True-Crime Thriller “The Haunting of Sharon Tate” Comes Home

We'll have to wait until the end of July to see Quentin Tarantino's take on the infamous Manson Family murders in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. But if you'd like to see a much-worse version, you'll only have to wait until June 4.

In a very 2005 casting decision, The Haunting of Sharon Tate stars Hilary Duff (Lizzie McGuire) and Jonathan Bennett (Mean Girls) as Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring, respectively. The film focuses on the final days of Tate before she and her unborn child were gruesomely murdered. Writer-Director Daniel Farrands (The Amityville Murders) specializes in true crime horror, with The Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson still to come. However, the film got absolutely killed (pun intended) by critics, with most calling it exploitative. But if you're a fan of the film, or at least morbidly curious, you can pick it up on Blu-ray, DVD or digital June 4.

About Kip Mooney

Like many film critics born during and after the 1980s, my hero is Roger Ebert. The man was already the best critic in the nation when he won the Pulitzer in 1975, but his indomitable spirit during and after his recent battle with cancer keeps me coming back to read not only his reviews but his insightful commentary on the everyday. But enough about a guy you know a lot about. I knew I was going to be a film critic—some would say a snob—in middle school, when I had to voraciously defend my position that The Royal Tenenbaums was only a million times better than Adam Sandler’s remake of Mr. Deeds. From then on, I would seek out Wes Anderson’s films and avoid Sandler’s like the plague. Still, I like to think of myself as a populist, and I’ll be just as likely to see the next superhero movie as the next Sundance sensation. The thing I most deplore in a movie is laziness. I’d much rather see movies with big ambitions try and fail than movies with no ambitions succeed at simply existing. I’m also a big advocate of fun-bad movies like The Room and most of Nicolas Cage’s work. In the past, I’ve written for The Dallas Morning News and the North Texas Daily, which I edited for a semester. I also contributed to Dallas-based Pegasus News, which in the circle of life, is now part of The Dallas Morning News, where I got my big break in 2007. Eventually, I’d love to write and talk about film full-time, but until that’s a viable career option, I work as an auditor for Wells Fargo. I hope to one day meet my hero, go to the Toronto International Film Festival, and compete on Jeopardy. Until then, I’m excited to share my love of film with you.