One can argue the world doesn’t need another documentary about Charles Manson, given the spate of such films over the years. In just the last decade, we’ve had “Charles Manson: The Final Words” (2017), “Manson Speaks: Inside the Mind of a Madman” (2017), “Manson: The Lost Tapes” (2018), “Manson: The Women” (2019), “Helter Skelter: An American Myth” (2020) and “Making Manson” (2024).
With such a glut of material already out there, I might have been inclined to take a pass on “Chaos: The Manson Murders,” which premieres Friday on Netflix — but I had to give it a watch after learning it was helmed by Errol Morris, who has directed some of the most memorable documentaries of the last 40+ years, including “Gates of Heaven,” “The Thin Blue Line,” the Academy Award-winning “The Fog of War” and “The Unknown Known.”
Morris is a master storyteller who expertly mixes together archival footage, new interviews and jarringly creative elements, e.g., animated charts depicting stab wounds, graphics and sound effects to hammer home certain points, and while “Chaos: The Manson Murders” isn’t revelatory, it’s an intriguing examination of the infamous killings that spends much of its time focusing on theories of mind control. (Yes, we see a clip from “The Manchurian Candidate.”)
At times the film delves into hardcore conspiracy territory, entertaining one journalist’s theory that a secret CIA program might have played a role in Manson’s ability to command his followers to blindly follow his orders. While the documentary doesn’t provide conclusive proof of a link between any covert government operations and Manson, it’s at least fodder for lively debate (not to mention a Netflix documentary).
With title cards telling us the doc will be “FEATURING THE MUSIC OF CHARLES MANSON,” which seems more like a warning than a promise, “Chaos” plays a snippet of Manson’s single titled “Mechanical Man” before we hear from Stephen Kay, who was one of the prosecutors of Manson and attempts to explain our ongoing and admittedly morbid fascination with the murders: “People in the United States like to be scared sometimes. “They like horror movies.” We see old color TV news footage of early coverage of the case, after five bodies were discovered in the house Roman Polanski was renting on Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon, and two more bodies were found the next night in the Silver Lake section of Los Angeles.
Director Morris brings in journalist Tom O’Neill, whose book “Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History” is the foundation for the documentary. O’Neill has done extensive research into the work of the late Dr. Louis “Jolly” West, a psychiatrist who was involved with the CIA’s MKUltra mind control project, employing brainwashing techniques and the use (and abuse) of LSD.
West, who was appointed as Jack Ruby’s psychiatrist after Ruby was charged with killing Lee Harvey Oswald (cue the JFK-related conspiracy speculation), studied the hippie movement in San Francisco during the “Summer of Love” in 1967 and worked out of the Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic at a time when Manson was in the area and became a twisted guru of sorts to runaway girls. There’s no evidence of West meeting or influencing Manson, though the latter clearly became a cult-like figure who could manipulate his “family” to kill on his command.
The doc also draws on audio recordings from Bobby Beausoleil, who was in prison for killing a man named Gary Hinman at Manson’s directive in July of 1969. (Manson family members Susan Atkins and Mary Brunner also participated in the killing.) Hinman’s murder was the first in the so-called “Helter Skelter” scenario that was orchestrated by Manson and perpetrated by his followers in a deranged and convoluted scheme to ignite a race war.
All these years later, it’s still jarring to see news interviews with Manson, who always comes across as a wild-eyed lunatic, and the likes of Tex Watson (who infamously declared, “I’m the devil and I’m here to do the devil’s business” to the victims at Cielo Drive) and Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten, in which they talk about being detached from reality and essentially feeling nothing while carrying out the murders. Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi was all-in on the “Helter Skelter” theory that said Manson’s insane and bizarre ideology was influenced by Chapter 9 of the Book of Revelation and his mad interpretations of Beatles songs, while O’Neill doesn’t buy into that theory, hinting at something deeper and darker and more nefarious. Something conspiratorial.
Still, it’s the convicted murderer Bobby Beausoleil of all people who sounds like the voice of reason when he says, “People are very fond of their fantasy. They don’t want to hear how mundane the story actually is, how not a mastermind Charlie actually was. In his paranoid delusions, in his miscalculations, it was just blunder after blunder after blunder….”
In other words, chaos.