Manson Family Movies (1984)
Directed by John Aes-Nihil
87 minutes
Between the years of 1974 to 1979, not long after Manson Family trials had concluded, enigmatic artist and connoisseur of fringe culture, John Aes-Nihil, embarked on a project to "re-stage" the events leading up to the infamous Tate-LaBianca murders as a series of faux home movies, based on the legend that the Family had at one point stolen camera equipment to document their actions. The resulting feature— which, coincidentally, premiered in 1984 at EZTV alongside HIGHWAY HYPNOSIS— truly lives up to its filmmaker's namesake Aesthetic Nihilism: Shot entirely on Super8mm and completely silent save for an accompanying soundtrack mostly comprised of music made by the Family itself (plus a little Patty Duke for good measure). The film re-frames the Manson Family story as a first-person travelogue across Southern California, imbued with chillingly realistic detail as we bear (false) witness to one of the most notorious events of the American century.