The upcoming release of Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile has stirred up a lot of discourse around serial killer Ted Bundy, whose execution was 30 years ago as of last month, but as we move further into the year, you can expect to see similar conversations unfold around the subject of Sharon Tate, whose murder at the hands of the Manson Family has its 50th anniversary in August. Like Bundy’s execution, Tate’s tragic death has inspired the release of several projects that depict the late actress, perhaps the most controversial of them all being The Haunting of Sharon Tate.
As you can see in the newly shared batch of images, Daniel Farrands’ film sees Hilary Duff in the title role, performing alongside the likes of Jonathan Bennett (Mean Girls) and Lydia Hearst (Z Nation) in a story that reimagines the events leading up to Tate’s death in 1969.
One of the more contentious aspects of the feature is that it reportedly takes inspiration from an actual quote from Tate published a year before her death, in which she reveals having dreams about ghosts haunting her house. If the film’s trailers are anything to go by, then this quote is used as the dubious basis for what’s looking to be a pretty conventional horror movie, filled with jump-scares, ironic soundtrack choices, and scenes of a spooky tape.
Naturally, the project has already been met with some backlash – not least from Sharon Tate’s own sister Debra Tate, who’s condemned it as “tasteless” – but we’ll see if The Haunting of Sharon Tate can still find an audience when it comes to theaters and VOD on April 5th, 2019. After that, the trend of movies portraying Tate continues with the release of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood on July 26th.
