While not a horror movie by any means, Manson Family Vacation piqued my interests during the 2015 SXSW Film Festival due to its subject matter (the notorious Charles Manson) and the fact that it co-starred Saw alum Tobin Bell. And while I had no real expectations going into the film, what I came away with was one of the more surprisingly ingenious and heartfelt examinations of Manson and his continuing influence I’ve ever seen as well as a story that does an incredible job of intelligently deconstructing the idea of what family really means.

For his directorial debut, writer/director J. Davis introduces us to a hapless loner by the name of Conrad (Linas Phillips) who travels to Los Angeles to visit his little brother, Nick (Jay Duplass), the sensible one of the pair. Adopted when he was just an infant, Conrad has always been a bit of a family outcast,...