Originally published January 29, 2016. Updated April 14, 2018.
Los Angeles-based producers Jeremy M. Rosen and Kevin Shulman of Roxwell Films have reassembled the American Psycho filmmaking team for Ed Sanders’s best-selling Charles Manson 1971 novel, The Family, and to add an extra twist, the team has incorporated The Long Prison Journey of Leslie van Houten: Life Beyond the Cult, a firsthand account from the Manson women’s prison appointed social worker, Karlene Faith, who provides unprecedented access and perspective.
Director Mary Harron, is best known for directing and co-writing the iconic American Psycho, which launched Christian Bale to super stardom, as well as 1996 Sundance favorite, I Shot Andy Warhol. The punk rock journalist turned filmmaker has reunited, once again, with American Psycho screenwriting partner, Guinevere Turner for the film adaptation.
“Guinevere Turner’s script was a revelation.” said Mary Harron. “The story has been told many times before but never from this perspective or with such insight.”
The new film follows three young, middle class, brainwashed women, who were sentenced to death in the infamous Manson murder case, but when the death penalty was lifted, their sentence became life imprisonment. One young graduate student (Karlene Faith) was sent in to teach them – and through her we witness the transformation of the women as they face the reality of their horrific crimes.
