Chaos: The Manson Murders

While this documentary was highly entertaining, holding my interest for its duration, it certainly wasn't earth-shattering in its analysis or profoundly insightful. As far as this viewer could tell, the central premise of the film - that Manson and his followers were (perhaps unwitting) participants in MK Ultra, a CIA-administered "mind control" project relying primarily on the use of the hallucinogen LSD - the research into both components of this dyad (i.e., Manson and MK Ultra) seemed superficial at best, retelling only what numerous previous docs on these subjects separately have reveled, drawing only tentative, unsurprising correlations between them. Still, the presentation of material was concise and balanced, allowing viewers to arrive at their own conclusions. The interviews with many of the key players were likewise fair, interesting, and new. All-in-all, a well-made, if not jaw-dropping, endeavour.

As "Chaos: The Manson Murders" (2025 release; 96 min.) opens, the documentary states its opening premise: how did Charles Manson get total control over the minds of the so-called Family, ordering them to murder innocent people? We then go to "August 9, 1969", the day after Sharon Tate and 4 others were murdered and before 2 more innocent people were killed later that day. At this point we are less than 10 minutes into the documentary.

Couple of comments: this is based on Tom O'Neill's book "Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties", in which he wonders whether the CIA somehow was involved in all this as it was working on a secret project called CHAOS to understand how to control people's minds. I have not read that book, and frankly I would not have been all that interested in watching this documentary, but for the fact that this is directed by the Oscar-winning Errol Morris ("The Fog of War"). Morris interviews O'Neill extensively, and makes it clear that he (Morris) is quite skeptical about O'Neill's original premise. One of the things that sets this documentary apart from the many other documentaries about these events is that Morris pays close attention to Manson's music (the lack of getting signed by a label; even better: the use of 8 songs sung by Manson, culled from his 1968 demoes).

"Chaos: The Manson Murders" recently started streaming on Netflix. After reading an interesting review on it in yesterday's NY Times, and realizing that Errol Morris directed this, I watched it last night. The documentary is currently rated 66% Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, which sounds about right to me. If you have an interest in the Manson murders now 56 years later, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.

The book by Tom O'Neill was excellent and when I heard about this coming to Netflix, I was excited. But making it into an hour and a half made it very rushed. Pretty disappointed they didn't make it into at least a 4-part series.

A 4-part series would have at least allowed for the time to explore so much more of the backstory and details that were in the book. I guess maybe it's possible that they will make Chaos a series of documentaries about the different parts of the book, but if not, this was a real let down for me.

I highly recommend the book by Tom O'Neill if this documentary at least piqued your interest.

I have yet to read the book that this documentary is based on ("Chaos: The Truth Behind the Manson Murders" by Tom O'Neill and Dan Piepenbring. I believe the hardcover version was titled "Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties"). I've read several reviews of the book that go into the specifics O'Neill uncovered in greater detail than this documentary did. This documentary touches on some of what he found, but not all of it. O'Neill's book appears to be a much more thorough and truthful book on the subject than Bugliosi's Helter Skelter (O'Neill proves that Bugliosi purposely lied and left key facts out of his book). For a good introduction to O'Neill's book, check out Abby Aguirre's Substack post about it, or her excellent review "Down the Manson Rabbit Hole" in the LA Review of Books.

It's worth watching if the subject interests you, but from the reviews I've read the book sounds much more comprehensive. The documentary has some interesting interviews with one of the prosecutors, some Manson family members, and O'Neill himself. It brings up some of the questions found in the book, such why did Manson's parole officer continue to insist that Manson was doing great when meanwhile he was arrested repeatedly (and not locked up for violating his parole)? Why have Manson's complete parole records never been released? Why were his parole files not permitted as evidence in his trial?

I feel the documentary could have been edited better and should have been longer and included more of the details from the book, but it is still interesting for people who want to learn more about this subject.

This ninety (90) minute documentary is based upon Tom O'Neil's controversial book on the Manson Family. His book is a counter to the best selling Bugliosi book, Helter Skelter. The basic premise of the book and documentary is that Manson was not simply a crazy cult leader. He was a product of CIA MK Ultra LSD mild control experimentation by the US Government. The movie uses great documentary and interview clips to tell the story. It also uses Manson's original music as part of the soundtrack. The biggest issue with the documentary is that if you don't have some level of understanding of the facts and characters the film may be hard to follow. I recommend it anyway, and the book.