Professional Motion Picture Production and Distribution NEWS

'Manson' Film Finally Opens after 16 Years

By staff
posted Oct 25, 2004, 21:35

DAYTON, Ohio - Jim Van Bebber's "The Manson Family" opened this weekend in New York City, Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland -- 16 years after it began filming in Dayton with a local cast and crew.

The film, an ambitious account of the infamous 1969 cult murders, is receiving a limited national release that expands in coming weeks to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Denver, Portland, Ore., Minneapolis, Austin, Texas, and Vancouver, British Columbia.

The long-delayed feature, which made its Dayton premiere as "Charlie's Family" in December 2003, has become something of an underground legend since it completed principal photography more than a decade ago.

"I pretty much had it wrapped," Van Bebber said from his North Hollywood, Calif., home. "What I did was just sit on it, because I was unwilling to let it go straight to home video or let somebody re-edit it.

"So what you're seeing out of that 15 years is a guy sitting with his arms crossed, going, 'You're not going to re-cut my film.' "

Van Bebber wrote and directed "The Manson Family." Mike King of Dayton served as producer and cinematographer. The cast includes WDTN-TV news anchor Carl Day.

Finding a distributor was difficult, because of the film's graphic violence, low budget and lack of stars.

"Most of the people that we tried to get involved with the film, at best they just wanted to put it out for a quick video release," King said.

"Nobody wanted to finish it to a print and put the work into it to do a good sound mix, where it might have a chance of at least having some kind of theatrical or festival play. That's what we held out for."

Last year, British cult DVD distributor Blue Underground agreed to finance post-production in exchange for distribution rights. The 16mm original was transferred to a 35mm print with a 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround sound mix, which Van Bebber described as "gorgeous."

"We had to give up a lot of control to get it to the quality level we wanted, which is bad," King said.

The filmmakers have no say in distribution or marketing decisions, such as the title change. However, they still own a decent percentage of the film's income.

"The fact that a small film like this gets any kind of theatrical release at all is really quite amazing," King said. "I mean, you know that there's been other films that have been produced here over the years that haven't gotten the same exposure that at least this is getting at this point."

A DVD release is scheduled for spring 2005. A Blue Underground film crew recently visited Dayton to interview cast and crew members for a behind-the-scenes documentary bonus feature.

Prior to its theatrical release, "The Manson Family" has been screened at a number of U.S. and international film festivals.

"I think this film stuns people," said Van Bebber, a cult director whose credits also include the 1988 feature "Deadbeat at Dawn."

"It stuns them like a stun gun. They come out and they have nothing to say, and then I find out what they thought four days later."

Source: Cox News Service