sddavis63 I was way too young to have been aware of the Manson killings back in 1969, but obviously over the years I've picked up bits and pieces, but never really knew too many of the details of the story. I decided to watch this 2004 movie (which is a sort of remake of a version made in 1976) as a way of bringing myself up to speed on what happened. I approach any movie that's based on real events with a grain of salt. There will always be dramatic licence taken, but basically from what I've read about these events this movie does a pretty decent job of getting the big picture accurate. There might be a few details that are wrong or missing, but you will have a basic understanding of what happened and why by watching this.Generally, the performances here were quite good. I really appreciated Jeremy Davies' performances as Manson. The cold, hard, piercing eyes - they were quite chilling, actually. He gave me a sense of how people could be led astray into what was essentially a murderous cult. He knew how to read people; he knew how to take advantages of their weaknesses and past hurts; he knew how to draw them into his orbit. We see that through the character of Linda Kasabian (played by Clea DuVall.) Kasabian was emotionally wounded and vulnerable - with a young child and a broken marriage and nowhere really to go until she got invited into "The Family." To watch Manson reel her in was fascinating. Kasabian, though, retained enough of herself to eventually turn on The Family and she became a key prosecution witness at the trials that followed. But to see a lot of this through her eyes gave one a sense of what life in this cult was like.The movie depicts some of the murders - basically the murder of Gary Hinman, the Sharon Tate murders, and the murders of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. They're not portrayed as graphically as they could have been, but the violence and gruesomeness of the events do come through. The last part of the movie deals with the trial of Manson and The Family. The title refers to the name Manson gave to what he expected to be a race war erupting between blacks and whites, and the suggestion is that he was hoping that at least some of the murders the family committed would be blamed on the Black Panthers and would spark "Helter Skelter." It's a very interesting movie that does do a pretty good job of giving a broad outline of the events. (8/10)

a_baron This remake of the 1976 original takes a fresh approach to one of the most shocking series of crimes in the 20th Century, not shocking for the gratuitous and horrific murders of totally innocent people, but for the way the three female perpetrators - Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten – danced to the tune of the Devil, the one who called himself Jesus Christ.Of course, the idea that Manson "brainwashed" these women and his other followers is a pathetic excuse, as though there is no such thing as free will. The same can be said of the witchfinders, the Communists, the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge, the Provisional IRA, and today the Islamist terrorists who given the chance would murder us in our beds.Marguerite Moreau shines as the demonically evil Susan Atkins, who did not look quite so evil in 2002 when she was interviewed by Dianne Sawyer, and even less so seven years later when after having her left leg amputated and suffering from brain cancer she was denied compassionate release. Incredibly, Atkins married twice while serving her sentence, and for some time was even permitted conjugal visits. This film ends though with the trial and a brief mention of the conviction of the Manson "Family". Although this is a fictionalised account and contains some poetic licence, it is also an historical document. The horrific murder scenes are shown in this context rather than the usual one of entertainment/special effects. Also excellent is Jeremy Davies as Manson; the actor was born two months almost to the day after the murder of Sharon Tate. And in California.Although a film of this nature will inevitably attract some criticism, no one can in all sincerity accuse this of being either squalid sensationalism or the glamorisation of evil. It is important that films of this nature are made if only to remind us that there are monsters out there, and that all too often they look like us.

Fenris-5 The is a quite good remake of the 1976 movie, but Jeremy Davies is not as believable in the main role as Steve Railsback was, and he fails in showing the viewer Manson's magnetic personality which made him able to manipulate people around him into conducting these horrible crimes.To quote one of prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's lines in the film: "How do these kids end up stabbing people with knives and forks 169 times?" The film does not succeed in explaining this, and as such it is a failure.Apart from that, it offers a different angle to what happened than the 1976 film, and shows more of the likely motivation Manson might have had for ordering the murders; the lack of progress in his musical career, and his connection to Beach Boy Dennis Wilson.

The_Naked_Kiss Helter Skelter is a remake of a 1976 TV movie. It is based on the true story of the Tate/Labianca murders committed by "The Manson Family". I will make my opinion clear; this is a tacky, tacky movie. It does not deserve the title of trashy or cult. It is pure tacky through and through, from the insane wigs to the over the top theatrical actor who plays Manson. Jeremy Davis was a convincing Manson, but went a little too far in some places. He got the accent and the body movements down well, unlike the actor in 'The Manson Family' (who came of more like Jesus to me). I felt this was the only redeeming quality of the movie, that and the 17 minute special feature of Jeremy's rehearsal footage, walking around trying to emulate Manson The look of this movie is all over the place, one moment it looks very gritty, the next a famous face appears and trippy camera effects are used and used badly. The news segments of the movie are horribly filmed, the effect used is over the top in an attempt to make the footage look real/old, the shots are unconvincing for news footage and resemble a shot you would see on MTV's head bangers ball, with the weird angles minus the zoom function. Whenever there is a killing scene in the movie the majority of it is shot in negative, to dramatize the event, but it comes off totally conceited, and seems as though they were too lazy to come up with their own experimental ideas.The film is an hour too long, it runs for 2 hours and 10 minutes and is rather drawn out and pieced together badly. The murder scenes are a little more brutal than that of the Manson family in regards to sound effects and the dramatization of the scenes. Some people think this film is so bad its good, but it's so bad its bad. Do yourself a favor and rent/buy 'The Manson Family'. Meanwhile I am going to sit here and curse the fact that I paid $20 for this DVD.