I have an interest in serial killer movies. Especially ones that comes with a twist! This comes with a double twist! First of all it’s all comes to us in the form of super 8 home movies and secondly, all of these movies have been dipped in LSD and weed!
This is a weird pseudo documentary style movie. It has “interviews” with cult members and flashes to these home movies. It’s supposedly just a guy in an editing room watching footage for his documentary. It jumps back and forth, up and down and left to right all the time, and it confuses the hell out of you if you’re not careful! Through the movie we watch as the members jumps down the delusional Charlie hole of madness. Figuratively and explicitly, there’s a lot of sex in this movie. The Manson Family really explores the family in ways I have seen few movies do. Through the eyes of the members.
Charles Manson doesn’t take the center stage. He acts more like the catalyst that exists in the background, the focus is elsewhere. It makes for a unique experience and frankly a better experience. Making it in the form of home movies helps the actors ability to feel natural in a whole other way. It feels like I am watching a vacation movie from my aunt. If my aunt was an insane hippie on acid that believes she is Satan.
The gore is kind of bland but they make it up for it in intensity. The murder scenes are rapid, irratic and confusing at the best of times. In this case the confusion adds to the frantic feel it wants to portray. The tale of The Manson Family feels credible and this movie shows just how well you can blur fact and fiction into an even more terrifying version of real events.
What are you waiting for? Pick up this great film right now! What are you waiting for? Them hippies ain’t gonna go mad all by themselves!
