Of all the possible reasons for remaking “Helter Skelter,” the story of the Charles Manson family killings in 1969, the most likely is that the original 1976 production, a four-hour miniseries, pulled in more than half of available TV viewers.
Once you get past the faint hope that there’s still curiosity about the brutal murders there really isn’t any other good reason for filling the TV screen with three hours of brutal, ugly and often repulsive images.
To be sure, a good deal of thought went into this production, which -- like the first -- was based on the book co-written by Vincent Bugliosi, who successfully prosecuted Manson. The story itself has been refocused so that nearly all of it is about the oily and manipulative personality of Manson and very little deals with his arrest and subsequent trial. Jeremy Davies trained hard for the role, and it shows. He gives an energetic and authentic portrayal of the psychopath.
There are times, though, when the film is undone by its own good intentions, artistic and otherwise. For example, writer-director John Gray is careful not to glorify the diminutive Manson. He presents us with a mentally bent weirdo who makes you so uncomfortable, you want to run for the nearest exit. Had he been born 30 years later, a dozen reality shows would be clamoring to cast him.
That depiction of Manson, however, makes it nearly impossible to understand the magnetic hold he has over his followers. The film cites some examples of Manson’s techniques at mind control, but they just aren’t terribly convincing.
Nor is the portrayal of the key members of the Manson family, including Tex Watson (Eric Dane), Sadie Atkins (Marguerite Moreau) and Katie Krenwinkel (Allison Smith), each of whom settles on a single expression for the duration of the film.
In the opening credits and in some of the more vicious murder scenes, Gray tries to emphasize the horror through the use of negative reversal images. Problem is, it comes off more pretentious than arty. Too often, the jarring images suggest the cheap sensationalism of a reality crime show.
Nearly three decades after the first production, nothing new has been added to what was already known about the Manson group. Not that you could be certain of that from this film. An advisory prior to the start warns that parts of the story have been fictionalized. That’s a shame, because sticking strictly to the facts couldn’t possibly have made this more repugnant to watch.