Column: Filmmaker Errol Morris returns to the Manson murders in new Netflix documentary

Chicago Tribune

12-03-2025

Do you know these names: Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, Steven Parent, Jay Sebring, and Leno and Rosemary LaBianca?
What if I add to that list the name Sharon Tate?
Ah, there you go. Those are the names of the people killed by Charles Manson and some demented buddies on the nights of Aug. 8 and 9, 1969, Tate the most prominent because she was a beautiful movie star, married to filmmaker Roman Polanski, and eight months pregnant with their child.
Long time ago, I know, but so bloody and weird and headline-grabbing were the killings and ensuing trial and most of all Manson that they have stayed through the decades, creeping into our dreams and nightmares and coming at us in a steady stream of rehashing in books, movies and documentaries, some interesting and some merely exploitative.
Last time I remember remembering them was while watching 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,' Quentin Tarantino's 2019 movie that, among many things, presented a wild, fairy tale version of the real events of what was and still is called the Manson Family murders.
Now they are on my mind yet again, courtesy of 'Chaos: The Manson Murders,' a new 90-minute documentary on Netflix.
This would not ordinarily have grabbed my attention because I have over the decades had more than my fill of Manson-related subjects. But attached to 'Chaos' is the name Errol Morris, which gives it a certain credibility, since he is a distinguished documentarian whose decades-long career has included such films as 1978's 'Gates of Heaven,' on the pet cemetery business; 1988's 'The Thin Blue Line,' his controversial film about the trial and conviction of a man for killing a Dallas police officer; 2003's 'The Fog of War,' which focused on Robert McNamara, the secretary of defense during much of the Vietnam War, which won an Academy Award; and 'The Pigeon Tunnel' in 2023, about the life and work of novelist John le Carré.
Here he is in collaboration (and in intellectual tussle) with the work of journalist Tom O'Neill, in essence adapting O'Neill's 2019 book, 'CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties,' written with Dan Piepenbring.
As I expected, there is much repetition of known facts in the film but a judicious use of vintage material as Manson, a failed musician, wild-eyed hippie and career criminal, gets released from prison and in 1967 gathers around himself a bunch of younger outcasts who are all living together on a rusted movie set of a rural ranch.
He orders some of them to commit a series of gruesome murders and we get those bare details, effectively and vividly dramatized, but we don't get a lot of answers to some of the questions raised and there are plenty.
Among them, and in no specific order:
Why didn't law enforcement, such as parole officers, slap cuffs on Manson and send him back to jail when they had the chance?
And how did Manson turn a group of peaceful hippies into savage killers?
How was it that the Beach Boys' drummer Dennis Wilson and record producer Terry Melcher nearly gave Manson a record deal? We hear Manson play guitar and sing.
What do the activist organization Black Panthers have to do with this?
Why do we meet Lee Harvey Oswald's assassin Jack Ruby? And what is Louis Jolyon 'Jolly' West, a subcontractor for the CIA's Project MKUltra, doing as a court-appointed psychiatrist for Ruby? And what is Project MKUltra?
How did the Beatles' 'White Album' get into the mix?
There are more questions and plenty of talking, some of it from interviews of Manson by such TV personalities as Diane Sawyer, Geraldo Rivera and Tom Snyder.
Among the most compelling conversations are those that take place between Morris and O'Neill. The filmmaker asks pointed questions, operating from an authoritative position. He is probing, curious, suitably skeptical. And he is able to get O'Neill to admit, 'Frankly, I still don't know what happened. But I know that what we were told isn't what happened.'
The movie is held together more by its questions (for which there are no real answers) than facts, presented in a visually compelling manner, peppered with such things as old movie clips of Laurence Harvey in the 'Manchurian Candidate,' in which mind control is a chilling key.
Morris and his compelling moviemaking is likely to get a bigger audience than most of his previous documentary work. That's a good thing even though this is not his finest work.
It's still pretty good and one of the finer offerings of the massive Manson-inspired 'Helter Skelter' enterprise. And if you ask yourself why there is not much here from Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, know that his book, 'Helter Skelter' was published in 1974. It was subtitled 'The True Story of the Manson Murders.' And it is the best-selling true crime book of all time.