🍿
Note: Five popcorns are the highest rating. And, there will be spoilers in this review.
The second installment film release for the 50th anniversary of the Manson murders is Charlie Says. The film opens taking the point of view of the murderous group, namely Leslie Van Houten and her introduction and manipulation into ‘the Manson family’.
The Manson story facts in a nutshell; in the late 60’s, Manson, a life-long career criminal, took in young drifters – namely women, squandering on an old western abandon movie set, who he could easily manipulate into doing whatever he wanted for him. Wanting a career as a musician, Charlie gets a studio producer, Terry Melcher (Doris Day’s son) to listen to his music through The Beach Boys, Dennis Wilson. Terry, unimpressed with Charlie’s music and unwilling to sign him, sets Manson off on a tirade because of the rejection. Knowing where Melcher’s previous mansion was located, in the Hollywood hills, he sends three women and a man up to the home, now occupied by Sharon Tate and her friends, to murder everyone in the house. After this is accomplished, the next night, he takes a band of them to Leo and Rosemary LaBianca’s home and orders their murders in similar style. Manson used a concocted story of a ‘race war’ trying to pin the murders on African Americans so that he could rise, with his family, to power and take over the earth. Apparently, the drug induced, heavily influenced young white thugs bought it, and carried out Manson’s devious deeds of murder, which was only based on his jealousy of those who lead a successful life, and his lack of breaking into the music industry.
The movie short changes us by not giving us a background of where the girls came from, but rather, ‘who they became’. It’s hard to have any sympathy for them, they simply show up wanting ‘a new life’ and gave themselves up to a crazy little man who supplied them with endless drugs and sex.
It also fails to give a real context of what the late 60’s was like, had this happened early on in the film, there might be some believability to why these woman were so easily influenced into a life of vagrancy. At one point they ask their teacher in prison, “Didn’t you think, in the late 60’s that something big was going to happen, that there would be a big change?” In which the teacher replies, “Yes. I did. Most of us did. But, we didn’t go out and kill strangers.” Watching it with today’s eyes, it seems almost unbelievable that these people would live in such squander just to have endless drugs and sex and believe in a tiny man who says, “Helter Skelter is coming – go kill” hence – it needed to set the tone of the late 60’s first.
The film jumps back and forth from the teacher who works with the three woman while they are in prison to find out who they were ‘before’ they became a part of the murderous Manson family. But, it fails to ever show us anything about who they were before they joined the family. It simply shows them with ‘the Manson family’. Then it jumps back with such snips of life as a woman giving birth with no mid-wife or doctor present, at the filthy ranch, and one of the girls biting off the umbilical cord. You still have to wonder why anyone would think that was ok for ‘their baby’. Then back again to the desensitizing them from their brainwash while (already 3 years) in prison. I don’t think these woman really had to be brought back to reality. Years of sitting in prison already did that for most of them.
The point is driven home with the fact that prior to the murders, Manson was able to convenience them to go on ‘creepy crawls’ where the group would break into an occupied home, with the occupants asleep, and they would walk about the house moving furniture and hiding things, so when the occupants awoke, they would know someone was in their home. It paints the picture of just how manipulated these people were by him.
It even goes so far as to say, the woman helping teach them in prison, has guilt of making them understand what their crimes were and that they would then have to live with that ‘nightmare the rest of their lives’. Of which, I say, “Yes! When you terrorize, stab and mutilate another human being, you have to face what you did and the consequences for the rest of your life! It’s called PRISON!” The whole idea of ‘feeling sorry for the murderers’ just leaves a bad taste in your stomach as this movie snails along.
Annoyingly, they also depict Charlie going to Tate’s mansion, while a ‘party’ was going on (there were no parties happening when Sharon returned from shooting a film in Italy, only weeks away from giving birth, when all this happened) where Charlie knocks on the door and Sharon answers. That never happened. Charlie did go the property and stalked around it while Sharon was having some professional photos taken, with her photographer confronting him, telling Charlie that Melcher no longer lived there and to leave the property (with Sharon looking over the photographers shoulder and wanting to know who that ‘creepy guy was’). Still, these movies want to make it more dramatic so I can only guess that’s why they presented it that way.
The movie has a dull pace to it, and an odd sepia tone to the color, almost like we are watching some bad hippie western play out. Then there’s the weepy violin music as the horror of the LaBianca murders take place (are we suppose to feel sad for the murderers during this?). You struggle with wanting to see it from ‘their’ point of view, but, it’s very hard to sympathize and think of them as victims. As they start to come to a ‘realization’ of what their horrible crimes were – the tears start falling, but it all seems a bit futile and late by the time the credits roll.
This movie was hard to sit through, it just lacked a focus on what exactly it was trying to say. And, if you start to buy into feeling sorry for the murderers, you certainly know something is wrong, maybe it’s Helter Skelter.
Brion's Cupboard 