What makes the painful "Haunting of Sharon Tate" even more so is it isn't the first work by director/writer Daniel Farrands, who directed "The Amityville Murders" and penned "Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers." Both are astronomically better than this mess.
Farrands offers his version of events (with a general shuffling of facts) that happened 50 years ago when pregnant 26-year-old actress Sharon Tate (Hilary Duff) and her friends were murdered by Charles Manson (Ben Mellish) and members of his cult. The gruesome murders have been the subject of numerous documentaries and feature films over the decades. Farrands' effort to stand out is to spend time with terrifying premonitions and nightmares Tate had before the murders. Tate's visions of what would become her horrible future have been documented by several sources.
Taking this approach gives Farrands an opening to not only show the horrific attack when it happens, but to repeat it through one of Tate's visions. One time showing the ghastly event feels like spitting on a grave, but to put the audience through watching it twice borders on torture.
Farrands' script takes a turn that not only continues the violence, but is the kind of plot twist that is absurd, offensive and eventually trite. Farrands has been able to get away with odd and weird story ideas with horror fiction but he's bound by more realistic laws with this production.
Duff does her best to play Tate, but she ends up slipping into standard acting tropes such as standing around rubbing her stomach as a reminder she's pregnant and reacting to the carnage with rather uninspired terror.
She does get some support from Jonathan Bennett, who plays Tate's close friend Jay Sebring. His performance gets across the unencumbered lifestyles of those who know fame while playing the character with enough humanity to make him come across as real.
The horrible events surrounding the death of Tate and her friends is such a part of Hollywood history, there is no doubt it will continue to be the fodder for feature films. There is a certain amount of respect that should be given when dealing with the real events that is nowhere to be found in "The Haunting of Sharon Tate." The idea might have been to look at how Tate was tortured by her own demons and fears, but the production's biggest scare is how much Farrands failed.
