House at the End of the Drive

Firstly, I want to thank David Oman for the invitation to the premier screening of his film, House at the End of the Drive, the after party, and a visit for the 44th anniversary of the Sharon Tate and Guests murder perpetrated by Manson Family members. I was unable to attend any of these for financial and vehicular reasons, unfortunately, but I hear it rocked!.
Those of you attending the Las Vegas Paracon this upcoming week will have a chance to meet David, and I urge you to do so! Having spoken with David a few times, corresponded with him several times and having friends in common, I can say emphatically that David is a class act, and a good guy, even if I have not yet met him in person.



It is a little strange how things sometimes come round and round in life for no apparent rhyme or reason, but many times there is a reason if not a rhyme. It's simply a matter of finding the heartbeat of the subject, feeling the cause and effect of a series of events to understand them.
For me some of these things include the shootout at the OK Corral, Valentino's untimely passing, the Black Dahlia murder, the JFK and RFK's assassinations.
Another such event, which for me as a retired paranormal investigator with avid curiosity, a person who lived at the time of the events below and who remembers how the events effected not only the L.A. area, but the nation, and has repeatedly popped into my "sphere of awareness" at regular intervals, is the Manson murders of 1969.
Charles Manson still occasionally makes the news, not as often as in years past, as do some of his minions, usually around the time any of them become eligible for parole hearings. Sadly many of the victims are fast being forgotten to all but a few people with each passing year, as folks who knew them, or of them, pass away and the divergence of time separates us, the living, from them, the ruthlessly taken.

I'm pretty sure that I was on the road with my mom and step dad when these killings occurred, as I recall relatives in Seattle, WA, and Stephenville, Texas, talking about the news of killings "back home," and expressing concern about the "Crazies and Hippies" back in California when we visited them on a quasi cross country drive.
"Yeah, the Hippies and crazies only exist in Cali," I remember thinking with scorn, as I had seen hippies on the whole road trip virtually everywhere. It was the time after all, and hell, most of the crazies in Cali migrated there from everywhere else. Manson, originally named "No Name Maddox" originated in Ohio after his underage mother ran away from her home in Kentucky. Tex Watson was from, you guessed it, Texas, for example.

Murdered just over 44 years ago for heinous, nearly unfathomable reasons, reasons that only could come from the mind of a psychopath, reasons which had their roots in racial prejudice, purely unadulterated evil reasons, were: Actress Sharon Tate and her unborn child, a friend of her husband (the infamous Roman Polanski, who was in London at the time) Wojciech Frykowski, his girlfriend coffee heiress Abigail Folger, and Jay Sebring, (who had at one time been Tate's lover) and Steven Parent, an 18 year old kid who was just leaving the property after having visiting his friend, the caretaker on the property (caretaker survived because the killers didn't know he was there) when the attacks began. The next night Leno and Rosemary LaBianca were also brutally murdered in cold blood. Preceding these murders, and in a way a precursor to these killings, was the murder of Mason Family associate Gary Hinman.

Allow me to address the Family Manson briefly.

Manson was a career criminal, a bum, user, a lowlife, a "man" who had spent nearly half his life in prison prior to these murders. At this point he was a 35 year old man who was preying on the vulnerable Lost Children of the hippie era who were anti establishment, yet looking for something to belong to. These were 19 to 22 year old adults, and his "rap" was (apparently) convincing enough that these kids, and that's what they were, kids, would kill for him in cold blood simply because he told them to. Another aspect is that many of these kids thought Manson was Jesus Christ incarnate, some were utter convinced. They would do whatever he said, because it was "for the family."
However, I in no way mean they were innocent dupes entirely. They were old enough to know better, old enough to know right from wrong. Manson a messiah? Anyone with half a brain would know that a man ordering crimes to be committed, commanding them to commit larceny and murder is not a messiah, is not of God, but quite the opposite. No, they knew better.
So when saying Manson Family, it's not like Ozzie and Harriet, but more like a criminal family, like a gang.

Manson's goal was to create a race war, and failing that, to go back to prison, because he knew he'd eat, sleep, exist on the taxpayer dime.
Wikipedia says: "When released from prison on March 21, 1967, he had spent more than half of his 32 years at that time in prisons and other institutions. Telling the authorities that prison had become his home, he requested permission to stay, a fact touched on in a 1981 television interview with Tom Snyder."

To create a race war, Manson said he'd "have to show blacks how it's done." The idea was that he'd incite the wrath of whites by slaughtering high profile white "piggies" of the establishment, then whites would then begin killing blacks. Blacks would retaliate, but the whites would be divided into racist and non racist factions, which would allow the blacks to kill off all the whites. Then they, the "victorious blacks, being incapable of running the world," would turn to Charlie to run it for them, he as their master." This is NOT me saying this, this is straight from autobiographies and interviews the Manson Family members themselves. Nothing but pure, vile evil.
Now that I've established these points, the movie, House at the End of the Drive.
I have not seen the film, unfortunately, and have not talked with David about what is ok to say and not ok to say, so I'll encapsulate.

The movie is loosely based on actual, real life events in the area that the Tate and guests murders occurred.
The famed Barry Taff visited the area the film is based on and experienced fugues, fainted several times, saw inanimate objects move and became ill after many visits. Taff wrote that the whole area is a "positive magnetic anomaly", which can not be explained by him nor the USGS. He also stated that the area the film is set was considered by Natives to be sacred. He also stated that it is very much haunted.

The characters decide to go into the murder house on the anniversary of the killings, and find themselves sort of reliving the killings.
That's all I'm going to say on it, although I have read more from the reviews, and btw, I have yet to see a bad review of this movie!

On the murder house itself:
Other people who lived there:
Before the Manson murder
Built for French actress Michele Morgan in 1944.
Cary Grant and Dyan Cannon
Henry Fonda
George Chakris
Mark Lindsey
Paul Revere and the Raiders
Samantha Eggar
Olivia Hussey
Terry Melcher (Doris Day's son)
Candice Bergen
After the murders the owner of the property, Rudi Altobelli lived in the house for the next 20 years, and as he said on 20/20, he felt "safe, secure, love and beauty" for those years. Mr. Altobelli sold the property for 1.6 million dollars.

According to Wikipedia:

"The final resident of the original house was the musician Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. Reznor began renting the house in 1992 and had a recording studio built inside.[6] This studio, dubbed Pig (sometimes called Le Pig) in a reference to murderer Susan Atkins writing "Pig" in Tate's blood on the front door of the house, was the site of recording sessions for Nine Inch Nails' 1992 EP Broken and 1994 album The Downward Spiral as well as Marilyn Manson's 1994 debut album Portrait of an American Family.[6] Reznor moved out of the house in December 1993, later explaining that "there was too much history in that house for me to handle.""

After Reznor left, the house was torn down in 1994, a new mansion constructed in its place which in no way resembles the original. The address has also been changed.

So, do you want to see a frightening film that is based on actual events?
House at the end of the drive. See it!



Links
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/l-a-sneak-peak-house-at-the-end-of-the-drive-inspired-by-the-manson-murders 's 1994 debut album 's 1994 debut album height=object width=