's among the more accurate pieces of Manson media out there. If you're familiar with the Manson case, you might find this to be a vindicating watch, in some ways. It's not trying to push narrative, but actually discuss the facts. At least, what was possibly one of the best collection of the facts that one could find, in 1992.

I gave this 3/5 stars on letterboxd. 

"The Family: Inside the Manson Cult" [2009] Movie Review

 

"The Family: Inside the Manson Cult" is a 2009 docu-drama that recalls the events that led up to the Tate-LaBianca murders, as told from the perspective of Linda Kasabian. Linda was at Cielo Drive on the night of the Tate murders, though she did not go inside the Polanski residence. Of course, Linda was also taken on the second night of the murders, though of course, we hear about the potential third murder that didn't happen. I watched this on tubi. It's an hour and a half long.

 While I went into this knowing that it was going to be garbage, I still had some hope that it would be at least entertaining, if not hopefully divulge some new details to the case. In retrospect, I don't know why I ever hoped that. 

As seen in many other Manson-sploitation films, there are people cast as members of The Manson Family, who look nothing like their real life counterparts. The only actor that looked somewhat correct, was the man who was cast as Charlie, and even still, it wasn't that great. The idea that they could just cast any ole body to be Tex Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel, and the others is so lame to me. If you want people to hear about this true story and actually care about it, you'd think that it would be important to put effort into this. But no.

As stated before, the story is told from Linda's perspective, but there are many details that are left out of this film, in what seems to be ways to make Linda seem a lot better than what she really was. I'm not trying to sound like some of the co-defendants in this case, but I think that viewers should know that Linda was a drug dealer, had been caught with drugs before ever being in the Manson Family, and sold drugs even after. They left out the detail that Linda was pregnant when the murders went down, which may have been why she felt sick to hear that Sharon Tate was pregnant when murdered. The film also got George Spahn's age wrong, stating that he was 71 for some reason. In 1969, Spahn was 80 years old. It's strange to me that they got this simple detail wrong, considering that Vincent Bugliosi is in this film quite a lot too, and the film is basically a retelling of his book "Helter Skelter". 

Yes, unsurprisingly, this film is just another rehash of Bugliosi's meal ticket, and seems like a way for people to still applaud Linda Kasabian for being the "Star Witness" at the trial. Which is odd to me. By the time this film came out, it was 40 years later. A whole new generation of adults were around that didn't grow up with Charlie Manson, or had even heard of the murders. The film seems to take some sort of assumption that the viewer automatically knows a bit about the crimes.

At the same time too, there are a lot of things that the film under explains. Even the details that are left into this version of the story, aren't what are completely seen in the book "Helter Skelter".

I found that this film was very lazy, and not very good. It tried this odd thing where they wanted to make the event seem modern. The actors didn't wear clothes or have hairstyles that were seen in 1969. For the most part, the characters looked liked they could have been from 2009. The actor that played Bobby Beausoleil looked a bit like a Hippie, though he also looked nothing like Bobby. It's like you couldn't get either thing to go right. No-one looked like a hippie, neither did they look like the right person! It was just so bad!

The depictions of the group using Acid and being in their orgy was laughable. The movie shows them taking it on sugar cubes, where we assume drops of the drug were placed on it. Yet...there are multiple accounts between the trial transcripts and Bugliosi's book, that show they usually consumed it in tablets and pills. Leslie Van Houten and some of the others were recorded talking about this. 

It's clear that this film was just slapped together, probably as a 40th year commemoration thing. I think that Bugliosi and Kasabian were were called in for this and they might have thought it was one thing, when in reality, it was another. You could tell, even in old age, that Bugliosi still felt very proud of himself for prosecuting and getting the convictions of The Manson Family.  It was clear that even at the age of 75, he was pretty arrogant about it. 

While I'm not mad that the convicted were done so, I just don't know why Bugliosi had to act like he was some sort of Superhero. It rubs me the wrong way that he used  this tragedy as a way to gain fame. 

What was strange, was that in this film, Bugliosi says himself that Gary Hinman was targeted for money and that he was a drug dealer. This is strange, because in the past, he acted like this wasn't the case. Of course, this was the only time that drugs were talked about as a potential reason for the crimes. 

 For some reason Catherine Share was in this film, and this was the first time that I ever heard her say that Charlie beat her. This was also the only instance in this film where it was mentioned that Charlie beat on anyone. They never talked about how he beat on Dianne Lake, or would slap around Mary Brunner, or anything of that. There are certain facts which are presented in this film which drive the narrative a different way from how reality was. I guess it is unsurprising though, since this is one of those pieces of Bugliosi media that try to paint Charlie as the bad guy entirely, and not like this wasn't an entire gang of drug dealers and criminals.

Bugliosi said that the people in The Manson Family came from normal backgrounds, which isn't the truth either. Susan Atkins definitely didn't. But I guess that this was all part of the illusion that Charlie could convert people into killers. Something that was never true.

-- 

I found it odd when the film interviewed Debra Tate. She of course, expressed love for her sister, but I was confused as to why she said that Roman and Sharon had a great relationship. I guess that this was done for the sake of the film. There has been evidence that Sharon was going to leave Roman, who kept cheating on her even after she was pregnant. Roman constantly cheated on Sharon with other women. Debra recalled how happy Sharon was to tell her that she was pregnant. The sisters were happy. Sharon was happy to become a mother. While this is true...the movie doesn't tell the viewer that Roman initially didn't want the baby. Roman wanted an abortion.  

The film tried to make Linda seem as if she were innocent, and just along for the ride. It seems to make light of the fact that she admitted to stealing $5,000 because Tex Watson told her to. Linda said that she did it for acceptance into the group. Like as if it was just a little white lie told. When adjusted for inflation, that 5000 comes closer to being $45,000! Linda stole that much money, and the film acts like it was nothing!

The movie also makes it seem like it doesn't matter that much that Linda left her child behind when she left The Manson Family. The movie made it seem like Linda was a victim in fear for her life, and had to leave no matter what...even if that meant leaving her kid behind. The film makes it seem like she left so that Charlie didn't kill her...not because she was an accomplice to the crime. The movie leaves out the fact that Linda also fled to the East Coast, where she was originally from. I don't know why the film tried to make it seem like she was so naive and innocent. 4 decades later, most people wouldn't have be thinking of Linda Kasabian anyway. I don't know if they were trying to rewrite history or what.

Overall, I would not recommend this film to anyone. It's not worth your time, or the full watch. There's nothing in here that you can't read in "Helter Skelter". Better yet, you would be better off watching "Helter Skelter", from 1976. There's more things in that movie which are correct, than in this one. 

I gave this 1 star on letterboxd. I wanted to give it a half star, but the site wouldn't let me for some reason. 

"Manson's Missing Victims" [2008] Movie Review

 

"Manson's Missing Victims" is a documentary type film that is like some sort of knock off episode of "Forensic Files". It talks about the Manson Family, and the possibility that there were more people killed than what Charlie and the gang were convicted of. While in many ways, I do think that there is the possibility that more people may have been killed at the hands of Manson Family members, the way this film goes about it is all wrong. 

The film latches onto the fact that people like Sandra Good and others stated that The Family killed as many as 33-35 people. This is something that is found in Vincent Bugliosi's book "Helter Skelter". The film doesn't look at missing persons cases, unidentified bodies, or mysterious deaths from the time period. Instead, it focuses mostly on Paul Dostie, and his admittedly cute dog Buster, and how they go about digging for dirt samples. 

While Buster was a trained dog that could sniff out human remains, or the aromas that may test positive for human remains, this is never truly connected to the Manson family whatsoever. Much of the film is speculation, and leaves the viewer to just think, "WHAT IF THE MANSON FAMILY DID KILL MORE PEOPLE OMG". The film does the typical Manson-sploitation thing, where they put more onus on Charlie and the murders, and not people like Tex Watson, who did the actual killing at Tate-LaBianca.

The film talks a little bit about some of the victims that were murdered, such as Gary Hinman and Shorty Shea, though once again, you're never given any names to potential people that would be buried in the Manson haunts. What was admittedly interesting though, was how this film stated that Hinman was killed in a drug deal gone bad, which is something that has been constantly debated, depending on what source you read (such as Helter Skelter). 

They are seen at places such as what used to be Spahn Ranch, though the dirt samples taken in the film are never talked about. We never saw what the results were. The film showed that, prior to filming, they had gone to the site of Barker Ranch to do some digs, but there were ultimately no results. 

If you've read Dianne Lake's book, "Member of The Family", you might remember that these digs resulted in nothing. Lake wrote at the beginning of her book how she was contacted by Dostie, after laying low about her past for decades. In a way, her book was a "spoiler", that nothing ever happened, but it was interesting to see what the film even talked about. I suppose that they really had nothing to go off of, and had to pad out the video in some way.

People like Debra Tate, Stephen Kay (his name misspelled), Vincent Bugliosi, and even Tom O'Neill were interviewed, but they don't give any real information. It was interesting to see O'Neill in the film, as this was 11 years before his book "Chaos" came out. I suppose that he was the one that supplied the bit of information about Fillipo Tenerelli...though the film didn't talk about his death at all. 

To me, the video would have been better if they talked about mysterious deaths that might have had something to do with the Manson Family, such as Reet Jurvetson (Who at the time may have still been unidentified), Marina Habe, and others. Granted, this is before many of the small threads we can read about on the internet were around today, so some of these names may not have been in thought at the time of actual digs.

Overall, a useless film, that doesn't bring anything new. It was more amusing watching what was yet another Manson film, that had nothing to do about Manson at all. To me, movies like these very obviously use Charlie's name for the sake of popularity, and nothing else. There is no substance. 

I gave this 1 star on letterboxd.