Errol Morris's 'Chaos: The Manson Murders' Dismantles the Myths Behind Manson’s Madness

Chaos: The Manson Murders, the new documentary from Errol Morris (Dr. Death, The Thin Blue Line), is now streaming on Netflix. Much to my surprise and delight, it’s a movie, not a series. But at just an hour and 36 minutes, I was initially baffled by how Morris planned to tackle his central question — why did Charles Manson orchestrate these murders, and how did he convince his followers to carry them out — in such a short runtime.

Even more remarkably, Morris doesn’t just try to answer the question; he throws the entire kitchen sink at Manson’s motives while dancing around them at the same time. Ostensibly an adaptation of Tom O’Neil’s book of the same name, Morris — mostly through interviews with O’Neil and Manson prosecutor Stephen Kay, as well as archive footage — runs through a dizzying array of conspiracy theories: Manson was an unwitting pawn in the CIA’s mind control program; he was a willing participant in said program; the murders were tied to the JFK assassination; Manson was part of a government op to undermine the counterculture left and the Black Panthers; he was being protected by law enforcement as part of an intelligence operation; and the Beach Boys — hell, even the Beatles — were somehow involved. I even caught a passing reference to Scientology.

O’Neil spent 20 years investigating the Manson murders, uncovering inconsistencies and floating countless theories. And look: I love Errol Morris, but for a while, this thing plays like a Joe Rogan podcast, but mercifully, only half as long. While I wouldn’t call myself a Manson expert, I know the broad strokes, yet I spent much of the documentary scratching my head, trying to parse what was credible and what was crackpottery without resorting to Wikipedia.

Ultimately, despite O’Neil’s many theories, I landed where I think Morris wanted me to: Strip away the chaos and noise, and you’re left with a simple truth. Charles Manson was a charismatic psychopath who manipulated vulnerable people — people primed for manipulation by drugs and a culture of paranoia. There was also a fair amount of bullying involved. It’s not hard to believe that a group of young, impressionable, and frequently high people could be coerced into violence by a madman who gave them no alternative and convinced them they might get away with it.

In an IndieWire interview this week, Morris discusses Donald Trump—whom he has interviewed—and offers this insight:

When you look at someone like Donald Trump, where people try to impute some kind of rationality to what’s going on, I always take the default position: the best explanation of everything is just sheer chaos and human stupidity.

That’s it, right there. Despite what the Joe Rogans of the world would have us believe, once you dig underneath all the theories, you’re left with a simple explanation: Chaos and human stupidity. It explains the Manson murders. It explains American politics. It explains everything.