House of Manson

The story for this film was solid, if straightforward, depicting the Manson family murders and a few post-murder interrogations, with a sympathetic nod to Manson's early life. The dialog was serviceable at best.

The biggest problem with the film is the casting. While Ryan Kiser bears a passing resemblance to Manson, he lacks the sinister gravitas needed for the role. He comes close at times but overall he's just too innocuous in both looks and demeanor.

The Manson gang is even more poorly cast. Their acting is fine when it comes to the line readings, but they're generally too old for their roles and are unconvincing as hippies. The victims are also badly cast and all the characters are poorly developed. Manson's lawyer is the only convincing character in the lot.

The locations are meager. The "upscale" dwelling of Tate has the same sickly yellow walls as every other house in the movie.

All that said, if you want to see a basic depiction of the crimes, this one is fairly accurate.

There is very little that can be done in a new way with a Manson Family movie at this point. There has been made at least a dozen movies about that case since 1971, one of which came out while the trial was still going on.

The formula is always the same, and anyone who at least read through the Wikipedia page about the Tate/La Bianca case would know exactly what's about to happen: first Charlie is loving and philosophical, then he becomes gradually more crazy, building up to the point of Helter Skelter and, ultimately, the climax.

So it's at least refreshing to see a new sort of Manson, sort of timid and meek, just a misguided ex-con who created a situation that got out of control. It's a little provocative, probably appealing to the pro-Manson crowd, but nevertheless, it is something new.

Problem is, this performance by Ryan Kiser comes off as bleak and dispassionate, and the change in Manson's behavior does not make sense, the character doesn't change gradually - in fact, he almost doesn't change at all, he sleepwalks through the movie up till the end, and there is zero of real Manson's energy put into this performance. I never seen Charles Manson outside his prison interviews and rare footage available on the Internet, but I am sure that he was never this boring in real life. People have always described him as wild and energetic, and Ryan's Manson is anything but these.

In short, if you are interested in Manson Family, check out this movie, but don't expect anything radically new, the story has been told a dozen times, and there's little that can be added to it but speculations and interpretations.

It starts bad and gets even worse. Soundtrack=bad. Acting=badder. Script=pitiful. Not even creepy, more like a soap opera, you want a movie about CM to be at least quite creepy! Did not penetrate CM's personality and life at all well, almost made it out like 'he' was the tragedy in the whole thing... Poor little charlie, he only wanted to be loved (and be a rock star). Missed loads of important aspects to the story, failed to build any tension. The squishsquish stabby noises were laughable. Had no interest in any of the characters. You are better off watching the 1976 TV movie helter skelter if you want a good manson film.

I couldn't agree more with William Dickey and RMS1949. I found this on Streampix this morning and thought I'd watch it before I had to begin my workday.

Mary Brunner turned into a blonde, Linda Kasabian turned into a brunette, the only requirement for Susan Atkins appeared to be the ability to make bug-eyes and a weird-looking smile (which seems to be the ONLY idea of indicating "crazy" that "filmmakers" can think of) and you'll find better acting skills in a kindergarten operetta - so I think Mr. Dickey hit their casting process on the head. (Too bad something else didn't get hit on the head before this waste of time was filmed.)

As for the storyline: Jay Sebring and Sharon Tate hear the shots that killed Steven Parent, when police tests showed that not even William Garretson could hear them in the caretaker's cottage? The screenwriters were even incorrect about how pregnant Sharon Tate was; they had Rosemary LaBianca say to her husband as she reads the newspaper, "That poor girl She was seven months pregnant." (Tate was 8.5 months pregnant.) In case the reader thinks I'm nitpicking, I'm not. These were the two least-bad parts of the movie. The rest of the movie goes into a blur of bad.

RMS1949's evaluation summary was perfect: "Total garbage." I will add that this garbage is so rotten that even the Manson girls would pass it up when they went dumpster-diving for ingredients for dinner.

The producer and any investors would've done better to have given the money to Michael Cohen to pay off one or two of Donald Trump's many companions - and then checked themselves into whatever kind of rehab helps clear film professionals' dulled evaluation skills.

I sat through a Strawberry Shortcake movie, a Care Bears movie and "Drop Dead Fred" with my child while she was growing up because I love her, but "House of Manson" makes those three look like Oscar-winning classics.

"House of Manson" is a film that chronicles the life of Charles Manson and focuses in on the events leading up to and including the Sharon Tate murders of 1969. Unlike other Charles Manson biopics that focus in on the sex or the over the top nature of the Tate murder, this one focuses in Charles Manson's influence and connection with his followers, the Manson family as they call themselves.

Charles Manson is portrayed by Minnesota born actor, Ryan Kiser, who seemed to approach the character in a very serious tone and does a fantastic job conveying the crazy yet brilliant way Charles Manson was able to draw followers into his cult.

Devanny Pinn co-stars as one of Manson's followers Susan Atkins and gives a chilling performance as her screen presence is freaky. Pinn truly becomes Atkins on screen as the facial reactions make you think this women is completely off her rocker and has no moral compass at all. An overall amazing performance by Pinn.

"House of Manson" does suffer from some technical flaws as the sound isn't completely smoothed and could use some more attention by a sound mixer. The filmmakers even admitted in a Q&A following the world premiere that some of the sound transitions were going to need to be looked at. The film also has a saturated look that doesn't look completely intentional. The image doesn't pop off the screen as some movies do that have a more crisp and sharp look to it.

Overall, "House of Manson" is a great portrayal of the events surrounding the infamous Charles Manson. It doesn't get too crude or violent as previous films about the same subject matter, it takes the source material as it is and conveys the story in a very tasteful matter. With a great cast and direction by Brandon Slagle, "House of Manson" is definitely worth checking out when it later finds distribution.