One of my all time favorites.

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

I saw this movie back in the mid 80's & just seen it again,the movie takes you back to the look & feel of the 70's & how Charlie's people lived.Charlie's kids were not the only people on the face of the earth killing people,there was the murder of the President,Martin Luther King, Jim Jones & his 900 follower's excreta excreta,it kind of makes you think that what Charlie said made sense"I am a product of your environment" "my father is your prisons",he only gave back what was put into him.Although Charlie is not in the movie his followers have internalized everything he has taught them & they have become a mirror image of Charlie,acting as he would act,speaking the word's that he has spoken,his actions & behavior's have become there action's & behavior's.Over all my opinion of the movie was pretty good giving everyone some insight on how The Family lived,laughed, had sex,did drugs & killed together.

First things first...I have been interested in the Manson Murders for over two decades. I tend to give movies, art pieces on Manson a wide birth. If I gave these things a narrow birth, this would still be a fantastic film.Everything these people say this film does it does.It is a portrait of very stupid people.It is scary.And it is like hanging out with a bunch freaky murderers...But there is more. This is the only film that captures the family at it's "height". (For those of you who say there was no family I use this term to encompass the entire group that worked with Manson.) It is also a fantastic vision for why people and countries need to think on their own. These sheep who were lead to slaughter were led there because of their inability to think for themselves. Most of these people were women. We must remember that this case pre-dates the modern feminist movement by five years. So it was more likely that certain women would be able to put under the influence of a manipulative genius...or a scummy little ex-con. Not that this couldn't happen today...(except for certain sociological reasons it really actually couldn't).There is more to this case but the problem is a lot of the books on this case are badly written...so be it...my recommendations are Taming the Beast and Helter Skelter...also The Family has a ton of information but is quite simply one of the worst written books on earth.The Film gets a little lost and the end and begins to meander but one can attribute this to the druggy feel of this film rather then the fact that the filmmakers may have run out of things to say on this film.What also makes this film interesting is that most of the women do seem extremely intelligent (Mary Brunner and Gypsy should be excluded). It is too bad that these filmmakers couldn't or wouldn't get interviews with the families of these women. This would have pushed this film towards perfection maybe even making it a perfect documentary.There are also a few mysteries that go along with this film. One is why is this not a really well known documentary? Another is Why have there never been a soundtrack released and why has this never been released on DVD officially? Also there is the murder of one of the filmmakers in the parking lot of an acting school that Sharon Tate had attended. Also there have never been any interviews of the filmmakers and there never seems to be any evidence of say the critical reviews of this film. We must remember this film was nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary so someone seems to have seen this film. I guess no one wanted to discuss it.If you are thinking of buying this film go for it...you wouldn't regret it... it will chill you to the bone and make you laugh because of it's narration...

If you have read Bugliosi's true crime account, than don't miss this.This would be a necessary viewing for anyone with a vague interest in true crime in general or documentaries too.Did it deserve an Oscar? I think so.Filmed before the killings, (most of it anyway) but released after, it made you wonder why the signs weren't noticed earlier.Charlie preaches the typical hippie shtick and his wide-eyed, spacey followers talk about love and knives in the same thought. If there was ever a graphic anti-hallucinogenic drug ad, this was it.This needs a new DVD release with updates and special additions. Someone get on it. It's worth it.

This documentary not only captures the deranged philosophy of the Manson family, but it looks sleazy overall. Much of the footage is grainy and unsteady, adding to the brittle feel of the movie, but the interviews with Manson's followers speak for themselves. Makes for interesting viewing in conjunction with "Gimmie Shelter", which documented the clash of hippie culture and violent bikers at the Rolling Stones concert at Altamont Speedway. Both of these events signalled the end of the "flower power" movement, but these two movies seem to point out the danger that mind-altering drugs can pose to suggestible kids. Indeed, a lot of the interviews contained in "Manson" outline the essential role of marijuana and acid in the lifestyle of "the family," and the film clearly posits that Manson used drugs, as well as sex, to brainwash his followers. What's most terrifying about this movie are the candid appearances of the Manson women, staring wide-eyed and generally behaving like automatons. The time was clearly right for an evil individual such as Charles Manson to invade a supposedly peace-loving culture like the hippies, stoned and generally aimless, and orchestrate chaos, and the altered state that these people were in clearly contributed to their own propensity for disillusion and mind control. What comes off as mostly lacking is the depiction of Manson himself. Although the filmmakers give plenty of background on him, the bizarre images of this man contained in the film do very little to give an accurate depiction of how he must have appeared to his followers. I was haunted by the lingering question of what could possibly have motivated Charles Manson to orchestrate these heinous murders, and even worse is to think that his wishes were carried out by kids who came from seemingly normal backgrounds.The use of split-screen, as well as the "flower power" soundtrack, add to the quintessentially 70s feel of the movie, but even through all the kitschy hippie images, the shocking nature of the murders, and the tragic phenomenon of Manson's cult, remains. It left me feeling dirty and disturbed after watching it.