Friday, April 19, 2019

The Overlook Theatre Reviews: The Haunting of Sharon Tate, Daniel Farrands'


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.

4 of 7 viewers "Liked" "The Haunting of Sharon Tate" (2019, USA)
Creature reviews have been minimally altered in an attempt to maintain their voice:

The Impostor - "As a fan of Hilary Duff, I was excited and looking forward to seeing The Haunting of Sharon Tate. I knew very little about Sharon Tate's death, so I looked forward to how this would play out. Sadly, with all the different scenarios it was kind of confusing. I did like a few of the crazy kills but something would happen next that would ruin it. Hilary Duff played a decent Sharon Tate and I enjoyed her in this role. I hope to see her in the horror or thriller genre again in the near future. Overall, okay film...nothing special, nothing new brought to the table." - 3 Stars

Math Mage - *Spoiler* - "Offensively terrible, made me want to headbutt the whole cast. I'm gonna spoil this right now so you don't have to watch it. Sharon Tate, plagued by prophetic nightmares, turns the tables on her murderers, except not - they're ghosts! The BGM tried its hardest to make the film scary but the bad acting continuously took me out of the action." - 1 Star

Dr. Gonzo, Toy Surgeon - "Hilary Duff steps out of her usual role and delivers a stressed-out nostalgic Sharon Tate. I enjoyed her Sharon Tate - I thought she pulled it off. The movie went into a third person POV and flipped the script. The killed became the killers. The movie didn't dive too much into what Helter Skelter is, but it brought some decent jump scares. The writer might have tried too hard going in a different direction. He took real history and just rewrote it in his own mind. I gave it a 3.5 because it was entertaining, but it was a movie that used the name for fame." - 3.5 Stars

Grey Ranger - "BULLSHIT. BULLSHIT. BULLSHIT. BULLSHIT. BULLSHIT. BULLSHIT. BULLSHIT. BULLSHIT. BULLSHIT. BULLSHIT. BULLSHIT. BULLSHIT. BULLSHIT. BULLSHIT. BULLSHIT. BULLSHIT. If there's a sensitive, intelligent film to be made of this story with this approach, Farrands is not the person to do it." - 0 Stars Farrands owes me a star for sitting through it! (default 1 Stars)

Lord Battle - "The Haunting of Sharon Tate is a weird film. Combing real crime scene footage with an alternate reality Sharon Tate who's plagued by premonitions of her own death, the film becomes a sort of tragic "What if" placing Sharon in a survivor girl role. The problem here is that unlike Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards, Farrands chooses to reach for heartstrings instead of over the top revenge. I honestly would be interested in seeing a grindhouse retelling where Sharon Tate murders her would be killers and hunts down Charles Manson for some proper comeuppance... Guess we'll just have to live with this subpar/offensive slasher. Oh, and for the record, I really enjoyed Hillary Duff in this role, I just wish she was more like the Bear Jew." - 2.5 Stars

Huntress - "I think most people question the use of real police footage in a non-documentary movie, especially one that goes out of its way to distance itself from the actual events it's based on. If that question never came to mind, it sure will at the end of The Haunting of Sharon Tate! Maybe Daniel Ferrands expected the audience not to know that this was based on true events. It's not too crazy of an assumption, but it still felt unnecessary. I liked a lot of the atmosphere of this movie, the huge empty house it was filmed in had lots of ominous ajar doors and dark windows. Hillary Duff looked great playing Sharon Tate but all the acting felt somehow rusty, which made for a lot of commentary from the Overlook audience. I think the concept was stronger than the execution here." - 3 Stars

Slayer Swift - "This movie actually surprised me. I had no idea where they were going to take it after the murders were acted out halfway through the runtime. Turning Sharon Tate into a survivor girl was an interesting twist. The musical choices were really distracting though - they almost counteracted efforts to build suspense and tension at some points. Overall, I enjoyed it." - 3 Stars



The Overlook Theatre Final Rating*
(Below is for after you've seen the film)

The Haunting of Sharon Tate is the second of Daniel Farrands' narrative features the Overlook has screened. The Amityville Murders was entertaining, but not very well liked (review will be up soon). We later received a screener for his second narrative feature The Haunting of Sharon Tate the same week as several other films. As host, I made a choice I usually regret immediately after and I put the nights screening to a vote. The audience leaned heavily towards tHoST beating out the remaining votes which were all for BIG KILL. The reason I hesitate putting titles to vote is; movies don't win, audience members do. This almost instantly sours the mood as the crowd is divided into winners and losers. Not to mention the compound effect when sore losers try to disrupt the screening by complaining/riffing.
The screening played to an attentive, confused, and offended crowd. For the most part, I think everyone did a good job at describing their experience in their review, so I'd like to let Daniel say his piece and refer you to The Overlook Hour Podcast. Below is a link to the chat we had with Mr. Farrands about The Amityville Murder. If you skip past that, he spoke with us about tHoST. Keep in mind that this was before the release of the film and he was already geared up to defend his position as Writer/Director on this project.
Watch the film for yourself before you jump to conclusions. And be sure to hold on tight if tHoST offended you because his next feature is promising to do the same.




- Lord Battle

The Overlook Theatre materialized in a Residence for a screening on 2/28/2019
*Based on the star ratings turned in by character reviewers, others viewed and got to "Dislike" or "Like" but that does not affect the rating.

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