Although he’d be loath to admit it, Bret Easton Ellis was lucky that the creative team of Mary Harron and Guinevere Turner came along. Not only did they give American Psycho the feminist bona fides it needed after the novel was condemned as misogynist, they made a damn good movie out of it as well. Turner and Harron re-teamed for 2005’s The Notorious Bettie Page, but that was a decade ago. But now there’s some exciting news for American Psycho fans, as well as true-crime devotees and students of the sinister occult underbelly of the ‘60s flower-child subculture (probably a fair amount of overlap there, to be honest).
According to Deadline, Harron and Turner are teaming up to direct and write, respectively, a movie based on Charles Manson and his bloodthirsty “family.” Specifically, Turner’s script—which is being described as a “procedural”—is based on the book The Long Prison Journey Of Leslie Van Houten: Life Beyond The Cult, a nonfiction account of graduate student Karlene Faith’s work with Manson family member (and close personal friend of John Waters) Leslie van Houten and her fellow “Manson girls.” After initially confessing to murder in order to protect him, van Houten later renounced Manson; she has applied for, and been denied, parole more than 20 times. (Her next parole hearing is scheduled for April 14 of this year.) It also draws from Ed Sanders’ 1971 pulp novel The Family, suggesting we might get to see the California death trip itself as well, possibly in flashback.
The film is still untitled, but casting is reportedly currently underway, with shooting set to take place this summer in Los Angeles.