I picked Helter Skelter up as an afterthought at the movie store the other day, thinking it might be interesting. Boy was I wrong. I usually love movies from the seventies, something about them is so simple yet complex, especially in exploitation films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the Thirteenth and all those Italian B movies. I thought Helter Skelter might be somewhat related, but no. It seemed like it was written by a really mild tabloid reporter, sensational yet dry. And even the dialogue was a bit off... it just sounded like they could have used a thesaurus or two. Now a film of the Manson murders, a story that seemed as if it was too crazy to be true, as if it belonged in a movie... how did they make it into a such a boring three hours?! Well, first of all, it's all from the perspective of the cops and the lawyers... which is great for factuality, but couldn't you afford to have a few moments of Charlie and the gang all alone... being evil or whatever. And the acting is so stiff and... silly really. It's just a bunch of old white hacks doing their best to look serious. The only interesting stuff comes from all the psychotics, who can be fairly... out of this world. Still, we never get a sense of the influence Charles Manson had over those people because the actors are too busy acting a stereotype of 'crazy killers.' Don't get me wrong, when we are talking about the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the performances of Gunnar Hansen et al, the crazy killer stereotype (or should I say archetype) really works. But this film sets itself up as a dramatization of real events, so I would have liked to have seen some humanity from the gang. Maybe that's a writing problem, or maybe they were just monsters, the latter is certainly the only clear 'vibe' this film succeeds in sending.
Review of Helter Skelter
