Quentin Tarantino is not the only filmmaker who is basing his newest film on the crimes related to the late Charles Manson figure. Veteran filmmaker Mary Harron, better known for her cult film American Psycho (2000) and the forgotten The Moth Diaries (2011), is going to be in charge to direct Charlie Says (2018). This movie is based on the book The Family: The Story of Charles Manson’s Dune Buggy Attack Battalion, written by Ed Sanders and published in 1971. Guinevere Turner, frequent collaborator of the director, has been in charge of the screenplay.
The plot is about three young women were sentenced to death in the infamous Manson Family murder case, but when the death penalty was lifted, their sentence became life imprisonment. One young graduate student was sent in to teach them, and through her we witness their transformations as they face the reality of their horrific crimes.
Charles Manson will be played by Matt Smith. With him, Carla Gugino, Merritt Wever, Suki Waterhouse, Hannah Murray, Kayli Carter, Odessa Young and Marianne Rendón complete the main cast.
The Manson Family was a quasi-commune that arose in California in the late 1960s, led by Charles Manson. They gained national notoriety after the infamous murder of actress Sharon Tate and four others on August 8, 1969, by Tex Watson and three other members of The Family, acting under the instructions of Manson. As was stated during the hearings, the instructions were to “totally destroy everyone in [the house], as gruesome as you can”. In 1971, Manson and members of his crew were sentenced to life imprisonment for these and several other murders committed that summer. Group members were also responsible for a number of other murders and assaults, and the attempted assassination of President Gerald Ford. Although Manson never did any of the actual killings, under the rules of accomplice liability, he was deemed as responsible for the killings as the actual perpetrators who caused the deaths of the nine people. Condemned to death upon conviction, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by the State of California after a 1972 Supreme Court decision struck down extant death penalties in the various states. Charles Manson never paroled and died the 19th of November 2017 by natural causes at the age of 83.
