This underrated TV film presents a gripping account of the inspector who led the search for the titular killer while battling alcoholism. Though most of the acting in this film may not be realistic, Steve Railsback gives an enthralling and terrifying performance as Charles Manson that will make you feel like he’s jumping out of the screen. The chilling music and disturbing visuals make for a horrifying procedural crime drama, evoking the terror caused by one of the worst series of murders in American history. These murders shook Hollywood and the country as a whole, just as the Boston Strangler terrified his city, so Helter Skelter was understandably the most-watched TV film upon release. Helter Skelter (1976)īased on Vincent Bugliosi’s and Curt Gentry’s book of the same name, this made-for-TV film chronicles the investigation of the shocking Tate-LaBianca murders committed by the Manson Family in 1969. Though this widely inaccurate film may not be top-tier biopic material, its distinctive visual style and Curtis’s Golden Globe-nominated performance as the Strangler still warrants a watch. The most glaring change is how it depicts DeSalvo with dissociative identity disorder and making the film a disturbing journey into the mind of a serial killer. The Boston Strangler does take many creative liberties with the story it’s based on. This movie is also unique in the way it repeatedly uses split screens, which makes the film look like pictures from a newspaper, invoking how many people followed the Strangler’s story at the time. Unlike the more recent biopic, which explores the possibility of there being multiple killers, the 1968 version portrays Albert DeSalvo (played by Tony Curtis) as the definitive Strangler, and it instead follows the head of the “Strangler Bureau” (played by Henry Fonda) investigating the murders. This isn’t the first time the Boston Strangler had his own movie.
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