When The Haunting of Sharon Tate was released last year, the reviews were scathing. Is the film itself really that bad - or is it just faux outrage?
When Daniel Farrands’ The Haunting of Sharon Tate was released to streaming platforms in 2019, the reviews were scathing. Farrands’ fictional meditation on the Manson Family murders on Cielo Drive—released 50 years after the incident—was heavily criticized as a crass attempt at exploiting a tragic event. In addition to the unanimously negative reception by the mainstream press, audience reviews on film sites were even worse. Is the film itself really that bad, or is part of the vitriol simply bad timing coupled with faux internet outrage?
The low budget film was inspired by an interview Tate gave to writer Dick Kleiner three years before her murder. In it, she mentioned a nightmare that she believed to be a premonition of her own death. The story was sensationalized in a Fate Magazine cover story in 1970. Using this as a premise, the writer/director created a fictional reality bookending the murders of the actress and her friends with an alternate reality that could be read in a variety of ways. One of the main criticisms of the film, that none of it could have happened, seems to miss the point of it entirely.
Hilary Duff plays the late actress in the days just before her death at the hands of the Manson cult. Her invested performance, a true manifestation of the film’s title, offers a much more rounded character than Quentin Tarantino’s much-lauded Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. That film, which completely changes the outcome of the Manson murders, was commended for doing the very thing Sharon Tate is accused of; changing the facts entirely. While Farrands’ film may not have had the budget to fully explore its intriguing premise, much of the negativity is simply unfounded. The Haunting of Sharon Tate currently has a 19 percent Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes with the audience score at a low 31 percent. Here's what some major reviewers have had to say about The Haunting of Sharon Tate.
The A.V. Club:
“It’s not an exaggeration to say that this film fails on every artistic level. The sound is hollow and overdubbed to the point of distraction. The editing is sloppy. The camerawork is shaky.”
Roger Ebert.com:
“The characters have no personalities, no inner lives, no real relationship to one another. When they talk, they talk in the most heavy-handed way about fate, chance. Tate asks questions like, "Are we slaves to our destiny?" "Is life a random series of circumstances or is there some greater plan?" The dialogue [written by Farrands] is painful on the ears, stilted and theoretical.”
Indie Wire:
“And while virtually every scene is constructed out of such rotten wood, “The Haunting of Sharon Tate” never stops looking for new and exciting ways to be terrible.”
Hollywood Reporter:
“Far from being a realistic dramatization of the events, The Haunting of Sharon Tate presents an alternate reality version that culminates in a home invasion in which a plucky, resourceful Sharon leads the others in fighting back against the crazed attackers. To say that things get seriously loopy is an understatement, especially in the bizarre context [in at least one of the several versions of the events depicted, Tate get[sic] to kick some serious ass].”
Variety:
“The Haunting of Sharon Tate” may be the first “serious” Manson drama that represents a case of pure, unadulterated cheeseball exploitation. The film has nothing of remote fascination to add to the Manson dialogue that some of us have been carrying on for decades.”
The Wrap:
““The Haunting of Sharon Tate” is an astoundingly tasteless motion picture, perfunctorily produced and insensitively conceived. Although Daniel Farrands teases the possibility that he’s got something truly experimental on his mind, the film ultimately reveals itself to be a grotesque sightseeing tour of human misery, exploiting five tragic deaths for cheap matinee scares.”
Refinery29:
“Alas, The Haunting of Sharon Tate is not a good movie. I would chalk it up to an April Fool’s joke had it not been in the works for well over a year. The dialogue is clunky, the delivery stilted, and the low production value makes it all feel like a flashback sequence from a very low-budget History Channel documentary about the Manson Family.”
Though most of the mainstream press was unified in their extreme dislike of the film, there were a few that expressed some positive attributes. Duff, whose Lizzie McGuire reboot is currently in development, was often singled out as a strong presence throughout. The horror press was much kinder, and seemed to be more open to the creative device that Farrands chose to use.
Jezebel:
“It’d be almost impressive if there were a point here beyond cheap murder thrills… The Haunting of Sharon Tate, see, has a few more ideas than your average B-grade horror flick, but ultimately, it has no clue.”
L.A. Times:
“Hilary Duff gives a good performance as Sharon Tate, the promising young actress who was slaughtered in the summer of 1969, while pregnant with Roman Polanski’s baby. Duff brings a tragic dimension to the role of a women who sensed the danger coming her way, but was ignored by her friends.”
Horror Hound:
“There was nothing disrespectful or exploitative here. I feel that it was handled tastefully, though exploring something nightmarishly true.”
The one positive outcome from the overwhelming negative response is that it has made several people intrigued enough to search it out. While the majority of audience reviews seem to be parroting a similarly incorrect interpretation of the narrative, those who watched it with a more open mind seem to appreciate what Farrands set out to do. The Haunting of Sharon Tate is not simply a “horror movie version” of the Cielo Drive murders, nor is it just a reimagining of the events.
What is the story behind the haunting of Sharon Tate?
The film is a fictionalized account of the 1969 Tate murders, following actress Sharon Tate [Duff] as she suffers premonitions of her murder by the Manson family. It was released in the United States on April 5, 2019, by Saban Films.
Is Sharon Tate Based on a true story?
Sharon Tate: the heartbreaking true story of her life, as seen in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. Sharon Tate Polanski was brutally murdered at the hands of the Manson family, 50 years ago today.
What movies are based off of Sharon Tate?
Alongside Quentin Tarantino's Once upon a Time… in Hollywood, portrayals of the late actor and the events leading up to her death in the summer of 1969 are the focus of Daniel Farrands's The Haunting of Sharon Tate, Mary Harron's Charlie Says, and Tate, a forthcoming biopic starring Kate Bosworth.