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2019 is set to be a big year when it comes to seeing Charles Manson in cinemas. This month, for instance, The Haunting of Sharon Tate touched down and has Ben Mellish in the role opposite Hilary Duff as the killer’s most famous victim. But that’s not all, as soon we’ll see Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which will feature Damon Herriman’s take on the figure when it drops in July. And in between, we’ve got Charlie Says, which is headed for cinemas on May 17th.

The movie had its premiere back in the fall at the Venice Film Festival, and since then, the critics have been pretty mixed on it. As it stands, Charlie Says sits at 44% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 9 reviews, with many feeling that Matt Smith is miscast as the titular murderer. Nonetheless, the marketing campaign continues on and below,...

For the moment, we can put aside how much this project is in bad taste. The Haunting of Sharon Tate takes a tragic real life murder and makes a crappy horror flick out of it. Moreover, it gets supernatural agency to an actual criminal act. All on its own, that would be terrific. Worse, the film itself is almost unwatchable, that’s how bad it is. When a movie does as many things wrong as this one does, you wonder how it got made in the first place? Tasteless in concept, misguided in execution, and an utter bore, this is among the worst that 2019 has produced so far. Seriously, you have no idea how awful this is, and I sincerely hope you never find out. In case the title didn’t spell it out for you, this is a tale of how Sharon Tate (Hilary Duff) met her demise, and of course,...

Over the years, I’ve consumed my share of movies — documentaries, dramatizations, deconstructive punk curios — that play off the Manson murders. The quality of this genre (and by now it is a genre) is hit-or-miss, yet I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Manson film that wasn’t on some level trying for something, for a new shade of insight into that uniquely horrific and resonant chapter of the American dream-turned-nightmare.

But now, I’m afraid, the track record is broken. “The Haunting of Sharon Tate” may be the first “serious” Manson drama that represents a case of pure, unadulterated cheeseball exploitation. The film has nothing of remote fascination to add to the Manson dialogue that some of us have been carrying on for decades. It doesn’t bring you closer to the events; if anything, it seals you outside of them. But the movie’s petty folly...

Stars: Hilary Duff, Jonathan Bennett, Lydia Hearst, Pawel Szajda, Ryan Cargill, Bella Popa, Fivel Stewart, Tyler Johnson, Ben Mellish | Written and Directed by Daniel Farrands

Not until I did some research, after viewing The Haunting of Sharon Tate, did I realise that 2019 would be the 50th “anniversary’”year of the Tate Murders – a mass murder conducted by members of the Manson family. And this fact is the reason there are several movies this year that feature Charles Manson; including Charlie Says starring Matt Smith as the man and most famously, Quentin Tarantino’s latest movie Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, which will apparently feature Manson in the story.

Also, before watching this movie, I thought it was a bit strange to feature the controversial real life director Roman Polanski and his wife as characters until I realised that this is based on a very true story!

Obviously set in the late 1960’s,...

2019 is set to be a big year for movies portraying Charles Manson. Just next month, for instance, The Haunting of Sharon Tate will see Ben Mellish in the role opposite Hilary Duff as the killer’s most famous victim. After that, Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood will be bringing us Damon Herriman’s take on the figure when it drops in July. And in between, you have Charlie Says, which is headed for cinemas in just under two months from now.

In the new trailer above, you can see Matt Smith in title role surrounded by the women he indoctrinated into his cult. What distinguishes Charlie Says from the two aforementioned films is that it seeks to put us into the mindset of the people that Manson coerced into committing terrible actions – a premise which sounds very much in the wheelhouse of American Psycho writer-director Mary Harron.

Hilary Duff stars as the terrified titular actress in the new trailer for The Haunting of Sharon Tate, the horror film that views the Manson family murders through Tate’s perspective. Five people — Tate and her unborn child, Jay Sebring, Wojciech Frykowski and Abigail Folger – were killed on August 8th, 1969.

After an expansive aerial shot over the Hollywood sign, the clip — soundtracked by the Zombies’ “Time of the Season” — opens with a pregnant and paranoid Tate at her home in the Benedict Canyon area of Los Angeles, California. As the...