American Psycho director Mary Harron and the film’s co-writer Guinevere Turner have reunited for Charlie Says, a movie primarily centered on the three “Manson Family” women who were sentenced to death in Charles Manson’s infamous murder case. IFC has acquired the U.S. rights to the film, with a planned theatrical and VOD release on May 10, 2019.
Matt Smith (“Doctor Who”) plays Charles Manson in the film, and we’ve got your first look courtesy of the official trailer today. The film promises to present “a provocative new perspective on one of the most notorious crimes of the 20th century.”
Chace Crawford plays Manson family member Tex Watson and Sosie Bacon is Patricia Krenwinkel. “The X-Files” star Annabeth Gish plays Virginia Carlson, head of the California Institute for Women. The cast also includes Suki Waterhouse, along with Hannah Murray, Odessa Young, Marianne Rendon, Carla Gugino, Kaylie Carter and Merritt Wever.
“Years after the shocking murders that made the name Charles Manson synonymous with pure evil, the three women who killed for him—Leslie Van Houten (Murray), Patricia Krenwinkel (Bacon), and Susan Atkins (Rendón)—remain under the spell of the infamous cult leader (Smith). Confined to an isolated cellblock in a California penitentiary, the trio seem destined to live out the rest of their lives under the delusion that their crimes were part of a cosmic plan—until empathetic graduate student Karlene Faith (Wever) is enlisted to rehabilitate them.
Convinced the prisoners are not the inhuman monsters the world believes them to be, Karlene begins the arduous process of breaking down the psychological barriers erected by Manson. But are the women ready to confront the horror of what they did?.”
The script by Turner is based on Karlene Faith’s nonfiction book The Long Prison Journey of Leslie van Houten: Life Beyond The Cult and Ed Sanders’ controversial 1971 novel about the Manson Family murders, The Family.
Jeremy M. Rosen and Kevin Shulman are producing via their Roxwell Films banner, while David Hillary will executive produce alongside Dana Guerin and Michael Guerin.
