Director: Daniel Farrands
Writer: Daniel Farrands (Screenplay)
Starring: Hilary Duff, Jonathan Bennett, Lydia Hearst, Pawel Szajda, Ryan Cargill, Bella Popa
Plot: Pregnant with director Roman Polanski’s child and awaiting his return from Europe, 26-year-old Hollywood actress Sharon Tate becomes plagued by visions of her imminent death.
Runtime: 1 Hour 25 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Verdict: Tasteless and Exploitative
Story: The Haunting of Sharon Tate starts by showing us a news report of the Sharon Tate murders, along with the four guests at the house, this is one of the most famous acts of violence committed in Hollywood and made The Mansion Family famous. We flashback to three days before the events of the murders, when an 8-month pregnant Sharon Tate (Duff) returns to her Hollywood home with guests Jay Sebring (Bennett), Abigail Folger (Hearst) and Wojciech Frykowski (Szajda) to prepare for her new baby.
The next couple of nights strange things start to happen around the house, as the Mansion Family starts to visit, getting closer until they find themselves committing the acts that shocked the world, even if it was in Sharon’s dreams first.
Thoughts on The Haunting of Sharon Tate
Characters – The characters in this film are based on the real victims of the tragic and shocking crimes. Sharon Tate is an actress married to Roman Polanski expecting their first child, she heads home to prepare and soon starts suffering horrific nightmares of the friends being murdered. When we meet the friends, we don’t get to learn much about them, Wojciech is a stylist, while the rest are just friend male and friend female seemingly.
Performances – Hilary Duff, that’s a name we haven’t heard about for a while, she does struggling playing the famous young actress, the scare reaction just doesn’t feel authentic in anyway, this poor performance style continues through the supporting cast who just don’t get going in this film in anyway.
Story – The story here follows the three days leading up to the murder of Sharon Tate and her friends by the Mansion Family. First we must respect that this is a real event which happened and we shouldn’t be making entertainment out of these events. We do play into the idea that Sharon had vision of nightmare which involved big death in her life, this was a fact, she gave interviews about her vision before too. The problem with this story comes to use the idea of Intruders coming into the home, only as this is based on the real crimes, it feels even more uncomfortable to watch because we know what really happened.
Horror – The horror side of this film comes from the idea of where the group of people are being pestered at first by the family, it is mostly a home invasion movie, mixed with nightmare visions.
Settings – The whole film is set in the one location, the house which the murders happen, it shows how the family can take advantage of people being away from help.
Special Effects – The effects in the film are weak be it the weak blood splatter or weird camera usages for the dream.
Scene of the Movie – It was hard to find one.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – The usage of the real murders seems too much.
Final Thoughts – This is a poor attempt of bring us a home invasion movie that is forced to use the real life murders to try and cash in on the Mansion Family actions.
Overall: No Haunting, Invasion we know the outcome off.
Rating
