Why Tarantino's Manson Movie Will Be The Tamest Version Ever
The Manson Murders, in which members of Charles Manson's "family" killed a number of people, including actress Sharon Tate, shocked the world. The resultant trial and cultural paranoia around the murders is said to have effectively ended the "hippie generation." To adapt these events into a movie would require a steady hand and careful direction. So naturally, Quentin Tarantino, who ended his last movie by having Samuel L. Jackson and Walton Goggins painstakingly hang a struggling woman, would begin to circle the project.
Tarantino is best known for his wild, pop-culture-infused films about killer brides, five-dollar shakes, and the director of Hostel shooting Hitler in the face. And while his resume doesn't seem to exactly lend itself to a movie about Charles Manson, it's probably going to be the most subtle adaptation of these events that we're ever going to get.
Is it going to be about Uma Thurman taking on the Family? Because I'd watch five movies of that.
We've had movies about the Manson Family before, but an overwhelming number of them seem to lack, how do I say this, grace and charm in the barest sense. Little more than a year after the murders, we received I Drink Your Blood, which was about satanic cult murders, but more importantly, absolutely bore the title I Drink Your Blood. In 1976, Helter Skelter was released, and it ended with a camera-facing monologue that basically said "And beware, for there could be a young Manson growing up in YOUR neighborhood." In 2004, we got The Manson Family, which was a fake documentary about Manson's followers, because sometimes when you have a really, really dumb and bad idea, you just gotta ride it out, maaaan.
Oh, and we got a puppet show too! Live Freaky! Die Freaky! came out in 2006, and as if it was created just for the purpose of making this article's point for me, it featured Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong doing the voice of Manson. If you want to watch a naked puppet voiced by the guy who sang "Boulevard Of Broken Dreams" fuck another naked puppet while performing a song about being a Jesus figure, or you just want to have your week ruined by something and you don't care what it is, click here! You'll regret it, like, a lot.
Please stop doing you, Billie.
Most recently, Rob Zombie, whom you might know from his songs about Munster cars or his movies about serial killers with beards, was gonna team up with, for fuck's sake, American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis to get a piece of that sweet, sweet Manson pie. The project was announced a few years ago, but seems to have fizzled out, which might be one of the few recorded cases of truly divine intervention. But if you long to see it, here's how it probably would've turned out:
And that brings us back to Tarantino -- who, if his recent films are any indication, will go all-out with the gore, and probably drop in a few ironically timed songs as well. But no matter how much he Tarantinos it up, history has shown us that it will probably be the most thoughtful and polite take that we ever could've asked for.
Daniel has a podcast about Top 40 music and a Twitter.
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