Customer Reviews

Manson My Name Is Evil

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The movie has a good use of juxtaposition as it contrasts the difference in people and families growing up in the Age of Nixon. Perry is a young Christian chemist who suffers from sexual repression because his buxom blond girlfriend loves Jesus more than him. (Her words, not mine.) The Christian tract they hand out is about a girl named Leslie who takes LSD and gets pregnant by Satan. Leslie happens to be the other story that runs parallel to Perry's tale. Leslie ends up with Charlie, who has a God complex. The scenes swap back and forth in a surreal John Waters' style. During the trial Perry and Leslie make extensive eye contact. Perry, who has begun to doubt the values drilled into his head by society has second thoughts about Leslie, seeing her more as a victim than criminal.

The background may have been historical, but this film is in no way close to being accurate. The end credits claimed the title of this movie was "Leslie, My Name is Evil." You might look for further reviews under that title. This also appears to be a Canadian production so when the box claims, "gratuitous nudity" that means one scene (Perry's dream). The killing is also lame. You see the knife swing and blood splatter, but no penetration. It is not a horror film. It is not a documentary. It is not that good drama. It is a cult classic wannabe. It loosely pokes fun at society and Christianity, but never makes a definite statement, after all, they are being compared to the Manson family. The character of Charlie in this movie was poorly written.

Point of history. Leslie was not involved in the original Tate murders, but only later in the Labianca murders. The woman who plays Leslie in the movie looks very much like her. Leslie was disruptive during the trial and giggled a lot, particularity at times when she should not have giggled. Leslie held Rosemary while she was being stabbed and as the movie portrays stabbed her in the lower torso after she was dead. There was a question of her guilt as she stabbed someone who was already dead, but her said court actions landed her in prison. John Waters has been attempting to get her released. I suspect he had some uncredited work to do with this film.

It just sucked.

The real name is Leslie: My Name is Evil not Manson: My Name is Evil. What a sham. I never would have watched this garbage if I knew it was about her and not him. Just capitalizing on the Manson name. Horrible scenes, bad acting, poor plot... the music was okay.

LESLIE, MY NAME IS EVIL (alternately known as MANSON, MY NAME IS EVIL) is the story of the Manson Family as it has never been told before, from the fictionalized perspective of Leslie Van Houten. Charlie and the murders take a back seat for the first time, as a greater emphasis is placed on the young homecoming princess who would be transformed into a cold-blooded murderess. A second story begins as Perry, an idealistic college student, fights between his love for his country and his opposition to the war as he is pulled in separate directions by his family and girlfriend. After being placed on the jury for the Manson murder trial, Perry becomes enthralled with Leslie's charms, and his judgment becomes impaired by his feelings for her. Like LIVE FREAKY, DIE FREAKY and THE MANSON FAMILY before it, MY NAME IS EVIL is an unrestrained piece of artistic expression that is reflective of the counterculture movement from which it was spawned. Director Reginald Harkema introduces a heightened sense of stylism through his symbolic imagery, but it isn't all sex, drugs, and Rock 'n Roll in this picture. Harkema uses the film to satirize the role that 60's religion and politics had on society, and although it is not entirely accurate, it intentionally deviates from the actual events to produce its own unique storyline that is only loosely based in reality. Critics will be quick to attack the sentimentality attached to each of the characters as well as its obvious liberal agenda, but MY NAME IS EVIL is at least a valid attempt at exploring the psychology behind the murders from an entirely different angle. At the same time, it never glorifies the events, nor does it downplay the significance of Leslie's actions. That being said, those looking for a historic account of the murders will have to look elsewhere.

-Carl Manes

I Like Horror Movies

WEll, HALF WAY THROUGH i WAS LIKE " f****** CORNY ", BUT THAT WAS UNTIL THE STABBING SCENE. TRUE IT COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER, BUT IT IMPRESSED ME FOR SOME REASON. THE PART WHERE LESLIE WALKS INTO THE RANCH AND CHARLIE IS ON THE CROSS WAS MEMORABLE. HOWEVER THIS GUY PLAYED A MEDIOCRE MANSON. I RECOMMEND RENTING THIS AT THE MOST.

Production values are nice, the girls are hot and Charlie's nutty as ever, but intellectual dishonesty abounds. First, this movie is a love story from the filmmakers to Leslie and the honesty dies there. Second, this is an anti-death penalty-slash-anti-war movie and it gets mired down in this philosophy at the cost of the movie's integrity. Yes, Viet Nam was a crappy event, everyone agrees; it started with advisors sent by Kennedy and ended with Nixon's troop withdrawal, but we were bludgeoned and stabbed repeatedly with the fantasy of unfair justice: it's okay for the cliche-Christian to make chemicals for war and find poor, beautiful Leslie guilty of murder. Yeah, a shame I left my violin in the courtroom. In order to gain sympathy for Leslie the movie skips the murder of pregnant Sharon Tate (and manages to ignore her name completely) as well as the fact that the victims of the Manson Murders were tormented, tortured and slaughtered by Charlie's "Young Loves". None of Manson's psychopaths were railroaded or misunderstood; they were anti-social, psychopathic, homicidal, drugged-out morons, and if you study the case you'll discover that Charlie himself had connections to the murdered families; they weren't just thrill kills, they were revenge against Charlie's imaginary injustice of songwriting failures. Third and final, the overly dramatic napalming of a Vietnamese village replete with smoking baby corpse and accusatory girl corpse eyes-on-audience was trite and naive. Again the ghastly reality of the Manson Murders are homongized in order to deliver an amatuerish political statement on war, Christians, the death penalty and the U. S. Justice system. Oh, and before you shed Lifetime tears for poor little misunderstood Leslie's sentencing...California overturned the death penalty shortly after the Manson trials; not one of these dirtbags died by the courts. All of them were commuted to life sentences. I still like the 1976 version with Steve Railsback as Charlie better.

Complete trash, waste of time, inaccurate, fiction, just another attempt of leeching off of the blood of the Tate/Labianca/Hinman/Shea murders and of course using the name "Manson" to garner interest. If you want to know about this case, there are no movies that lay it out factually. GO read a book, read them all and piece the story together. Most of the books are also not very accurate, use common sense. Avoid trash like this piece of crap movie.

Kudos to the first reviewer's disgust over this film. I agree 100%.

If a person doesn't already have a sober and realistic understanding of the actual event then this film will just confuse and mislead. Is it necessary to keep making films when there is nothing left to make a film about? This movie is extremely flippant about EVERYTHING. Flippancy has it's place, but like rudeness, it gets old fast. It seems that the story makes efforts to portray life from today's liberal zombie mindset. "Blame those old-fashioned white Christians" for everything uncomfortable and disturbing about life. This movie is a reflection of what our society is becoming, or has already become. Manson was symbolic of the imperfection and backwardness of our culture back then. To think that everything was hunky-dory at any point in history would be foolish. However, we need to move forward without acting stupid and blaming a demographic. Nazi Germany blamed the Jews and today the Liberal Agenda(Democrats and their feminist base which supports abortion w/o any responsibility and homosexual promotion from K and up)blames those "White Christians-Especially the men!" Sick and getting sicker.