6.2 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Young hippie runaways form a cult known as the Family. Their leader is Charles Manson, a madman convinced that a race war will break out in America. Endless drugs and Manson's delusions drive the Family to commit one of the most notorious crimes of the twentieth century.
Starring: Marcelo Games, Marc Pitman, Leslie OrrHorror | 100% |
Crime | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.34:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English: Dolby Digital 2.0
None
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
If 1967 gave us The Summer of Love (courtesy of lots of hippies and even more drugs), and 1968 gave us The Summer of Sadness (due to the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy), 1969 gave us The Summer of Terror, stemming largely from the exploits of Charles Manson and his so-called family. Ironically, Manson himself pointed to the King assassination as proof of what Manson insisted was an impending race war, which Manson termed Helter Skelter. The pure evil of the Manson murders caught a still rather innocent American public completely by surprise, something that might seem to be odd, considering the previous year’s brush with anarchy due not just to the assassinations but the roiling sociopolitical environment which famously saw huge riots break out in several places, including in Chicago during the Democratic National Convention. But there was something so primal about these murders—especially the murder of a very pregnant Sharon Tate—that both fascinated and repelled the public, especially since the perpetrators weren’t immediately captured. When more murders followed in the wake of the first attack, the country was riveted—and very, very fearful. Richard Nixon had won the presidency largely on a “law and order” ticket, and the yet to be named Nixonian Silent Majority began making lots of noise that the criminals had to be found as quickly as possible. The police actually kind of backed into finding the killers, but once the Manson Family was in custody, the public was both fascinated and repelled again by this motley crew that included some very well brought up folks along with the often incarcerated Manson. Manson and his followers have continued to fascinate (and repel) people in the many decades since the horrific crimes they committed, and as sad as it may be to talk about, Manson has become a hero of sorts for a certain class of people. The Manson Family (here bearing its alternate title Charlie’s Family) plays upon that perhaps disturbing fact while at the same time purporting to give a sort of quasi-documentary review of some of the Family’s exploits, both murderous and otherwise.
The Manson Family is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Severin Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.34:1. Viewers coming to this feature without any foreknowledge of what Van Bebber was trying to accomplish may think this transfer is absolutely botched, but that misses the point in terms of both format (16mm and video) and some post- production tweaking Van Bebber employed. Van Bebber is playing with a number of different techniques here, including lots of intentional distressing of the image (which he did manually by scratching the stock with kitty litter, believe it or not), which gives quite a bit of the footage an aged, pretty badly damaged, look. But the bulk of this outing features a nicely naturally filmic appearance and the "undamaged" footage sports decent clarity and precision, given the context of the smaller millimeter format which obviously does not boast brilliant sharpness and which tends to be (expectedly) rather grainy most of the time. The film was shot on a shoestring and so does not have the crystal clear clarity of big budget outings shot either on film or HD video, but that relative softness is endemic to the elements and not a transfer issue.
The Manson Family's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is a riot of hallucinatory effects. Weird, static-filled chatter ping pongs around the side channels while a bizarrely anachronistic assortment of folk music accompanies montages of flower children and blood soaked horror (remember that Manson was a nascent musician himself, a friend of The Beach Boys' Dennis Wilson and an would-be Monkee). There is often an intentionally obfuscated aspect to the sound design here, especially in some of the drug fueled sequences. The clearest moments are in the quasi-documentary confessional elements, whether those be the "contemporary" reminiscences or the supposed "archival" footage which also crops up. Fidelity is excellent, and dynamic range is also rather wide.
- 2013 Red Band Trailer (480i; 2:16)
- 2013 Green Band Trailer (480i; 1:58)
- 2003 Red Band Trailer (480i; 2:00)
- 2003 Green Band Trailer (480i; 1:02)
- Promo Reel (480i; 2:24)
It's hard to give a ringing endorsement to The Manson Family, for it's quite a disturbing experience on a number of levels. I personally don't completely buy Van Bebber's assertion that he had no exploitative motivations whatsoever in getting this project done (which took him years, often against rather considerable odds), but at the same time there's no denying that there is a definite point of view here and that the results are quite chilling. This really is more an examination of the interior workings of the Manson cult rather than an out and out depiction of the horrific murders they committed, and there's some rather cogent points made about the "ripple" effect the Manson murders have had, continuing on (sadly) to our time. This isn't an easy film to watch, but it's one of the most visceral pieces I've experienced lately. If you have the stomach for it, The Manson Family comes Recommended.
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