In news sure to warm the cockles of the hardest heart, it's emerged that the minds behind American Psycho and The Devil's Rejects are to join forces for a project about the Manson Family. Brett Easton Ellis and Rob Zombie are reportedly in the early stages of developing a possible "event series" for Fox.
The pair would serve as exec producers on the project, with Ellis also writing and Zombie also directing. The concept is reportedly a series of episodes that each focus on a different character. Those characters' paths all eventually cross on two terrible LA nights in 1969.
The pregnant Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, Wojciech Frykowski, Abigail Folger and Steven Parent were all brutally murdered by Charles Manson acolytes Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian and Patricia Krenwinkel at a house on Cielo Drive. The following night, six more Family members, accompanied by Manson himself, butchered Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary at their house on Waverly Drive.
The events marked a sour endpoint to the swinging sixties, particularly since Manson and the family seemed to be part inspired by lyrics from The Beatles' White Album. There's been a morbid fascination with Manson and his Family ever since.
Zombie himself recalls seeing the news coverage as a kid and thinking it "the coolest thing ever". His former band White Zombie sampled Krenwinkel's voice on the song Real Solution #9, and Zombie's "Hellbilly" stage persona-Frontal.php?refr=si2){href='http://www.coveralia.com/caratulas/Rob-Zombie-Hellbilly-Deluxe-(Deluxe-Edition)-Frontal.php?refr=si2' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer'} has the Manson X carved in his head.
Off the top of our own heads we're not drawing any explicit previous Manson allusions from Ellis' work, but clearly the author of the aformentioned American Psycho, Less Than Zero, Glamorama and so on has a long-standing professional fascination with the dark side of the American Dream.
Alcon Television and Madhouse Entertainment are the production companies facilitating for the Ellis/Zombie vision and studio Fox. But it's currently very early development days, so don't expect any Helter Skeltering in the immediate future. Zombie's next project is, last we heard, the hockey drama **Broad Street Bullies.