Inside the Manson Cult: The Lost Tapes

This thing is full of lame dramatizations. Repetitive usage of "lost tapes," even though there are supposedly 100 HOURS of the stuff. Just show the original footage!

Half of these so called lost tapes are not lost, they have been available for years on other shows and the other half are essestially fraudulous because they are not recordings of (what is presented here to be) Manson assosiates talking about Manson. Instead (for example the scene with the 3 girls in identical motorcycle jacket, turning to the camera with knives, etc) they are scenes which the origional co-maker of the footage (Laurence Merrick) filmed for his movie ''Black Angels'' in 1970. (a film about rivalry between a white and a black motorcycle gang).

"The Lost Tapes" is an odd title for tapes that are clearly found. And the 2-hour time slot, which I would estimate resulted in maybe 80 minutes of content sans commercials, was far too much. The show also had a fairly plodding documentary style. I learned a few things as someone with a casual knowledge of this saga. Others may learn nothing new. Current interviews with a few cult members add to the re-telling. The repeated use of a few clips is annoying and indicates that content is lacking. Altogether, a fairly lackluster effort.

I didnt have much faith in this being a good doc but I was surprised. It's actually a somewhat unique and refreshing look at Manson and his cult.

Windy Buckley who apparently was a ranch hand at the Spahn Ranch steal the show with her interviews.

The downside are the reenactments with actors who look nowhere close to the people they are portraying.

The "lost" tapes amount to some 16mm silent footage of the cult members, some reel to reel audio tapes of Manson briefly talking and some professional footage of former members of the Manson Flock.

From the 16mm footage it appears these members were hippies high on LSD most of the time. Manson was one crazy dude who somehow was able to get a bunch of young hot chicks to do his will. Nutty what brainwashing can do to a person.

I found this interesting, as I did not know the entire story of Manson and his Family before. I'd say it was a decent overview of what happened.