Watch Manson For Free

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Simply Perfect

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

It's an awful story, but it's what happened. There has always been a morbid fascination with these crimes and the Manson family in general. One thing I give this docudrama is that they do tap into the public's interest in the whole Helter Skelter thing; but they also explicitly show how brutal and awful it was too. I don't think it was bloody just for shock value. It's what happened. If that sort of thing is disturbing to you; then I would suggest not watching it. But I think it's important to show the brutality of it, because otherwise you're sanitizing it. I'm sure the last thing the filmmakers wanted was to glorify these murders. But in order to do right by the victims you have to tell the truth. I think they did an excellent job. It's very interesting, but wrong as hell all at the same time. I think they did a very good job with handling the subject matter.

This seriously deranged faux doco about the hideous Manson family killers is peppered with actual photos of the real victims in their heartbreaking stabbed gore. This use of real photos shocked me more than anything and I personally found the genuine police report black and white pic of 8 months pregnant Sharon Tate lying on the floor, all smashed to death particularly distressing. The reenactments are also very gruesome, with repeated scenes of actors stabbing and bashing each other. One scene even has a 3 year old child in an unedited shot where 'Manson' beats and kicks a woman. How this assault looked to the child is horrifying as a 3 year old cannot discern playacting of this brutal magnitude. This doco seems to have a keen eye to explicitly display the atrocity reenactments for maximum gore exposure. Debra Tate, Sharon's sister actually appears and I gasp to think how she dealt with this as a finished product. For a TV movie is contains R Rated violence and would have been a tough sit for anyone involved. The details described in the stabbings are equally pointless as we already know these poor people died in a horrific way but to hear what they said and blood and bone details is simply revolting cruelty to the audience. And unbelievable disrespectful to the real families of the original crime. This is a vulgar exploitive doco with a desire to expose the worst violence imaginable, explicitly re inact it, and show the real crime scene photos....and rub it in your face. Terrible.

This was a good, not great, documentary. The part that was very well done was the realistic reenactment of watching the girls and Tex going into the house and doing the senseless deed. In previous movies and documentaries the reenactments were not at all realistic. In this one, you can actually believe that this is the way the crimes were committed. And the events are not depicted in a gruesome manner, while at the same time there was no question the murders were horrible. The part that was not well done was some of the scenes at the murder site suggest that you could just drive right by the house and you were right there. That was not the case. The house was behind a gated driveway and down the driveway. The LoBianco house was much more accurately depicted. I also think they made an error on the location of the Spahn Movie Ranch. I believe the graphic read that it was in Benedict Canyon. That is not correct. Spahn Movie Ranch was out in the Chatsworth area in the Simi Valley, although they were correct in saying it was about 25 miles from Los Angeles. Minor errors like this cause the documentary to lose credibility. Overall, I thought the documentary was well done. The acting in the reenactments was very believable. Getting the real Linda Kasabian to speak about the crimes was a real fine catch because, to the best of my knowledge, she's been silent on the crimes since she provided the testimony that put away Manson, Tex Watson and the girls. Was her version of things a bit slanted? Probably. But no one has ever said she actually participated in the killings-- not even the people she caused to spend the rest of their lives in prison, and not any member of the Manson family, and all of these people had reason to attack Kasabian's credibility. That doesn't make Kasabian a saint and she should have spent considerable time in prison (she didn't report the crimes, she simply ran away after the Lo Bianco murders)but without her testimony it is very likely Manson and all the others would have walked away without being convicted. This was a good documentary that, with a few improvements, could have been a great documentary. A documentary that includes Bugliosi, Tate's sister and Linda Kasabian is off to a great start and those interviews alone make this an important documentary.

Linda Kasabian recounts her 1969 relationships with Charles Manson and his youthful followers as if she were one of those women on TV chatting about how taking an aspirin saved her life. This ridiculous two-hour special from the History Channel shows virtually no interest in the victims who lost their lives at the hands of these people, only in Kasabian's sluggish 'bystander' retelling of events (enacted by performers who seem to have been over-directed without benefit of a script). This is one of those bad ideas which can't even be compensated for by the testimony of case prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi or Debra Tate, sister to slain actress Sharon Tate. The intimate details offered by the special are suspect, the reenacted crimes (broken up by commercial interruptions) are sketchily drawn, and the statistics at the finale (which shows the ACTORS posing for mug-shots!) are half-hearted at best, swiftly wiped from the screen like yesterday's headlines. Shameful, pointless swill. It's difficult to discern whether Kasabian is apologizing for her involvement...or if the show is apologizing for her.