Morris mulls Manson in Netflix documentary

Cinema | April 14th, 2025

By Greg Carlson

Given the volume of existing media material on the topic, longtime admirers of legendary documentarian Errol Morris might wonder why he would elect to become the umpteenth person to cover the horrific crimes of the Manson Family. Whether or not the fee paid to Morris by Netflix factored into the decision I cannot say, but “Chaos: The Manson Murders,” while typical in many ways of the established Morris style, never rises to the top-tier level of quality that marks the filmmaker’s very best work. Based on Tom O’Neill’s 2019 book “CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties,” the standalone documentary races through familiar and unfamiliar aspects of the ghoulish but perpetually fascinating chapter of American history.

O’Neill’s all-caps CHAOS, despite its equally acceptable use as a descriptor, refers to the CIA’s domestic espionage project that the author links to several theories related to Charles Manson and his ability to operate for as long as he did without consequences. Along with the FBI’s COINTELPRO (an abbreviation of Counter Intelligence Program), the covert and mostly illegal government operations attempted to surveil, infiltrate and disrupt all kinds of mainly leftist political organizations, including the Black Panthers and the American Indian Movement. Was Manson swept up, trained, and supported by the feds? It sounds preposterous.

Initially, one might question these outrageous claims contained within the tapestry of connect-the-dots conspiracies offered by O’Neill, but thankfully, the traditionally wary and skeptical Morris gives equal time to the more mundane — and more likely — scenario that former Manson Family member Bobby Beausoleil states from his prison cell: Manson coerced and pressured his followers and they went along with it. Morris entertains enough “new” ideas as a provocative counterpoint to the deeply ingrained and widely accepted account written by Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi (collaborating with Curt Gentry) in what remains to this day the best-selling true crime book in history: “Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders.”

As a publishing phenomenon, “Helter Skelter” is responsible for a great deal of the ongoing public fascination with the Manson Family and could sustain a documentary of its own. In recent treatments like Karina Longworth’s “You Must Remember This” podcast, which devoted an entire season to Charles Manson’s Hollywood in 2015, and the six-episode 2020 miniseries “Helter Skelter: An American Myth,” the cottage industry fueled by the Manson machine is so widespread that one can’t help but think that Morris should have come up with something far more radical and coherent than “Chaos.”

For decades, clips of Manson’s post-conviction prison interviews have radiated with an inexplicable magnetic pull. I remember watching footage in my public high school library during a social studies unit; it was essentially a rite of passage for older students to pass along the details of the 1969 Tate-LaBianca slayings as part of a larger discussion on the ethics of the death penalty. Whether Manson was out of his mind or merely putting on a convincing performance sparked lengthy conversations. One thing is for sure: none of us would ever want to be in the same room with Charlie under any circumstances. Morris confirms that.

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