Fact and fiction has always intermingled within the confines of storytelling in an effort to make the story more alluring to the reader, viewer, etc… But some stories are so harrowing and lurid enough that fictional accounts don’t need to come into play.  One would think that of the infamous Manson Murders, which claimed the life of the beautiful and very pregnant actress Sharon Tate, among others.  The murders and aftermath were so horrific that it has become a part of pop culture and it hurled Charles Manson to fame, whether we agree with it or not.  But there’s still one more story to be told about that infamous evening.  House at the End of the Drive is co-writer David Oman’s alleged account of the ghosts which still haunt the remnants of the estate, and that night.  Oman, who lives on Cielo Drive where the murders occurred, attests to ghostly apparitions and spooky going-ons including the sound of footsteps when no one else is home.  After further research with the help of parapsychologist Barry Taff (who researched the Entity case), eerie orbs and erratic electromagnetic forces have been found inside and beneath the house.

From Oman’s curious findings, comes this movie, loosely based on his own experiences.  The names have been changed and the crime is now called the DeWitt Murders, but this is more of a metaphysical account of what happens after a life has been cut too short.

After being thrown out of his girlfriend’s house, David (James Oliver) buys a beautiful new house on Beaumont Drive.  A bargain for sure, David’s best friend and Real Estate Salesman, Robert (Jonathan Mangum) neglects to mention that a famous mass murder took place just a few houses down.  When Robert brings over Jennifer (Alison Raimondi) a new girl for David to romance, he feels an unearthly bond to her and discovers that she is related to one of the victims of the DeWitt Murders.  On the night of the 36th anniversary of the slaughter, David, Jennifer, Robert and Robert’s girlfriend Felicia (Angela Jones) break into the abandoned property and soon find themselves thrust into a “time vortex” (a vague plot point about this continuum is told earlier, but it still lacks reason) and they are now the same four victims of the original crime, waiting to be stalked by a killer who still remains at large.

The reasons for the slaughter and the reveal veer as far away from the Manson Murders as humanly possible and lack any real sense of logic, but if you’re willing to buy the time vortex story, then you’ll likely be able to roll with the punches afterwards.  House at the End of the Drive is full of appealing concepts, such as time travel, fate and the supernatural but perhaps it was just a bit too much thrown into the pot together.  It’s just doesn’t gel completely.  There’s too many plot holes and just plain instances that the audience is expected to take at face value.  Oman, who has tons of stories to tell about his extraordinary experiences since moving to Cielo Drive, should have stuck with one of those instead of this misguided concoction.  Director David Worth (Shark Attack 3) does a commendable job in his attempt to tie everything together and Angela Jones is just terrific as sexy Felicia, but it’s likely people will simply find House at the End of the Drive too convoluted and quite frankly, kind of a snooze.  Perhaps Oman held back because he truly doesn’t want to exploit the victims.  Nevertheless, a story as notoriously gruesome as the Manson Murders needs some more grit and grime and it needs to be a little bit more realistic, even in a supernatural way, for it to find any kind of real audience.