In a move that surprised even me, Netflix scooped up their second film of the SXSW festival with off-kilter drama/comedy with an unexpected thriller bent Manson Family Vacation. Starring Jay Duplass and Linas Phillips, Manson Family Vacation tells the story of two brothers – the prodigal son and the black sheep – who reunite after a long stay of absence, one of them having developed a sudden but keen interest in Charles Manson. From our review:

From Lina Phillips’ ticks – his quick-burst nervous laughter after nearly everything he mutters, the awkward, uncomfortable way he holds himself, his unsettling obsession with Charles Manson – we know something’s off. The journey is uncovering what and the platform is J. Davis‘ Manson Family Vacation – a dark family drama that knots itself up in misunderstandings and a trembling desire to be accepted. It’s eerily funny, smartly performed and more twisty than you would expect for an independent film.

I sat down with director J. Davis and co-star Tobin Bell (Saw) to discuss the process of making the film, its difficult classification, historical accuracy, Tobin Bell’s creepiness and, of course, Charlie Manson.

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There is a lot of intelligence to the film, a rare sort of a grace that you navigate, so well done. For people listening, or reading in, can you describe what is ‘Manson Family Vacation’?

J. Davis: Well, it’s about a guy who lives in Los Angeles, and has a kind of comfortable life with his wife and son. And then his estranged brother shows up in town for a surprise visit. And all the brother wants to do is visit sites related to The Family. So he kind of pulls his brother around town, and eventually, out into the desert, where they kind of enter the modern day world of Charles Manson.

So I want to tread a little lightly, especially here at the beginning, because I don’t want to reveal the “big twist”, as it were, in the film. A lot of the time, I feel like, with independent cinema, there isn’t so much of the film predicated on a twist ending. It is, very much, here. How do you combine the elements of a somewhat restrained family drama with a more thriller-esque aspect?

JD: I feel like it was always kind of felt like under the hood it is a thriller.

Tobin Bell: It’s grounded in what you call “the twist” but that is grounded in historical fact. So that, even, makes it… I’m treading lightly also. I like that aspect of it.

JD: I think that the realistic performances, and the drama of the movie, I was hoping, would lead you to believe one thing could happen, and then you begin to think something else.

And I love that. I love how it transforms. I think it adds a lot of depth to it. In terms of logistics, when you were shooting at the locations of these Manson sites – and you’ll probably be able to tell but I’m not very well versed in my Manson history – but were those the actual locations of the death sites?

JD: Some locations are real. I don’t want to get into specifics of it, just because I don’t think it will add to it.

TB: It was definitely in the neighborhood. It won’t add to the experience of the movie.

JD: Yeah. I wanted to have the movie in the real world that we know and these places are around. I used to live down the street from these places.

Wow. Is that something that sort of initiated your professed fascination with the Manson character?

JD: I wouldn’t say it initiated it because I was interested in this stuff since I was a kid. There’s a story in the movie, about finding ‘Helter Skelter’ on the bookshelf, and I kind of pulled it down, as a kid, and looked through these pictures and saw these crime scenes. This family; these young, attractive people who were responsible for all this stuff that had happened. And pictures of Charlie. And my Grandfather, who was the Chief Of Police in the town I grew up in, came in and caught me with it, and took it out of my hands, and put it on the highest shelf. But I managed to, of course, get it down again.

TB: That just made it more attractive, right?

The allure of the unobtainable item.

JD: My interest in it sort of started young and it was this thing that I was forbidden to be interested in. And Jay Duplass and I are friends and we both had a lot in common. But when I started talking about my interest in the Manson Family and that kind of thing, he was kind of horrified. So I decided to write a script, to kind of explore that difference between us. And once I wrote it, while I was writing it, I was thinking of him as the horrified brother. So I asked him to play the horrified brother. He wasn’t doing much acting at that time, but he quickly, within seconds, said yes.

He was just right for it?

JD: Yeah

One of the things that you played with in the film, which is based not only in historical fact but on events that are still going on today, is people’s obsession with Charlie Manson and his ideologies and even his music.

TB: Which means that people, when they come into a theater with Charlie Manson in the title, are naturally going to be predisposed to some kind of attitude about who Charlie Manson is and what his track record is and all that. I think J. Davis has done an amazing job of giving what is an expected experience, because of the Charlie Manson name, a different kind of tone, and a different kind of feeling. I think the film is very successful in that way because you get a meal that you don’t expect to get and I like that aspect of it.

So, J., did you do much research into more current iterations of what Manson following there is today, like we see in the film? Where there are groups of people who maybe still live out in the desert together? Or is that you taking a little creative liberty there?

JD: Yeah. I kind of know, vaguely, that there are, but I didn’t do a ton of research about it. I just kind of wrote what I thought was an interesting story.

So Tobin, to put this lightly, you have a bit of a creepiness to you whenever you’re in a film. “Oh, it’s Tobin Bell! It’s the guy from ‘Saw’! He wants to play a game.” And so, when you appear in this film for the first time and you’re wielding this lead pipe, we think “Uh oh! Trouble’s coming!” And then you turn out to be somewhat intimidating but also somewhat of a gentle soul. Can you talk about what it was, for you, that defined that character?

TB: Well, the lead pipe part was easy. You pick up the pipe and you chase the guy. It’s no different than any other role. I ask myself a series of questions about who Blackbird is, what his background is, how did he meet Charlie? What is his relationship with Charlie, really? How deeply involved with Charlie is he? Or not? So, for me, it was easy, because the script tells me so. It gives me clues and then I fill in backstory like I do with every other character. In this case, I had a lovely girlfriend who obviously was much younger. I wanted to go into it in terms of her relationship with Dennis and all that. Which I think is lovely, and done marvelously. For me, the script gave me every marker that I needed. J. and I did discuss some lines that we changed slightly because there’s an environmental theme, in this story, and we wanted to talk about that thread, a little bit, to strengthen what Conrad is doing in his quest. It’s part of Conrad’s quest, so we wanted to support that a little bit more. So for me, it was very clear, very easy. Hiking around in the desert is a lovely thing, especially with that kind of landscape. It’s great stuff.

JD: And I should say, Tobin, after he read the script, had such incredible notes. They weren’t limited about his character – they were about the whole script. We talked through the entire script. We had notes about the brother’s relationship. It was great in the moment. I knew he’d be perfect because he was thinking of the entire movie and not just his part in it.

Was there any point during production where anyone reached out to Charlie Manson?

JD: You’d have to ask Lennis.

If Charles Manson did see this film, what might you think his reaction might be to it?

JD: I’d hope that he would realize that, although he’s the lynchpin, and his name is in the title, that it’s really about the era. It’s a character and relationship movie, in which Charlie’s name is in the titles because events around him is what these two brothers are struggling with. So hopefully he would think, “Huh, they did a pretty damn good job telling a story about a brother who feels disenfranchised.” And I’m sure that Charlie probably felt that way, himself, during his formative years. It’s that simple. It’s not really about Charlie Manson, although Charlie’s pretty much Ground Zero He just kind of is at the tiller.

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