A pregnant Linda Kasabian (Clea DuVall) arrives at George Spahn's old western movie set ranch with her daughter Tanya. The group is led by the charismatic Charles Manson (Jeremy Davies). Manson is obsessed making his song with producer Terry Melcher and Beachboys' Dennis Wilson. Linda steals $5000 from her husband's friend for Manson. The Manson family continues their crime spree. Manson goes looking for Terry Melcher but is received coolly by the new leasee Roman Polanski's wife Sharon Tate's friend. Melcher is giving Manson the cold shoulder. Manson tells the family of an impending race war Helter Skelter. Linda is the driver as Manson directs members of the family to massacre Sharon Tate and her friends.Jeremy Davies has always been great playing crazy. It's odd to say but he may be playing Manson as too crazy. Some of the early outbursts feel a little over the top. I buy his crazy rants when he's in prison. No matter what, he is able to command the screen. Clea DuVall is suppose to be the lead. She gets a bit overshadowed. The one thing I do like a lot is that it lays out the reason why Manson kills Sharon Tate. The story flows well which is a difficult task for such a messy real story.

I have studied this case for over 25 years, and I thought that this movie was really very good. I totally agree that there was some serious camp/inaccuracies, etc..., but from everything that I have read throughout the years, for the most part, the murders at Cielo/Waverly Drive/Hinman's residence were the most accurate I have seen in a reenactment. There were some small, yet noticeable inaccuracies that I felt were important: no zebra rug in Cielo living room; the killers' attire; colored Christmas lights (vs. the white ones in the movie). The bigger discrepancy would be that Tex (alone) allegedly killed Sharon, not all of them as that scene depicted. And of course, we have no idea what the dialogue/conversation was between the victims in the movements before the invasion. I don't believe that gender identity was available in '69, so Roman would not have known that the baby was a boy, during his last phone conversation with Sharon. I felt like (the actress who portrayed) Susan Atkins was overall very good, except for her "over-the-top" behavior during the killings; especially when Tex instructed her to "write something". And by all accounts that I have ever studied, Sharon did NOT ask Sadie to take the baby after the attack (she would have hopefully fell unconscious quickly during/after the 16 knife stabs). She apparently "bargained" with her killers before she was killed; even asking them to take her with them for 2 weeks, then kill her after she had her baby. Gary Hinman's ear was not completely cut off, and of course, poor Rosemary LaBianca suffered much more savagery than the police discovered the next morning. (As well as Abigail and Voychek(sp?)). Just my thoughts. I think Vincent Bugliosi's death prompted me to watch this.

Helter Skelter: its a confusion, confusion based on fantasy, paranoia, hate and lies of a prosecutor. This is what the phrase means. Helter Skelter as a movie: 1976 it was a good movie according to the 70'ies but it was a movie and not reality, it was more a sci-fi movie again based on the same lies, paranoia, jealousy etc of the prosecutor. Helter Skelter as a movie: 2004 it was absolutely fake and boring on the first place. Secondly it was very a poor directed movie with bad characters and extremely bad actors who most probably didn't take a little bit extra time to look at the facts and read the trial transcripts. They believed all that they heard in the TV from Geraldo Rivera etc interviewers. That lead them to a totally misunderstanding. The leading role Jeremy was the only one who tried at least to give a little extra to the movie but he was fighting alone against all those lies and the whole crew without any other help his efforts were in vain and ultimately failed. The story line is very boring with all those practical and comfortable lies that they presented again as facts of the reality. So what did they do really? Luckily this movie failed everywhere in every stage and it will fail in the future totally to the lies and garbage of the worst movies of history when the justice finally will be served and the US supreme court will have a look into the case again! And they will read the transcripts instead of the Helter Skelter book or movie. Which is both well deserved the title: The book of lies and the movie of lies. Sad to see that these people are so locked up into their fantasy world so they can't see the forest from the tree or from their Ferrari?

I am about to watch it again, for the third time. Just finished Paul Watkin's "My Life With Charles Manson" book for the third or fourth time. I have a few books on the "subject". My brother and I "met" Charlie just about the time of the murder(s). We were poking around his abandonded heap of stolen V.W. bodies at Spahn when he ran at us, gun in hand, spewing obscenities I had never heard before. ("love" was not among them). He was mad at us 'cause we were going to steal parts from the cars he stole! I think it was after the murders but before the raid on Spahns. I lived over the hills in Thousand Oaks. At any rate, the movie is lame. What irritated me the most was Charlie's dialog was in a whisper. He just whispered. Weird. Oh, sure, when he was yelling he was just upset over something major, like somebody asking him a question he couldn't answer. I'd be "mad" too! If you are a Manson collector (not a fan) you need this movie. Summary: Charlie knew not a thing about love. He grew up (until his release in '67) in prison and love was not there. He learned from the best how to con people, assume roles and intimidate. There was/is nothing good about the "scruffy little guru". Until he tells why (the real motive) these senseless killings occurred and apologizes, he is nothing. "Jesus"? Hmmm. "The Devil"? He isn't even good at that.Some "expert" claim he is very intelligent. How? Couldn't hold a job, a terribly stupid thief, no ear for music, yet, continued on trying to be a rock star. His only fans/followers are probably a bunch of Goth-Dressing spoiled kids that probably still live in their parent's basement anyway. [email protected]