The Manson Family (1997)
Before Jim Van Bebber, the writer, director, and co-editor of The Manson Family , commenced production on his exploitation true-crime splatter flick, the infamous real-life horror story of the Charles Manson Family murders -- a series of murders that transpired in the summer of 1969 and claimed the lives of nine innocent human beings, ten if you include an unborn baby -- had been dramatized only as a single stuffy made-for-TV courtroom drama titled Helter Skelter . While it may have featured a legendary performance from Steve Railsback as Charles Manson, the focus of the narrative was the prosecution of Manson and his cult of deluded, white supremacist followers as told from the perspective of Vincent Bugliosi. This tragic, stranger-than-fiction chapter in American history is the greatest and most earth-shaking horror story ever committed to the history books, and with its intoxicating cocktail of sex, carnage, emotional manipulation, and a bevy of colorful personalities, Van Bebb...