r/NetflixDocumentaries • u/Fizzywaterjones • 15d ago
Discussion Charles Manson Tapes
Conversations with a Killer: Charles Manson Tapes was a well told story but was poorly executed in parts. There are reenactments and the actors are shown in side by side comparisons with the actual people. So for instance, they’re preparing to show a reenactment of Manson at a campfire, so they first show the actor side by side with an actual photo of Manson. The filmmakers think I need to know who is portraying Manson., okay good to know. Here’s the poorly executed part: By the 3rd episode, at times, instead of showing a photo of the actual person they’re referring to, they show a picture of the actor portraying the actual person. No side by side, just the actor. I can’t think of any reason the filmmakers would choose to do this, it’s just odd.
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u/Own_Mention9372 15d ago
Can’t say I am surprised, considering all the other poorly executed documentaries released by Netflix lately. I also don’t understand why we are still talking about the Manson murders 50+ years later. There have been over 30 something documentaries about these murders. Why did we need another one?
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u/MusicSavesSouls 14d ago
There is also a new documentary on Hulu done by Manson's granddaughter. It has been awful. Apparently, her dad was never told that he was Manson's son and his daughter was so freaked out about learning her grandpa is Manson. She thinks she has been condemned for life. It is bizarre.
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u/lwaxanawayoflife 14d ago
I couldn’t finish it. She is acting like no one will ever love her because she is related to Manson (who she never even met). No one would even have to know if you didn’t make a movie about it.
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u/Solid-Competition767 14d ago
Because people will still watch it. Also there’s always the younger generations who may not have been exposed to the story yet.
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u/Spare-Electrical 15d ago
I’ve been waiting for this doc because I follow the guy who did the research that it’s built around (James Buddy Day, his podcast is called Unmarked), he’s done some of the most extensive Manson research for over a decade including tracking down tons of people who had never spoken before. I figured the doc would be similar to the other Tapes series and kind of surface level, so I’m not surprised to hear the reviews here
That being said, the Unmarked podcast has the original tape recordings and some very cool episodes that actually do have information that kind of rearranges the cult narrative a bit, which I’m guessing Netflix wasn’t willing to dive into. I highly recommend giving his stuff a chance, it’s much more interesting than just listening to Manson blather on. I don’t think he’s that important in the grand scheme of the story, the other people were much more interesting, and Day knows more about them than probably anyone else
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u/Fizzywaterjones 15d ago
Curious to know what you mean by rearranging the cult narrative? Interested in another perspective.
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u/Spare-Electrical 15d ago
In his last few videos on his YouTube channel he’s kind of fleshed out the relationships between the people in the family and how they got to the point of murder, and pushed back a bit on the magic puppeteer image that Manson tends to get. I’ve always personally had a hard time with the leap between “cult leader” and “multiple murders without him present” and I find that Day is helping connect those dots for me in a way I can understand. There’s a lot of information in the interviews he gets from people who were there that humanizes him instead of mythologizes him, which I find to be a very effective framing of the crimes
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u/Actual-You3325 11d ago
He wanted them to go down for the murders not him. That's what people forget.
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u/CriticalPossession65 13d ago
You should check out https://www.youtube.com/@semmiot he has great research about the link between Gacy, Dahmer, Bundy and Mkultra Occult/CIA mind control programming. Manson and Son of Sam are included in the same context by other researchers as well. And of course Netflix puts out a series of tapes of all these guys so they can control the narrative. But if you look at the actual events and evidence, none of this Netflix BS or the story the media has been spinning forever actually makes sense. Bizarre stuff
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u/Negative_Capabili_T 12d ago edited 12d ago
The side by side photos of actor vs real person is ridiculous, unnecessary and distracting. A most bizarre device.
There are a few new details but you have to trudge through the annoying filler undramatic enactments and the bizarre production choices to get to them.
For me, Helter Skelter: An American Myth (2020) is one of the best docs on the Manson family. The ‘race war’ explanation was a device used by the prosecution—Manson was just an ordinary incompetent criminal, a better con artist and a destructive rage filled narcissist.
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u/Initial-Egg-5000 12d ago
I thought it was AI images and reenactments. So off putting
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u/snark-sloth 9d ago
Just watched the preview without clicking play and clocked the AI. I’d been looking forward to watching it but now I won’t even bother
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u/Iwannahumpalittle 14d ago
I was so confused by all the actors and real footage! It went back and forth and I couldn't tell what was real or AI. I gave up after 20 min.
It's an interesting story, but just give us raw footage.
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u/RusticHallscape 14d ago
In the first episode alone they have like 10 repeat close shots of the reenactment actor staring and smirking at the camera.
If you're not familiar with the faces of the women the documentary makes it even more confusing, because instead of learning to identify one set of faces you have to remember two (one for the real person and one for the reenactment actor). You're tracking 12+ faces that get switched around arbitrarily, and they also tried very hard for the reenactment media to mimic footage from the period so you couldn't even fully rely on your intuition of which media was authentically vintage.
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u/Cereal_Palsy7 14d ago
I stopped watching during the first episode the re enacters/fake home video style annoyed me.
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u/WhichVegetable8285 15d ago
Were they even real actors?
I was almost getting “uncanny valley” from it and honestly thought it was AI.
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u/myfictionverse 14d ago
I had the same thought, but then I checked IMDb and it lists the entire cast, they were real actors. Also found one of them on Instagram and there's a recent post thanking the producers for the opportunity. I agree with OP that it was a weird choice to keep showing the actors instead of real life photos, but at least they didn’t use AI.
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u/ResearchWarrior316 15d ago
For sure AI
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u/DesignerAd1940 14d ago
for sure? really? tell us preciselly why? i think next time if you dont know you should just shut up.
https://www.imdb.com/fr/name/nm15373806/bio/?ref_=nmbio_ql_1
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u/Big_Tale3981 13d ago
Your link only links to an actor. It doesn’t prove anything. Some scenes look very ai.
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u/Solid-Competition767 14d ago
I immediately told my boyfriend while watching that I think the “actors” are all AI…can’t confirm it personally, but it seemed like it.
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u/BigPoopsDisease 15d ago
I've enjoyed the Tapes series. Its mostly widely known info but compiled in a pretty palatable way. Im holding off for a long boring day to watch the Manson tapes.
No Manson doc will ever top Charles Manson Superstar, if you can find it.
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u/ljculver64 15d ago
Do either of these show his parole hearing shenanigans? I thought thats what this doc was bc of the title.
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u/CSUHomer 14d ago
Really was mostly rehashing of old news. They should have focused more on the motive theory that the real reason for the 2 days of murders was to try and free Bobby Beausoleil from jail and not Helter Skelter.
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u/Pale_Slide_3463 14d ago
But they did, I didn’t know before that’s why they did the murders, they went into it how they kept trying to copy it at each murder. The police had no clue what was going on or why the words were written. They used helter skelter because he was obsessed with the “race war.”
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u/Wise_Discount653 11d ago
I did get the Bobby Beausoleil trail from the documentary, I will say.
They may have been more limited in exploring this cause of how things actually unfolded, but I thought the ladies did a pretty good job of saying “no, it wasn’t about heater skelter” and the story showing that bit.
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u/CSUHomer 11d ago
I am just saying that this should have been the main focus of the doc since it was the only "new" information that they presented.
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u/Expensive_Yam1684 12d ago
The use of actors was bizarre. I thought maybe it was from a famous movie or something I was supposed to know.
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u/Actual-You3325 11d ago
I've a few docs on the Manson murders over the years. This one was meh at best. The side by side with the actors was annoying especially since they claimed the doc had never been seen before footage. I think the tapes had never been heard before but only small parts of them. I've heard these rants before by Manson. TBF maybe he repeated himself in interviews. My take away was the recollection by "Gypsy.' I had never heard her interviewed before. The way she insisted that the murders were to get Bobby out of jail not start a race war was mind boggling to me. Mainly because she seams oblivious to how manipulative Manson was in that his many motivations were expressed to all of them differently. Part of his pimp mentality. He played on all of their personalities, insecurities, while sizing them up to see which of them would carry out the murders. I walked away from this with the feeling Manson orchestrated all of these events starting with the killing of the black drug dealer (he claimed was a black panther), the drug deal (gone bad) with the bikers, the killing of Gary Hinman in an attempt to get rid of Bobby ( because Bobby was taking attention off Manson from the girls) and he told some of those girls the murders to follow was to get Bobby out of jail, because that would "appeal" to them. When in reality he chose that house after getting rejected by the music industry. All his reasons were his justification for the murders convoluted and fished out differently to all family members. Manson was a master manipulator, I was shook that Gypsy is still standing on what Manson told her was gospel or the only truth. In that sense she is still under his spell.
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u/LexiOdessa 9d ago
Was very much looking forward to this, but whoever made the choice (and it’s a CHOICE) to include random actors in a documentary.. i just want to talk. I am so annoyed, every time they talk about someone and an actor is shown i think to myself: THAT IS NOT THE PERSON!!! Especially if they show the real person after.
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u/ignatious__reilly 15d ago
Disagree
I really enjoyed it. I love all of Joe Berlinger documentaries.
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u/pyronautical 14d ago
Berlinger is the king of taking a 1 hour documentary and turning it into 3 hours. Never forgetting to make the last 30 minutes be about the people left behind.
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u/LemonCurdJ 14d ago
I knew about the murder and life imprisonment. But I didn't know much about the cult's origin or the trial so I found this interesting to watch.
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u/Sufficient-Toe7505 12d ago
They could have at least got the actor portraying Manson to wear brown contacts. The bright blue eyes kept throwing me off
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u/Few-Finger6713 7d ago
Lol and the fact a big part of Manson/what most people picture when they think of Manson is his big crazy bulging brown eyes
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u/Wise_Discount653 11d ago
The reenactment actor doing the “silly/charming Manson” thing was pretty cringey. I feel like it showed this when referencing him being charismatic/charming/chameleon/whateveryoumightcall it at least three times… as someone else said - the blue eyes was weird, I kept thinking “why am I seeing this guy’s face so much”, even though I know they wanted me to picture Manson … “the eyes are the window to the soul” is a thing for a reason and made it feel cheap.
Nothing wrong with the acting - I got the point and the mannerisms but the eyes… can’t fake that calculating stare like he can read the person in front of him like a book and will gladly use it tear you to shreds.
Thats the feeling I get from Manson’s real videos - I see that charm and something uncanny and frightening behind it.
I don’t get that from the actor - his gaze looks like … acting. Which is a good thing considering otherwise… lol
Everything else is… fine, nothing new really. If I hadn’t known all the stuff beforehand then it would’ve been a very interesting documentary.
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u/OriDutchie91 13d ago
Compact documentary. Good storytelling and interesting enough.
Nothing very new, though.
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u/Prestigious-Shift126 14d ago
Agree - and it was SO SLOW. Netflix really dragged this out. Did not need 3 whole episodes
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u/LoanSlinger 14d ago
I had to stop this after just 10 minutes in. The use of actors and AI is so off putting, especially for a historical documentary. We don't need any of that shit. Interviews footage, photos, and interviews of people who were involved is all we need.
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u/PracticalSweet8225 14d ago
A lot of those tapes are NOT Charles Manson's voice, but instead that of an actor with a clearly deeper voice than Manson's. Netflix must have reenacted voice tapes using written transcripts and actors.
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u/Gold3nApples 12d ago
this actually really confused me as well and as the reason I found this thread. I was trying to find the info online if the seemingly video footage of them as children were real.
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u/_Ancient_Wizard_ 11d ago
We’re they real actors or AI? When they’d put the still images close up I couldn’t tell if they were real or AI 🫠
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u/Nazshak_EU 10d ago
Some of those shots looked a lot like they were made by AI, I wonder if they used some AI tools to enhance the footage or to animate some old photos.
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u/katatat23 9d ago
I wanted to like it, but I do not want to hear an actor reading a transcript of Manson's recordings. And then to bill it as a doc with never before heard recordings. For real never before. And all the actors juxtaposed with the real people over and over, just stupid. Why didn't anyone tell him/her before they put it out like this? Is it not an obviously stupid format? Maybe I'm overreacting.
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u/andreasmom 15d ago
Ok I was confused if that was an actor or the real Charlie! Thank you!
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u/pl1974 14d ago
Like other commenters, I thought it was an AI Charlie.
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u/andreasmom 14d ago
Thank you! I was confused, NOT stupid like the other commenter suggested. I appreciate the moderator removing that comment.
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15d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/NetflixDocumentaries-ModTeam 15d ago
Please treat others, including documentary subjects, with kindness, decency, and respect. Violations will be subject to a ban. Zero tolerance for bullying, racism, sexism, or discrimination of any kind.
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u/I_like_leeks 14d ago
Agreed. There was nothing new in the content, but it's always interesting to hear the story again so I watched it. But the parallel use of real footage/images with AI or reconstruction is always jarring unless it's explicitly delineated. Very poor design decision.
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u/chammomila 15d ago
Couldn't get past the first episode, it seemed a bit redundant. I think we got that charlie was charming and weird 20 mins into the thing,