Helter Skelter

Six hours. Six episodes. Or, rather, take away the openings and closings of each of the six episodes and it's probably 6 x 54 mins. Call it 5 1/2 hours. The definitive Manson murders and trial film. I have not one bad thing to say about the film. I watched each episode weekly. So, maybe watching it in 2 1/2 hour blocks or so would be a different viewing experience. Each episode offers a lot to digest. I guess there's some controversy about whether the murders were committed by the Manson cult to instigate a coming race war. Whatever. Why is that important? Prosecutor and subsequent author Vincent Bugliosi correctly put the theory in front of the jury to make sure Manson was convicted, even though he obviously was absent at the time of the 7 Tate - La Bianca atrocities. (post edit) Omg. It just came into focus reading the other 2 reviews. The reason the Helter Skelter theory is dismissed is because some think the deep state pedophilia porn and drug users/dealers did it. Wow. Guessing to them, Manson, Watson, and the girls are patsies. smh.

Post post edit. It's been 9 days since I posted my review. A few things have stayed in my mind about this documentary. 1. The Dennis Wilson house takeover by the Manson clan. Wilson allowed them to move in en masse because, I guess, he liked naked girls walking about. The fact he had to sell the house and move to get rid of them from his life is interesting. But, obviously, he brought it upon himself. 2. The story by one of the Manson girls in a present day interview segment about how she wanted to have sex with Charley and he was a little rough. That was exceedingly bizarre and creepy that she felt the need to share that with us. 3. The stories first hand of how the girls were picked up by Charley one by one. All went with him gladly and stayed in his group willingly. 4. Charley learning Dale Carnegie techniques in prison seems a bit far fetched.

The first problem with this flawed but somewhat entertaining, semi-addictive serialized streaming binge-documentary HELTER SKELTER is there should have been four parts instead of six, making each segment last too long...

Especially the part that should/could have been the most intriguing centering on Manson as a kid, cutting back and forth to the same historian's interview and dragging much too long while repeating the same thing over and over: that Charles Manson grew up without a father and was basically, born to lose...

We don't, however, learn how or why he was born to kill, or in this case, born to make others kill... Which IS aptly centered on: the fact that Tex Watson, who hardly anyone has heard of, is the real killer, and had he really been hypnotized by Manson, he'd be innocent along with the other kooky Manson Family members and should have NEVER done jail time, which we all know is hogwash...

Let's face it... Charles Manson was able to collect a group of followers who were living on the streets when he meet them, and who were either addicted to drugs or simply wanted to take drugs and never stop taking drugs...

He gave these young people a place to stay, whether inside a bus in San Fran or at someone else's ranch in Los Angeles, or the floor of a famous drummer's drug pad... basically, they always found a place to rough-it and party themselves blind... so why not follow a guy who goes out of his way to provide a 24/7 drug binge?

And notice that things started to go badly for The Family after they basically ran out of other people's money, which is also the problem of socialism, which is what ALL hippies believed in, either dumpster-divers like The Manson Family or those artistic millionaires that lined the canyon, and who the Socialist/Environmentalist Family made butcher's cattle out of... which was done out of JEALOUSY more than anything else...

Bottom-line: Bad old fashion Class Envy is what killed Sharon Tate more than some silly story about a hard-rock Beatles song about a British amusement park ride representing a race war... please... that was a theory so that a prosecutor can become a millionaire writing a book...

And yet, despite the flaws, overall it's a nice addition to the whole Manson Killings, really the Watson killings... but since Tex is basically a boring shell of a human, everything relies on the crazy Charlie because he was hypnotic enough to be followed by hippie freaks, and, as the last part points out, he's hypnotic enough to keep our interest after sixty years...

It's a nice shift that we got to know about the other victims on night two, the LaBiancas, and some of the interviews, although redundant, shed light on aspects we haven't heard about but, overall, the truth about how you can only live of someone else's hard earned cash can only last so long...

But always remember, these people that the hippies murdered were all RICH and thus, considered PIGS: because that's what even the peaceful hippies thought about the capitalist pigs they despised... still do, in fact...

Maybe THAT IS WHY the Manson story is still relevant.

Had it not been for the Roman Polanski/celebrity slant for the mainstream media to exploit, Charles Manson and family would have been a much shorter version of 'just another '60s hippie cult' story.

Repeating detective statements and medical examiner findings just sensationalizes what happened all over again. As for Charles Manson, his parroting of the media to the media was just an attempt to keep his idea of himself alive.

Interviews weren't fresh and were subject to the editing of hindsight. Bury the bones and move on.

There is absolutely nothing new in the six part series that hasn't been rehashed ad nauseam. (I chose to give it 10 stars because the trove of TV footage, interviews, and previously unseen photos was enough to make it an intense viewing.)

Considering the glut of new information that came out in print during the 50th anniversary of the murders, I was disappointed that the series didn't probe some of the much more convincing theories.

We are left with the tired "Helter Skelter"-- a motive that has been laughed out of most investigative circles, and proven Bugliosi's "facts be damned" obsession with convicting Manson.

"Helter Skelter" will go into the history books as the accepted version of what happened in August of 1969. But for the small percentage of the population that refuse to take the media's word for it, it is not that simple. The more logical theories of drug burns and a very seedy Hollywood underbelly cannot compete with a real life boogeyman.

So Tex Watson, the man who did most of the damage, inflicted most of the stab wounds, and had a direct hand in seven murders will die in obscurity. And the victims will be remembered as wide eyed innocents, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary (Sebring and Frykowski were well known drug dealers. The Tate residence was Geound Zero for wild drug parties and pornographic films involving everyone from Mama Cass to Yuel Brenner). No one will know Jack Nickolson was among friends who removed damaging film reels in the living room loft while the bodies were still warm.

In the end, it's probably safer that we believe documentary series like "Helter Skelter". When we start peeling back the layers, the truth is far more terrifying than a 5' 2" failure and his group of degenerate hippies.

It was a mish mash. Why repeat clips? Charles Manson's history has been recounted in other documentaries and I suspect many others skipped that episode. Boring!

The strength was the footage at the time of the murders. I know so much work was put into it but it needs more editing and less jumping around.