True crime documentaries and docusaries continue to thrive, especially on Netflix. The subject and topic at hand may differ, but almost all of these documents share familiar formulas. There are topical interviews cut between both archival news footage and stylish, dramatic recreational events. In many cases, these recreations follow familiar formulas as well. The faces of actors depicting real people are usually obscure, and their movements often occur in slow motion.
If you’ve ever wondered why With so many true crime material sticking to this familiar approach, the answer can be traced back to Errol Morris’ groundbreaking 1988 documentary, The Thin Blue Line. Morris’ film follows the story of Randall Dale Adams, a man convicted of murdering a Dallas police officer. Morris’ film reveals that Adams is innocent to crime, and the documentary is very effective, and in fact helped lead to Adams’ exoneration a year after its release.
“The Thin Blue Line” has been respected recently, but Morris’ film actually caused controversy when it first arrived. When Morris made the “thin blue line,” he chose to use the stylish and dramatic recreation of a particular event, and while modern viewers tend to think of this approach as the standard (and even cliche) of the true crime documentary genre, when the film was released, such an approach was very unusual. Some critics even argued that the film didn’t count as a “real” documentary because the film uses so much recreation. Yet despite all this, the film’s reputation grew in the years since its release, and its approach to material was extremely influential among other true crime DOC filmmakers.
Charles Manson’s story… with a twist
The influence of “The Thin Blue Line” allows Morris to be considered the father of the True Crime Documentary genre. Virtually every modern true crime document follows his blueprint. Now, Morris is back in a brand new true crime documentary. This covers topics that are very familiar to the murder of the enthusiast Manson family.
However, Morris’ new Netflix film, “Chaos: The Manson Murders,” tells the same old, familiar story that was so popular by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry’s book, “Helter Skelter.” Instead, Morris is working on materials that surrounds Tom O’Neill and Dan Peepenbling’s book, Chaos: The Charles Manson, the CIA, Secret History of the 60s.
Most people probably know the basic details of Manson’s story. In the 1960s, a short aspiring musician named Charles Manson gathered a cult of mostly female hippies to form a commune of sorts in California. In hopes of launching a race war, Manson sent out some of his followers during his two nights in August 1969, committing a series of horrifying murders, including the murder of pregnant actress Sharon Tate. Although Manson had not physically committed himself to any of these murders, he was considered the mastermind of the entire situation. Manson was eventually sentenced to life in prison and died in 2017 while still in prison.
Manson is still largely over the pop culture landscape for a variety of reasons. His family’s crimes that came in 1969 mark a kind of end to the hippie era of free love. The fact that crime took the lives of the young, beautiful (and pregnant) actress, like the sensational exams of Manson and his followers, made them heavy forage for media consumption. The book “Helter Skelter” attracted this attention, as did Quentin Tarantino’s recent “Time in Hollywood.”
Has CIA Mind Control had something to do with Manson’s murder?
There is a huge amount of media and pop culture coverage of the events surrounding Manson, but some unanswered questions remain around the case. The biggest question that tends to be asked over and over again is, “How is it?” How did Charles Manson talk about so many children as committing a series of horrifying murders? The general consensus, including the Manson family himself, is that Manson was able to brainwash them in some way. But again, do you have any questions left: What do you think?
In 1999, journalist Tom O’Neill was hired by Premier Magazine to write about Manson’s murder. It took O’Neill three months to submit his work, but eventually missed the deadline and continued to dig. The final result of O’Neill’s work was the vast book, “Chaos: The Secret History of the Charles Manson, the CIA, and the 60s.” I’ve read it and after a while I have to confess that it was fascinating and that it gave me a bit of a headache. O’Neill’s book falls into some wild streets and feels like a recreation of printed words from “Always Sunny in Philadelphia” moments, famously “Pepe Sylvia.”
In the book, O’Neill and co-author Dan Peepenbling assume that Manson’s murder may have something to do with the CIA’s infamous Mukultra program. Sounds like pulp fiction, Mkultra was very realistic: The CIA has actually experimented with how to control people’s minds through medicines and other methods. The “Chaos” book attempts to connect the dots by depicting the name Louis “Jolly” West, a psychiatrist working for the CIA who was hiding and wandering around the Haight-Ashbury area when Manson was still gathering his family. The only problem is that despite his best efforts, O’Neill was unable to connect Manson with West.
Chaos is worth watching, even if it’s a fairly simple approach
To be clear, O’Neill’s book never comes up anytime soon, and “Charles Manson was working with the CIA!” he points out that Manson’s supposed brainwashing of his family, which is believed to be the brainwashing of his family with a large amount of hallucinogenic drugs, has a noticeable similarity to the work the CIA had done at Mkultra. It can all be a coincidence. Or maybe it’s more ominous.
After reading this book, I was very interested to see how Morris tackles the material of “chaos.” Unfortunately, Morris’ approach is surprisingly easy. The filmmakers have previously collaborated with Netflix on “Wormwood,” a miniseries that blends documentary and fiction, rather fantastic underscene. The work really felt groundbreaking (and like “chaos” Also Although it focuses on potential CIA mind control elements, “chaos” is more or less a standard true crime document that solves cases. Morris seems more interested in presenting a timeline of events rather than digging deep into the mind-controlled weeds, and it’s pretty clear from the start that the filmmakers haven’t bought any of it.
“Do you believe Manson was programmed by Mukultra by the government? A Manchurian candidate programmed to kill?” the filmmaker said. Guardian. “Not at all. Can you prove that? I don’t think so. But can you disprove it? I don’t think that can be done. I can provide the necessary skepticism.”
I wish Morris had become a little more formal and bold in this documentary, but “Chaos” still makes a fascinating watch that asks some uneasy questions.
“Chaos: The Manson Murders” was streamed on Netflix on March 7th, 2025.
