Review of Charles Manson Superstar

The film itself is interesting to see because it's a great example of a documentary that gets across the exact opposite message of what the filmmaker intended (Triumph Of The Will is another). The basic film goes between two types of footage. One is made up of still photos and stock footage (sometimes "enhanced" by lame psychedelic effects) with narration. The narration, read in monotone, sounds about like what you might expect a pseudo-rebel middle school student to post in a Manson chat room - It's Manson's familiar history told with glowing admiration and peppered with phrases like "Manson only reflects the society that imprisoned him" and references to "the conditioned masses" that consider Manson to be the half witted turd that he is. The narration criticizes Manson's victims and his keepers, while praising Manson. The filmmaker, Nikolas Schreck, also managed to score a lengthy prison interview with Manson. The interview delves only slightly into what Manson is infamous for (the pointless, envious, brutal murders of his racist hate cult), and instead centers on Manson's "philosophy". Manson's philosophy, as anyone who has seen him interviewed knows, is basically that everyone is phony and screwed up except him. He really says nothing else in the interview, and whenever he reaches a point in his monologue where he might otherwise say something informative, he instead makes a contorted face and giggles or does some kind of karate dragon dance. He is un-chained and un-handcuffed in the interview and is free to walk around the room. Whenever the filmmaker asks a difficult question (though, not much more difficult then "say something to the camera that you have always wanted to tell people"), Manson masterfully intimidates him off the topic by standing and approaching him or touching him, at one point taking one of his hands and caressing it for several seconds. The entire thing is scored by bootleg recordings of Manson's tortuously bad music.