This copy paste documentary (and even managing to make it worse) is a rip off of the original 'Manson' documentary from 1977. It is available and has been available to watch for years. That one is a great documentary, this so called 'lost tapes' one is not. Funny how it's made by someone who makes Ross Kemp, Bear Gryllis 'documentaries'. Anyway it is extremely dramatized, and -funnily enough- very manipulative.

Any one that has followed the Manson cult and its zany followers knows that in the mid 70's a home movie surface called The Manson Women. The movie contains interviews withe left over hold outs from the family; gypsy, squeaky, Mary, and others explaining how Manson loves everyone and that the family will stay together etc etc. The awful dramatization of charlie meeting Dennis Wilson is so fake and terrible. Producers seem to forget, Manson was 5 feet 6 inches, the actor portraying Manson, is well over the height of the other actors. Pure exploitation, absolutely nothing new, interview with Peter Coyote, the actor adds nothing to the narrative and comes across fake. The manson girls was released on vhs in the early days of the video boom with the creepy manson singing as background noise while hippies danced naked which they don't show in this lame piece of new information. Don't waste your time. In fact I believe the "lost" film is posted on YouTube .

"The Lost Tapes" is an odd title for tapes that are clearly found. And the 2-hour time slot, which I would estimate resulted in maybe 80 minutes of content sans commercials, was far too much. The show also had a fairly plodding documentary style. I learned a few things as someone with a casual knowledge of this saga. Others may learn nothing new. Current interviews with a few cult members add to the re-telling. The repeated use of a few clips is annoying and indicates that content is lacking. Altogether, a fairly lackluster effort.