Theres been plenty of buzz around the infamous serial killer Ted Bundy recently, with Netflix docuseries The Ted Bundy Tapes, and biopic Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (starring Zac Efron ). But another notorious murderer, Charles Manson, is about come back into the spotlight with the release of the film Charlie Says, in theaters Friday.
Clearly, both movies tell the stories of two murderous men, but they have something else in common: Both flicks also claim to tell those stories from the perspectives of the women who loved them. Extremely Wicked, for example, is meant to be from Ted Bundy's longtime girlfriend Elizabeth Kloepfer's point of view-though the movie still felt mostly about Bundy.
According to The New York Times ' review of Charlie Says, however, which is female-led (it was written by Guinevere Turner and directed by Mary Harron), the movie dives much deeper into the lives of the women surrounding Manson, and focuses on their journey to find their own identities again after being under his spell for so long.
In case youre not familiar, Charles Manson led a cult called the Manson Family at Spahn Ranch in California, beginning in 1967. Manson had several young women followers, but the three that are the focus of Charlie Says are Leslie Van Houten, Susan Atkins, and Patricia Krenwinkel.
Houten, Atkins, and Krenwinkel were all were drawn to Manson because he was attractive and charismatic-but he soon brainwashed them into committing crimes on his behalf. Manson and his followers are responsible for the deaths of eight people, including actress Sharon Tate in 1969, according to CNN .
Whereas in Extremely Wicked, the viewer rarely sees any of Bundys actual crimes acted out, Charlie Says promises to feature the deaths that sent these women and Manson to prison. Youll also see how Van Houten, Atkins, and Krenwinkel start to lose their attachment to Manson as they talk with Karlene Faith, a graduate student who teaches at the prison where the women eventually wind up, according to The New York Times .
Faith, too, is also a real-life character, who ended up writing a book about her experience with the "Manson girls," called The Long Prison Journey of Leslie van Houten: Life Beyond the Cult .
Basically, if youre into true crime, and were all about Extremely Wicked, Charlie Says certainly sounds like a must-see.