The Haunting of Sharon Tate

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Cast & Crew

Hilary Duff

Sharon Tate

Jonathan Bennett

Jay Sebring

Lydia Hearst

Abigail Folger

Pawel Szajda

Wojciech Frykowski

Ryan Cargill

Steven Parent

Tyler Johnson

Tex Watson

Bella Popa

Sadie

Fivel Stewart

Yellow

Ben Mellish

Charles Manson

Daniel Farrands

Director

Daniel Farrands

Screenwriter

Lucas Jarach

Producer

Daniel Farrands

Producer

Eric Brenner

Producer

Jim Jacobsen

Executive Producer

Hilary Duff

Executive Producer

Jonathan Deckter

Executive Producer

Jorge Garcia Castro

Executive Producer

Charles Arthur Berg

Executive Producer

William V. Bromiley

Executive Producer

Shanan Becker

Executive Producer

Jonathan Saba

Executive Producer

Ness Saban

Executive Producer

Carlo Rinaldi

Cinematographer

Dan Riddle

Film Editing

Fantom

Original Music

Brenton Berna

Production Design

Susan Doepner-Senac

Costume Design

Donald Paul Pemrick

Casting

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Critic Reviews for The Haunting of Sharon Tate

Audience Reviews for The Haunting of Sharon Tate

• Dec 16, 2019

  I knew going in about the film's sour reputation and cries of it being exploitative and offensive, but I was questioning whether any film the purports to show the personal history of a real-life person who ended in tragedy could be considered exploitative. Someone is using a person's real tragedies as a form of entertainment, and even in good taste there's a profit to that design. Is featuring a story of Sharon Tate any less exploitative than, say, a serial killer drama, or maybe a slavery narrative, both of which will feature dramatizations of very real suffering? I knew I was destined to watch The Haunting of Sharon Tate and determine for myself, and about halfway through I had a very drastic change of opinion. The movie went from being bad to being legitimately offensive. It was already destined to be one of the worst films of 2019, but now it also serves as one of the movies that made me the angriest for the entire year. Before diving into the exact reasons for my ire, I'm going to warn all readers that the only way to fully express just how rotten this movie is at its core requires significant spoilers. I'd say you've been warned but you know why you're reading this. You want to know the horror. Sharon Tate (Hilary Duff) is pregnant, anxious, and awaiting the return of her husband, Roman Polanski. In the meantime, the Hollywood star is relaxing in her home with her former beau Jay Sebring (Jonathan Bennett), and house guests Wojciech Frykowski (Pawel Szajda) and Abigail Folgers (Lydia Hearst), heir to the coffee dynasty (in nepotism news: Hearst is the daughter of Patty Hearst and great granddaughter of the powerful publishing magnate). One fateful summer night in 1969, all four will perish at the hands of Charles Manson's cult. Tate is plagued with disturbing visions of her demise that nobody seems to take seriously. I was worried early that this was going to be an E! True Hollywood Story version of The Strangers, and I found that drawn out home invasion scenario to be very depressing. It's true that the Manson family murders don't officially come in until an hour, which means we have a long time until the movie justifies its existence, because this sure isn't a character study. It's a sleazy slasher movie at heart with little respect for its real-life figures, and you better believe I'll go into more detail on that front later. Because of this back-loaded structure, we spend a lot of time with Tate magically fearing a future she should really have no way of anticipating. The very opening seconds of the film are a recorded interview where Tate talks about a dream where men broke into her home and murdered her and her friends. In case you didn't understand, the movie then cuts to "one year later" and the camera slowly swoops over the bloody crime scene. Then the movie cuts to "three days earlier," which was the first moment of distaste for me. Every single person watching a horror movie about Sharon Tate knows what happened, so why did we need a time jump to the murders when the whole reason the interview is included is for irony? We don't need the example of irony to be followed by an immediate, "Here's WHY it was ironic, guys!" It's tacky and unnecessary, but that tart summation could apply to the entire film project. The filmmakers think Tate running around and having wildly specific premonitions of her own demise is meant to up the tragedy, when instead it seems to portray Tate as being schizophrenic. She's seeing glimpses of the murders but her mind is also doing Dumb Ghost Movie scares. There's literally a jump scare tied to an ice machine making noise in the night. First, it's an ice machine, but second, shouldn't Tate know what her ice machine sounds like by now? There's a moment where Charles Manson's reel-to-reel recording turns on by itself. This is accompanied by audio distortion and quick cuts, along with a pounding musical score, that made me think of the overkill of the Saw movies when they were trying to be edgy. Then there's Tate hallucinating that the bathtub is overflowing with blood. There's one scene that made me burst out laughing. It involves Tate and Abigail Folger walking along the Hollywood hills and two people pass them on a walk, and it cuts to absurdly dramatic slow-motion and close-ups of these strangers, as if this portentous moment is meant to mean something so spine-tingling. Of course, with this movie being what it is, they do end up turning out to be two of the Manson family killers. We know what befalls Tate and the others but they don't, so they view Tate's hyper specific warnings as some form of mental breakdown. At one point, Abigail says they're here to keep Sharon's baby safe. "Safe from who?" she asks. "Safe from you," Abigail responds. Allow me to clarify exactly why this storytelling decision is so off-putting: it's trying to squeeze extra perceived tragedy from the events by providing early warnings that nobody believed, but in doing so it makes Tate look mentally ill to fit this aim. It feels like further insult to someone who already suffered plenty. And that brings me to the biggest point of contention I have with The Haunting of Sharon Tate and that's its gross game of watching Tate and her friends die repeatedly in a misguided attempt to surprise the jaded audience. As stated, we know ahead of time what fate awaits Tate (oh man, it's bad taste, but I want to appreciate that use of rhyme right there) so it becomes a waiting game of when the Manson family shows up and slays our characters. I was shocked it was happening so soon, around the 45-minute mark, and then settled into a depressed realization that meant the remaining half of the movie would be a tiresome Funny Games-style torture sequence. I didn't have to wait long because the Manson family killers get to business quickly, but you see, dear reader – IT WAS ALL A DREAM. That's right, Sharon Tate wakes up screaming having dreamed a prophetic nightmare. This was a breaking point for me with the film. It was using fake-out murder sequences to keep an audience guessing. Is THIS the time Sharon Tate gets murdered? Nope, maybe it's THIS time? Nope, I guess we'll just have to endure many sequences of Tate and her friends being killed to learn which is the legit murders. That's so gross. It's using her victimization as a reset button for exploitation thrills. It's bringing Tate and company back to life again and again only to torment and defile them anew, and that I found righteously offensive. Then the movie does something very different, borrowing a page from Quentin Tarantino, and rewrites history. The fateful night when the Manson clan has tied them up, Tate and the other captives fight back, killing their attackers. This caused me to pay more attention to the movie, especially with what seemed like a science fiction detour. The voice over of a very mundane philosophical conversation comes back, and we hear, "I don't believe in one fate," as well as, "I believe in infinite realities, and we're trying to make things better." Was The Haunting of Sharon Tate presenting a bizarre scenario where Tate was tapping into the future memories of a parallel reality version of herself in order to avoid that same deadly fate? If this was the case, well the movie would still be bad, but at least it was trying something insanely different. I would not have expected a multi-verse to make an appearance in The Haunting of Sharon Tate. However, I knew there was no way this movie would avoid undercutting this revelation, and in the closing minutes it manages to potentially erase all of this. We see the next morning and dead bodies lying on the grass with sheets over them. Sharon Tate hovers over one body, pulls the sheet down, and it's revealed to be – HER! Does that mean the previous sequence of their survival was another fake-out? But if so then whose memories were we watching? Is it another Sharon Tate from a different parallel reality but in ours it didn't work out so well? I have no clue. It's a cheap twist ending already following a cheap gimmick, which makes me question which was worse. There is little redeeming value to the schlocky, offensively bad Haunting of Sharon Tate. It purports to be a sympathetic portrayal to a victim, yet it plays upon her death for fake out thrills and makes her seem crazy in order to project some added sense of tragedy because I guess what happened to her wasn't tragic enough. If you needed any further proof to suggest the bad faith of writer/director Daniel Farrands he has another movie slated for release in early January, 2020. The title: The Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson. Oh, but dear reader it gets even worse from there. According to the one available film review published, it turns out that Farrands is theorizing that Nicole Brown wasn't murdered by her husband, O.J. Simpson, a jealous, wife-beating, controlling liar who had all that DNA evidence linking him to the crime. Instead it's some drifter played by Nick Stahl who turns out to be a serial killer on the loose. Please just let the audacious offensiveness of these last few sentences just sink in and remember that this man is using this grievous shock value to make a name for himself. I feel confident with one New Year's prediction: I will have a slot already reserved for The Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson on my Worst of 2020 List. In the meantime, do yourself a favor and don't go near these sinkholes. Nate's Grade: D-
  

  Super Reviewer
• Jul 28, 2019

  I thought everyone already decided Hilary Duff isn't allowed to act anymore? It's only natural that the mouseketeer eventually escapes the horrors of the Disney channel for greener pastures, like portraying famous murder victim Sharon Tate. The Tate murders were 50 years ago this August, and independent filmmakers have been making the most of the tragedy with several films over the last year. Besides Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, we had one of Mark Kermode's least favorite films of last year Wolves at the Door, Charlie Says with Dr. Who as Charlie Manson, and then this unnecessary thing called The Haunting of Sharon Tate. If Blumhouse productions wanted to option a sensationalized depiction of the Tate murders complete with idiotic jump scares, I doubt it would be as inventively boneheaded as this one. One would think the biggest problem is that it takes this tragedy and turns it into a popcorn flick, but it also takes a somewhat poignant look at Tate's wistful optimism and burgeoning career then tries to turn it all into a sPoOkY gHoSt StOrY. This could be an interesting experiment in tone, but then they decide to literally go into an alternate dimension of poor taste where Tate and her fellow victims escape captivity and brutally kill the Manson cult assailants, and everyone is happy in the end. I mean, there's exploitation, and then there's just shitting all over the memory of the deceased, and this movie definitely crosses that line. It would be totally egregious if it were made long ago, but I guess they thought 50 years was enough wait to capitalize on the tragedy. Just baffling. Anyway, it somehow won best director, best actress, and best horror movie at the Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival. I'm guessing there weren't any other movies in competition this year.
  

  Super Reviewer