The Haunting of Sharon Tate is a 2019 horror film about 26-year-old Hollywood actress Sharon Tate, who becomes plagued by visions of her imminent death.
What am I watching? That’s what I was asking myself about eight minutes into writer/director Daniel Farrands‘ latest The Haunting of Sharon Tate, another film somewhat dedicated to the gruesome and tragic fate of the famous film actress, slain with four others by the Manson Family. It’s one of the more infamous murders in modern history and even now 50 years later, fascinates many. It’s been subject to numerous documentaries and bio-related films, and even a few films influenced by the killings, so it’s not like we’re in unfamiliar territory, yet Farrand seems desperate to make believe we are. It’s a mess of a movie, repellent for what it exploits in hopes of manufacturing renewed interest. It has no reason to exist.
Sharon Tate (Hilary Duff) begins by telling us in an interview she has foreseen her death, seeing a shadowy intruder in the doorway of a house she and her husband Roman Polanski share. We skip ahead a bit and get a glimpse of her actual fate, in great detail coming upon the scene of the murder spree where bodies lie about the compound and inside the house, including Tate. Flashing back three days, the very pregnant Tate arrives at the house where friends await, throwing her a welcoming party. However, over the next few nights, Tate is consumed by visions of a home invasion with Charlie Manson (Ben Mellish) and his followers ready to commit to bloody violence. She soon falls into a kind of paranoid despair while waiting what she believes will be her end.
Nestled up in the Hollywood Hills, Tate and her friends dally in drink and conversations about consequences and coincidence as the young actress wonders about her husband’s loyalty while she ponders the paths that led her to the house. She wants to be alone to sort out her thoughts, but her friend Jay (Jonathan Bennett), and former house sitter Abigail (Lydia Hearst) and Wojciech (Pawel Szajda) continue to linger. All the while, Farrand cranks up the horror hype, giving absolutely no credence or substance to the killers looming in the gathering fog outside, like they are spectral demons thirsty for souls rather than real people corrupted by genuine madness.
Naturally, there’s plenty of gore on tap, much of it from Tate’s own imagination, trope-ishly playing us for fools in making her dreams seem like reality. He dips into the Horror Starter Kit plenty of times, with obvious jumpscares and clangy noise effects, with the one creative edge being the kind of low-grade filming style that sort of has a 1960s home movie style to it, including the audio.
Since we all know the ending of Sharon Tate and those murdered with her, not to mention the tale of the killers themselves, this doesn’t leave Farrand much wiggle room in giving any of it surprise. Instead, he relies on hyperbolic moments of contrived suspense that if it weren’t for the fact is based on real people, would probably illicit laughs. For fans of Duff, who is clearly looking to subvert expectations about her future, this will prove a major disappointment, even as she remains the only watchable part of the film. Hopefully, she can find her way back. Either way, The Haunting of Sharon Tate is one to avoid.