The Manson Family

Its own mythology aside, this flamboyant, graphic and disturbing quasi-docu reenactment of a notorious chapter in U.S. counterculture life is a fascinating if peculiar accomplishment.

This is not a "horror" film or an "underground" film, but an act of transgression so extreme and uncompromised, and yet so amateurish and sloppy, that it exists in a category of one film -- this film.

This is not a "horror" film or an "underground" film, but an act of transgression so extreme and uncompromised, and yet so amateurish and sloppy, that it exists in a category of one film -- this film.

See it - if you dare.

Hard, ugly and nasty yet a stylistically vigorous and often insightful piece of work.

The film evokes how homicide became the ultimate orgasm for kids who had turned themselves into zombies of flesh.

The film evokes how homicide became the ultimate orgasm for kids who had turned themselves into zombies of flesh.

A film the family might've made themselves: sophomoric, hagiographic, amateurishly strobe-happy, and thoroughly hippiefied.

A film the family might've made themselves: sophomoric, hagiographic, amateurishly strobe-happy, and thoroughly hippiefied.

Van Bebber is out to capture the mood of a generation-long bad trip and succeeds with unnerving accuracy by telling the story within the family circle.