Charles Manson? Anybody catch this?

Yes! We watched this tonight and I said: "I wonder if this was kind of based on Charles Manson by the way this guy is behaving and talking."

mjr, you're bang on here, IMO :) for the reasons you've alluded to so far....the psychobabbly pseudo-religious stuff that Joseph spews, the Xs on the foreheads....

Given when the film is set (1969), as soon as they arrived at that 'ghost town', I thought "that's kinda like Spahn ranch" and I almost expected Squeaky and Sandy to step out of one of the buildings!

But soooo much of the film screams 'Manson aficionado' to me, right down to the beautiful-blond-pregnant-woman-in-peril and the outfit Clark was wearing ('mr purple pants' as Joseph calls him) reminding me of Jay Sebring....

As someone who had a bit of an obsession with the book 'Helter Skelter' (and the Manson family story itself) when I was a teen, I feel like I just watched a film made by someone who has a similar level of interest indeed :)

The moon landing shown on the issue of Time occurred on July 20th and the Tate murders were August 8th. So the character is perhaps Manson-like as the Manson himself was deeply teaching his "Helter Skelter" philosophy by that time.

No doubt many crazy people wandered the highways and byways of California\Nevada etc during the late 60's. Then CA gov Reagan shut down the insane asylums and let the loonies loose due to budgetary issues. The upswing in serial killers that followed in CA throughout the late 60's and all through the 70's has not been considered coincidental. Reagan never admitted his decision had anything to do with that upswing. No, of course not.

So Joseph is just another nut that should have been institutionalized.