Trivia for
The Manson Family (2003) More at IMDbPro »

• The film played a couple of festivals as a work-in-progress in 1997. This was the work print of the film complete with splices, grease pencil marks and rough sound and projected from a video tape. The film ran out of funding and was not completed until Blue Underground became involved. Only then was the negative cut, the sound edited and mixed, the beginning and end titles shot and the film blown-up to 35mm and the newly completed film was first shown on 18 August 2003.
  
  
• Phil Anselmo, the singer for Pantera, can be heard as the voice of Satan.
  
  
• The voice of People's Temple leader Jim Jones can be heard a number of times throughout the movie, taken from a recording made just before he led the group in their mass suicide.
  
  
• Jim Van Bebber directs, writes, produces, edits and acts in this film, and even financed most of it himself.
  
  
• To make the actors feel more comfortable during the sex scenes, Jim Van Bebber would often direct naked.
  
  
• When the Tate/LaBianca murders are depicted, the shot does not show Sharon Tate being stabbed in the stomach in detail, this is because director Jim Van Bebber highly objected to film a pregnant woman being stabbed in the stomach.
  
  
• Marcelo Games, who plays Charles Manson, left the film at one point and the rest of the film had to be shot without him.
  
  
• According to the DVD interview, Jim Van Bebber gave blood to fund this film.
  
  
• Sylvester Stallone's son Sage re-dubbed the voice of Jay Sebring.
  
  
• The band Skinny Puppy supply most of the original score. Jim Van Bebber once directed a music video of one of their songs.
  
  
• Jim Van Bebber made the short film "My Sweet Satan" to fund the rest of this film, he also raised additional funds when he showed 15 minutes of uncut footage of the film at underground theaters.
  
  
• Real marijuana was smoked by the actors both off and on screen.
  
  
• 'Leslie Orr' and Maureen Allisse became close friends during shooting and often stuck together on set rehearsing their lines off of each other. Orr stated that she would usually shy away from the nude scenes but did them if Allisse was on set as a comfort factor.
  
  
• The part of Charles Manson was given to Marcelo Games by default. 'Jim VanBebber' stated that Games had grown a beard and long hair which prompted him to cast him.
  
  
• Actors who were willing to work for free had to be found as there were virtually no funds to begin with.
  
  
• In the United Kingdom, the DVD was re-released by "Horror Classics", the same company which restored and re-released Halloween (1978) and The Shining (1980).
  
  
• Amy Yates, Maureen Allisse and 'Leslie Orr' all shaved their heads in order to portray their characters whilst in police custody.
  
  
• Because of the nightmarish budget troubles, 'Jim VanBebber' openly stated on set that he would not even think about trying to start another project unless he had all the funds properly secured.
  
  
• To give the effect of someone being shot, 'Jim VanBebber' would break the top off of an egg, empty the yolk and fill the egg with fake blood which he would throw against an actor, this shot had to be edited quickly though.
  
  
• The fake blood used through out filming was either corn syrup or food coloring or sometimes a mixture of both.
  
  
• Despite the extremely heavy use of violence, sex, nudity and drug use, this film is not banned in any country.
  
  
• Carl Day, who plays fictional TV journalist Jack Wilson confessed that he was extremely nervous filming his scenes as he had no idea who he was working with or what was happening beside the fact he was appearing in an extremely low-budget film.
  
  
• During the official world premiere at the FantAsia film festival in New York, director 'Jim VanBebber' sneaked out 10 minutes in to buy some cigarettes, he didn't return for another 3 hours.
  
  
• The extras for the scene in which the family dance around a bonfire covering each other in blood and having sex were actually strippers and prostitutes from a small Cincinatti town.
  
  
• The only people Marcelo Games would communicate with on set were 'Jim VanBebber' and cinematographer Mike King, both his close friends as he was very shy.
  
  
• One of 'Clive Barker''s favorite independent films.
  
  
• The 90-minute DVD interview "The VanBebber Family" features the only time Jim VanBebber has appeared on screen with short hair, as he usually has it very long.
  
  
• English reviewers were the most critically harsh toward the film.
  
  
• The first scene shot was the bean field sex scene between Leslie Orr and Marc Pitman.
  
  
• During the field bonfire scene, actor Tom Burns was actually performing oral sex on one of the extras.
  
  

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