Films about the Manson family.

I saw Helter Skelter when I was young, perhaps too young to. The final tracking shot on Manson in his cell when he's smiling and clapping...but he slowly turns his head toward the camera in a creepy abrupt freeze framed evil smile. This ending scared the bejeesus (sp?) out of me. There's something about schlocky exploitation techniques such as freeze frames and shock cuts that should be cheezy but I've always been a serious mark for them.

Haven't seen Charles Manson Superstar, based on your comments Jay, I now really want to.
I rented Manson from my local video store. Definitely of interest if one needs more. Although you'll probably be very surprised, or maybe not, that it somehow won an Oscar for best doc. Lots of wild interview stuff with the Manson girls.

For further Manson reading if desired...
Neo-Nazi movement leader James Mason authored the terrifying and hilarious book "Seige," which is partly a fascinating account of Mason's growing adoration of Manson as a racist revolutionary figure. Mason includes examples of Charlie's letters to President Reagan.
I haven't read it yet but I believe Boyd Rice worked on a short lived zine called "The Manson File" which is probably worth tracking down.

http://www2.themansonfamilymovie.com/

Just picked up the new LR soundtrack last week--fantastic job of remastering, excellent liner notes about the history of the soundtrack's creation & letters from Anger and Beausoleil, beautiful photography---highly recommended.

Highly recommend Jeff Guinn’s biography. (Figured there was no need for a "Books about the Manson Family" thread.) Manson’s the distant past, chronicled in books and movies before, a conman and murderer who’s been stuck on pause for 40 years--I doubt he’s of much interest anymore to ILX. I read Ed Sanders book long ago, saw Helter Skelter, and I think I may have read the book too--some high school friends and I latched onto the story via the White Album. So I remembered most of the names and events surrounding the murders, but Manson’s early life, and the ‘40s and ‘50s and everything that led him to L.A. in the mid-‘60s was mostly new to me, chronicled in great detail by Guinn. How these people managed to find each other is one of those fascinating, inexplicable perfect storms. There was also a subtle inversion I found interesting. I’ve always thought of Manson in the way that he’s always presented: part of that whole sequence of end-of-the-‘60s signposts, coming after the moon landing, almost simultaneous to Woodstock, before Altamont. In the book, though, everything else is a backdrop to Manson. So when you get to something like My Lai, and William Calley’s explanation at the trial a year later, the obvious connections resonate.